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n 



Allegany County and its People. 



A GentGnnial Mem^orieil 

HISTORY 



OF 



Allegany County, 

NEl\^r YORK. 

ILLUSTRATED. 



JOH/N S. /V\1/\I A'R'D, Esq., eounty Historian. 

PRESIDENT OF ALLEGANY COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 



"J liave considered the days of old, the years of ancient time.'" 

Psalm LXXVII—s. 



ALSO 



■Histories of the Towns of the County. 



M-RS. G BOH© I A ■D'RE^W ME-R-RI L l_, Editor. 



W. A. FERGUSSON & CO., 

ALFRED, N. Y., "-' C;'! 

1896. 



X--^ 



Copyrighted, 1896, by W. A. Fergusson. 



University Press, 

Sun Publishing Association, 

Alfred, N. Y. 






ALLRGANY. 

THE OHIGIN OP THE NAME. 

Indian tradition attributes this Aboriginal name, which has so strongly fastened itself upon 
various places and geographical features of America, notably the Alleghatiy Mountains, Alle- 
gheny City, Allegheny River (Penn.). Allegany River and Allegany County (N. Y.), to an ancient 
race of Indians called Talegi, Talligewi, or AUegewi. This nation was a very warlike one and 
spread itself over the country east of the Mississipppi and Ohio rivers, but, after long and 
bloody wars, it was overpowered and driven south by a confederacy of tribes whose descend- 
ants are the Iroquois and Algonquin nations of to-day. This ancient people is conjectured by 
some to be the early Appalachian Indians, whom De Soto found in 1539 in Florida and the 
territory of the Gulf States. Schoolcraft says, " They were numerous, fierce and valorous* 
They were clothed in skins of wild beasts. They used bows and arrows, clubs and spears. 
They did not poison their darts. They were temperate, drinking only water. They did not make 
wars on slight pretences, or for avarice, but to repress attacks, or remedy injustice. They 
treated their prisoners with" humanity and like persons of their own households. They were 
long-lived, some reaching a hundred years. They worshipped the sun, to which they sang hymns 
morning and evening." Washington Irving deemed the name Appalachia or Allegania as the 
fit name for this continent. 

Rev. P. J. Wilson of St. Bonaventure's Seminary and College at Allegany, N. Y., kindly 
sends the following: " The Indian name for Allegany is a compound word. Talegwi-henna or 
Talegwi-hanna. Let us see first what talegiui means. The chronicles of the Algonquins 
state that the Lenape migrated eastward from the far west. When they reached the Mississippi 
they found the country east of it inhabited by a people called Talegi, Talligewi or Alligewt. 
Therefore, to the Algonquins Talegi or Alligewi meant the country and people-east of the 
Mississippi, the country to which they emigrated from afar. The next part of the compound 
is Henna or Hanna. It means river. Hence Tallegwe-henna or Tellegwi-hanna, the Indian 
name for Allegany, means the river of the country of the Talegwi— M^ river of the country to 
which they immigrated. At first the name was given to the Ohio. After the Lenape reached 
it they called it Talegahonah. The Iroquois changed this to Ohio, a word from their own 
language. But the Ohio's chief tributary still retains the name— Talegwi-hanna, Alligewi- 
hanna, Alleghany. The Alleghany mountains for a similar reason were called Talega-chukattg." 

The Publishers. 



GONTEINTS. 



Chapter. ' Page. 

I. ALLEGANY COUNTY. 17 

Early Glimpses of Our Territory. 



H. Early Explorations, Etc. 



19 



Mary Jemison — The Great Water 
Route from the St. Lawrence to the 
South — Casconchiagon — Joncaire — 
Plate of Lead — First Mention of Oil 
Springy — Falls ia the Genesee — Charle- 
voix' Expedition. 

in. Our Predecessors — The Iro- 
quois 22 

The Seneca " Trails " — From Mt. Mor- 
ris to Olean — From Belvidere to Penn- 
sylvania — From Caneadea to Houghton, 
Rushford, Centreville, Freedom and 
Buffalo — From Caneadea to Alien, 
Birdsall and Arkport, the "' Canisteo 
Path " — The Agriculture of the Iro- 
quois. 



IV. The Senegas — Their Origin. 



24 



Hawenneyu, the Creator — Seneca Tra- 
ditions — Great Hill People— Snake Leg- 
ends — Funeral Rites — Eclipses. 



V. Indian Feasts, Dances, Etc. 



27 



The Sugaring Feast — The Planting 

Feast— Green Corn Dance or Feast — 

Corn Harvest Feast — Winter Hunting 
Feast. 

VI. Life of the Senegas. . . 31 

Diseases and Their Treatment — A 
Wonderful Medicine — The Medicine 
Feast — Old Silverheels' Story — Indian 
Women -Cooking-Customs and Amuse- 
ments — Ball Playing — Jellis Clute. 

VII. Caneadea and Oil Spring Res- 

ervations 34 

The Western Door of The Long House 
— Gahneyadeo — "Open Door" — John 
Hudson — A Thrilling Pioneer Incident 
— Gahneesongo — Caneadea — Treaty of 
Buffalo Creek — Survey by Joseph Jones 
—Origin of Cuba Oil Spring — Title of 
ii The Reservation. 



Chapter. Page. 

VIII. Early Skirmishes and Pion- 

EtKS 42 

IX. Early Visitors — Extinction 

of the Indian Title. . . 45 

Rev. Samuel Kirkland — Robert Mor- 
ris — Oliver Phelps and The Phelps and 
Gorham Purchase — Treaty of Big Tree. 

X. Early Survey and Surveyors. 54 

Joseph and Benjamin Ellicott — Augus- 
tus Porter — Moses Van Campen — Elisha 
Johnson — His Description of The 
Country — Other Surveyors. 



XL Robert Morris. 



59 



XII. Boundaries of Allegany Coun- 

ty 64 

XIII. The Church Tract. . . 69 

XIV. This Century's First Decade. 70 
Settlement of Various Towns — First 
Marriage — First Death — First Road — 
First Capital Crime — First Sawmill — 
First Painted Dwelling— Dr. Ebenezer 
Hyde — The Town of Angelica — Lake 
Erie Turnpike — Formation of Allegany 
County — Early Settlers — Transit 
Bridge— Court House and Jail — First 
Census. 

XV. Second Decade — 1811-1820. 7S 
First Supervisors — Pioneer Teachers — 
Improvements — Carding Mills — Cold 
Season — Hard Times of 1817 — Genesee 
River a Public Highway — Other Settle- 
ments — The First Newspaper — Second 
Census. 

XVI. Third Decade— 1821-1830. 84 
More New Settlers — Inns Opened — 
Schools — Saw and Gristmills — Board of 
Supervisors — Sheriff's Bill — First Mur- 
der — First Execution — State Census — 
New Towns Erected — Bounties on 
Wolves — First Justices of the Peace 
Elected-Governor Clinton Recommends 
Survey of Genesee Valley Canal — 
Action of Board of Supervisors on 



Contents. 



Chapter. Page. 

Poor House — Canal Route from Roch- 
ester to Olean Surveyed — Equalized 
Value of Land in Each Town. 

XVII. Fourth Decade — 1831-1840. 91 
Legislative Action on Bridges and 
Highways — Action of Board of Super- 
visors — Census Reports — School Mon- 
eys — County Superintendents of the 
Poor — Action on Genesee Valley Canal 
Continued — Many Churches Organized- 
Disastrous Floods — Angelica Academy 
—Allegany Mutual Insurance Com- 
pany — Windstorm— Work Commenced 
on Valley Canal — Erie Railroad — Valu- 
ation of Real and Personal Property. 

XVIII. Fifth Decade— 1841-1850 98 
Good Times — Thirty Towns — Com- 
mon School System Changed — Alle- 
gany County Agricultural Society — 
Hard Times — Propagation of Silk 
Worms — First Pupils Sent to State 
Normal School — ^More About Wolf and 
Other Bounties — Vote on State Con- 
stitutional Convention — War with 
Mexico — Public Works Resumed and 
Better Times Inaugurated. 

XIX. Sixth Decade — 1851-1860. 102 
Genesee Valley Canal Opened to Ora- 
mel — Erie Railroad Completed — Many 
Water and Steam Sawmills Built — 
Much Lumbering Done — Cleared Fields 
and Comfortable Homes— Many Cat- 
tle and Sheep Raised — First Republi- 
can Convention — Change of County 
Seat Agitated -Much Butter and Cheese 
Made — Woolen Factories — Extensive 
Census Statistics — First Republican 
Nomination — Angelica Regency — 
Belmont County Buildings Erected — 
Two Jury Districts — Abraham Lincoln 
Elected — Secession. 

XX. Seventh Decade — 1861-1870. no 
Civil War — The Action of Allegany 
County — Her Patriotic Soldiers — Vol- 
unteer Bounty Fund — Bonding for 
Railroads. 

XXI. Later Developments — Pro- 

gress, ETC 116 

Projected, Narrow Gauge, and other 
Railroads— Oil Industry — Dairy Busi- 
ness — Iron Bridges — New County 
House — Later Schoolhouses — Some 
Distinguished Alleganians — Valuation 
of Real and Personal Estate from 1871 
to 1895 — Amountof Taxes— Banks and 
Banking — Allegany Politics— Centennial 
County Officers. 



Chapter. Page. 

XXII. Travel and Transporta- 
tion 121 

' Early Hard Roads to Travel — Descrip- 
tion of The Church Tract — Construc- 
tion of Early Roads- — Bath and Olean 
Turnpike — Erie Canal — History of 
Genesee Valley Canal — Inception and 
Progress of the Erie Railroad — Address 
of Gen. Micah Brooks — Completion and 
Celebration of the Erie Railroad — Other 
Railroads. 

XXIII. GEOLOoy AND Physical Ge- 

ography 132 

By Charles Butts. 

XXIV. Natural History. . . 140 

By Prof. F. S. Place, A. B., B. D. 

XXV. Oil and Gas in Allegany 

County 144 

By Lewis H. Thornton. 

XXVI. Our Agriculture. . .159 

By A. W. Litchard, Esq. 

XXVII. Development AND Progress 

OF Our Publi.c Schools. 163 
By Samuel A. Earley, Esq. 

XXVIII. Alfred University. . 173 

By Rev. Lewis A. Platts, D. D. 



Biographies of Pres. Wm. C. Kenyon 
and Pres. Jonathan Allen — The Faculty. 

XXIX. Bibliography of The Coun- 

ty Newspapers. . .193 
By Rogers Stillman. 

XXX. Woman's Christian Temper- 

ance Union. . . . 199 
By Miss Mary E. Bowler. 

Allegany County Sunday School As- 
sociation — Federation of Women's 
Clubs — Political Equality Clubs. 

XXXI. Prominent Organizations. 205 
Allegany Co. G. A. R. Association 
and Posts — Woman's Relief Corps 
— Farmer's Alliance and Industrial 
Union— Allegany Co. Farmers' Club— 
Allegany Co. Farmers' Co-operative In- 
surance Company— Allegany Co. His- 
torical Society. 



Contents. 



Page. 
C 
Medical Societies and 

I Physicians. . . . 210 

chard Charles, M. D.— William M. 
bmith, M. D. — John Bowen Collins, M. 
D. — John H. Saunders, M. D. — Charles 
M. Crandall, M. D.— Charles W. Saun- 
ders, M. D. — Gilbert M. Champlain. M. 
D. — Stephen Maxson, M. D. — Seneca 
Allen, M. D.— H. H. Nye, M. D.— Hon. 
W. W. Crandall, M. D.— Sheffield W. 
Greene, M. D., etc. 



XXXIII. Courts and Lawyers. 



246 



Hon. William G. Angel — Hon. John G. 
Collins — Hon. Clarence A. Farnum — 
Hon. S. McArthur Norton — Hon. W. 
B. Rochester — Hon. Richard P. Marvin 
— Hon. Martin Grover — Hon. Henry 
Wells — Hon. Charles Daniels — Hon. 
George Barker — Hon. Wm. H. Hender- 
son — Hon. Hamilton Ward — Hon. Ed- 
win W. Hatch — Hon. Alfred Spring — 
John Baldwin, Esq. — Gen. Alexanders. 
Diven — Samuel M. Russell, Esq. — 
Hon. Wilkes Angel — Hon. Marshall B. 
Champlain — William Pitt Angel, Esq. 
— Elias E. Harding, Esq. — James M. 
Curtiss, Esq. — Col. A. J.McNett — Hon. 
William Folwell Jones— Hon. Edward 
D. Loveridge — Edgar W. Chamberlain, 
Esq.— Hon. Henry M. Teller— Willard 
Teller, Esq — Hon. David P. Richard- 
son — Gen. Rufus Scott — Hon. Seymour 
Dexter — Capt. George H. Blackman — 
Frank Sullivan Smith — ■ Hon. Oscar 
Fuller— Church & Church— Hon. Fred 
A. Robbins, and others. 

XXXIV. Civil List. . . .293 

Members of Congress — State Senators 
Members of Assembly — County Clerks 
— Sheriffs -County Treasurers. 

XXXV. Allegany's Centennial 

Celebration. . . 296 

At Wellsville, N. Y., June 26 and 27, 
1895. 

TOWNS OF THE MORRIS RESERVE. 

XXXVI. WELLSVILLE. . . .325 
By Lewis H. Thornton. 

Description — Advent of the White Man 
— Roger's Survey of 1826, etc. — Early 
Prices — First Tavern — First School- 
house, etc. 

XXXVII. Wellsville Village. , 346 

Schools — Churches— Free Public Li- 
brary, etc. 



Chapter. Page, 

XXXVIIL Wellsville Postal His- 
tory — Manufactures — 
Societies, etc. . . 369 
Something About Some of the People 
— Biographical Sketches. 
XXXIX. ANGELICA. . . .405 
By John S. Minard, Esq. 
Early History — Churches — Angelica 
Academy — Wilson Academy. 

XL. The Village of Angelica. . 418 
The D'Autremonts — Civil War — Angel- 
ica Lodge — Banking— Business Inter- 
ests, etc. — Something About Some of 
the People — Biographical Sketches. 

XLI. Amity 443 

By John S. Minard, Esq. 
The Town of Amity — Old Stone Grist- 
mill, Belmont — Mills — Manufacturing — 
The County Seat — Cemetery — Banks — 
Business Interests — The Samuel Van 
Campen Family. 

XLII (I). Churches, Schools and 

Societies 456 

Churches — Belmont Union Free School 
and Academy — Belmont Literary and 
Historical Society — Societies — Some- 
thing of Some of the People — Biograph- 
ical Sketches. 

XLII (2). Scio 479 

Description — Pioneers — Time- Worn 
Documents — Mills — Village — Cheese 
Factories — Churches — G. A. R. Post, 
etc. — Some of Scio's People— Biograph- 
ical Sketches. 

XLIII. Allen 498 

By John S. Minard, Esq. 
First and other settlers — Religion — 
Cheese Factories — Postoffices — About 
Some of the People. 

XLIV. Birdsall 507 

By Joseph K. Weaver. 
Pioneers — Manufactures — Religious 
Worship — Soldiers. 

XLV. West Almond. . . .511 
By George A. Morton. 
General Descriptiop — Early Settlers — 
Mills and Factories— Churches — Sol- 
diers — Later Settlers. 

XLVI. Granger 516 

By John S. Minard, Esq. 
Name — Short Tract — First Settlers — 
School-meeting — Schoolhouse — " Sol- 
diers' Monument " — Business Interests 
— From the Town Records — Civil War 



10 



Contents. 



Chapter. Page. 

— Religion — Societies — Chronology of 
Some Citizens. 



XLVII. Ward. 



529 



By Eldyn Reynolds, Esq. 
Description — First and Other Settlers — 
Pioneer Life — Manufacturing, etc. — 
Churches — Dairy Interests — Tornado. 

XLVIII. Grove 536 

Incorporation, Name, etc. — Early Set- 
tlers — Soldiers — Churches — Village of 
Swains — Its Business — " The Ossian 
Giant " — Stockbreeding — Farmers, etc. 

XLIX. Willing 540 

By O. T. Perkins, Esq. 
Topography — Shongo — Hallsport — 
Stanard — Stone Dam — Mapes — Set- 
tlers and Settlements — Church — G. A. 
R. Post — Societies -- Cyclone — Some 
Personal Chronologies. 

L. Alma 548 

Changes of Title to the Soil, etc— Al- 
lentown High School- Societies — G. A. 
R. Post — Some of the Townsmen — 
Biographical Sketch. 

Towns of the Phelps and Gorham Pur- 
chase. 

LI. Almond 559 

By D. A. Stebbins, Esq. 
History of the Settlement — Cheese Fac- 
tories — Almond Village — Manufactur- 
ing Interests — Some Early and Other 
Settlers. 



LIL 



579 



LIII. 



Andover 

By T. A. Burdick. 
Settlers — Churches — Oil and Gas — 
Cheese Factories — Andover Village — 
Union Graded School — Bank — The Lo- 
cal Press^-Mills — Societies, etc. — Early 
and Later Settlers. 

Independence. , . . 597 

By S. S. While, Esq. 
History — Whitesville Village — Manu- 
factories — Societies — Spring Mills — 
Green's Corners — Fulmer's Valley — 
Early Settlers — Churches — Soldiers, etc. 
— Something About Some of the Peo- 
ple — Biographical Sketch. 

LIV. Burns 615 

By W. H. Barnum, Esq. 
Name — First Settlement — Canaseraga 
— Fires — Local Press — Creamery Com- 
pany — Water Works — F. & A. M. 
Lodge — Churches— Educational— Burns 



Chapter. 



Page. 



Village — Burns Station — Garwoods — 
War Veterans — "The Big Elm," etc. — 
Personals. 

LV. Alfred 624 

By Silas C. Burdick, Esq. 
Settlement and Settlers — Reminiscences 
by Ethan Lanphear — Developments and 
Products— Cheese Factories — Roll of 
Honor. 



LVI. 



637 

Alfred Chfirches — Schools— Temper- 
ance — Villages — Business Interests — 
Personal Chronology. 

Towns of the Holland Purchase. 

LVII. Caneadea 657 

By John S. Minard, Esq. 
History — Old Council House— The Ger- 
mans — Religion — Houghton Seminary 
— Societies — Of Caneadea Citizens. 

LVIII. Belfast. .... ^^i 

By John S. Minard, Esq. 
Early Settlers — " Bull Froggers " — 
Wind Storm— Tanneries — Cheese Fac- 
tories — -The Village — Genesee Valley 
Seminary — Churches— Societies — Of the 
Townsmen. 

LIX. Friendship 699 

By L. C. Aldrich, Esq. 
Name — Settlement and Settlers — Or- 
ganization — Development — Civil War 
— Roll of Honor — Schools. 

LX. Friendship, Continued. . . 708 
Friendship Village — Manufactures — 
Friendship Academy — Union School — 
Baxter University of Music — Fire De- 
partment — Banks — Press — Societies — 
Cemeteries — Churches — About Some 
of the People — Biographical Sketches. 

LXI. Hume 736 

By John S. Minard, Esq. 
Boundaries — Description — Mills Mills — 
Early Settlers — Pioneering on the Gore 
— Hume Village— Wiscoy— Fillmore Vil- 
lage — First Canal Boats — " Genesee 
Valley Express " — The Caneadea Indi- 
ans — Early Settlers on the Reservation 
— The Village Tract — A Flood Incident 
—Brook's Gore, or Dutch Hill— The 
Irish Pioneers — Early Roads — Church- 
es — Soldier Dead — Banking and Socie- 
ties, etc. — Of Hume's Townsmen. 

LXII. Centreville. . . . 780 

By John S. Minard, Esq. 
History — Churches — Societies — Some 
Residents. 



Contents. 



11 



Chapter. 

LXIII. RUSHFORD. 



Page. 
. 789 



By John S. Minard, Esq. 

Settlers — Mills — Pine Apple Cheese and 
Other Cheese — Manufactories - Rush- 
ford Academy and Union School — Fire 
and Flood — East Rushford — Railroad 
— Cemeteries — The Press — Banking — 
Vickery's Music School — Traders — Fire 
Department — Semi-Centennial — Sol- 
diers — Societies —Churches — Of Rush- 
ford's Townsmen. 



LXIV. Cuba. 



. 813 



By John S. Minard, Esq. 



History— North Cuba — Cheese Market 
and Factories — The World's Largest 
Milk Record — Cuba Temperance Camp 
Meetmg — Churches, etc. 



LXV. Cuba, Continued. 



825 



Cuba Village — Cuba Union School and 
Academy — Water Works — Cuba Fair 
Association — Cemetery — Banks— Board 
of Trade — Business Enterprises — Soci- 
eties — Of Cuba's Citizens — Biographi- 
cal Sketch. 



LXVI. Wirt. 



853 



By S. L. Stanton, Esq. 
Settlement — Richburg--An Oil Town — 
Soldier Dead— -Cheese Factories— Relig- 
ious — Societies — Something of Some 
Citizens — Biographical Sketch. 



Chapter. Page. 

LXVII. New Hudson. . . .868 
By Hon. H. H. Wakely. 
First Settlers — Mills and Lumbering — 
Religion — Early Times and Homes — 
Times 70 Years Ago— Soldiers — Of the 
Town's People. 

LXVHL Genesee 878 

By Miss Mary A. Lackey. 
Description- -Little Genesee — Ceres — 
First Settlements — Early Events and 
Industries — Early Experiences — Mills 
and Lumbering — Oil in Genesee — 
Churches — Physicians — Military List, 
etc.- -Something of the People- -Bio- 
graphical Sketch. 

LXIX. Bolivar. .... 902 

Topography - - Early Settlers - - Early 
Mills and Manufactures— South Bolivar 
— Soldier Dead— Railroads— Cemetery- 
Bolivar \'illage — A Bit of Bolivar's His- 
tory- Business Interests — Banks — Fire 
Companies — Physicians — Attorneys — 
Societies — Churches — Schools — Of Bol- 
ivar's People. 

LXX. Clarksville. . . .931 

By Victor Hammond. 
Of the Town — Some of the Pioneers — 
Industries— Schools — Societies — G. A. 
R. — Business Interests — Oil Producers 
— Oil and Gas — Railroads — Dairying 
and Dairymen— Merchants — Soldiers of 
the Civil War — Some of the Residents. 



Biographies and Illustrations. 



13 



BiograpHiGs and Illustrations. 



PAGE. 



Guy Johnson Map, 1771, 

Robert Morris, 

Map of Proprietary Grants, 

Map of Allegany County, 1806, 

Map of Allegany County, 18 10, 

Map of Allegany County, 1820, 

Map of Allegany County, 1830, 

Map of Allegany County, 1840, 

Map of Allegany County, 1850, 

Map of Allegany County, i860, 

Samuel A. Earley, 

Samuel A. Earley, . 

Memorial Hall, Alfred University, 

The Steinheim, Alfred University, 

President William Colgrove Kenyon, 

President Jonathan Allen, Ph. D., D. D., LL.D. 

Faculty of Alfred University, 1895-96 

Mrs. H. M. Barker, 

Mrs. B. C. Rude, 

Mrs. E. J, Potter, . 

Mrs. M. L. Willard, 

Mrs. N. S. Bradley, 

Richard Charles, M. D., 

William M. Smith, M. D., . 

John Bowen Collins. M. D., 

John Hanford Saunders, M. D., 

Hon. Charles M. Crandall, M. D. 

Charles W. Saunders, M. D., 

Gilbert B. Champlain, M. D., 

Stephen Maxson, M. D., 

Seneca Allen, M. D., 

John C. Young, M. D., 

Jonas Wellman. M. D., . 

H. H. Lyman, M. D., 

Anthony Barney, M. D., 

Horace H. Nye, M. D., 

Hon. W. W. Crandall, M. D., 

Sheffield W. Greene, M. D., 

Hon. William G. Angel, 

Hon. Harlan J. Swift, 

Hon. Clarence A. Farnum, 

HLon. Sheridan Mc Arthur Norton, 

Hon. William B. Rochester, 

Hon. Richard P. Marvin, 



Frontispiece 






59 


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65 




67 


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83 


• 


89 




93 


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103 




109 


Portrait 


162 


Biography 


404a 


Illustration 


175 


Illustration 


180 


Portrait 


182 


Portrait 


184 


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187 


Portrait 


202 


Portrait 


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849 


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Portrait 


252 




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256 



14 



Biographies and Illustrations. 



Hon. Martin Grover, 

Hon, Martin Grover, 

Hon. Charles Daniels, 

Hon. George Barker, 

Hon. Hamilton Ward, 

Hon. Edward W. Hatch, 

Gen. Alexander S. Diven, 

Hon. Wilkes Angel, 

Hon. Marshall B. Champlain, 

Col. A. J. McNett, 

Hon. William Folwell Jones, 

Hon. Edward D. Loveridge, 

Hon. Henry M. Teller, 

Hon. David P. Richardson, 

Gen. Rufus Scott, . 

Hon. Seymour Dexter, . 

Capt. George H. Blackman, 

Frank Sullivan Smith, Esq., 

Hon. Asahel N. Cole, 

Hon. Edward Judson Farnum, 

Enos W. Barnes. 

Orville P. Taylor, 

The McEwen Brothers, 

John McEwen, 

William Duke, 

A. J. Applebee, 

D. C. Ackerman, 

The d'Autremonts, 

Judge Philip Church, 

Maj. Moses Van Campen, 

Vial Thomas. 

Peter S. Norris, 

Samuel Van Campen, 

Belmont Free Public Library, 

Alvan Earle Parker, 

Isaac Willets, 

Leonard Frost Willets, 

Hon. Wolcott Hatch, 

Archibald Morris, M. D., 

George A. Green, 

Maj. Peter Keenan, 

Benjamin M. Vincent, 

Capt. John Emory Middaugh, 

William Wilson, 

Col. Thomas J. Thorp, 

Riley Allen, . 

Daniel Dexter, 

Phineas A. Burdick, 

Hon. Clark Crandall, 

Rev. Darwin E. Maxson, A. M., D. D„ 

David Stillman, 



Portrait 


258 


Biography 


259 




260 


, 


261 


, , 


262 


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263 


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272 




273 


Portrait 


273 




275 


Portrait 


276 




277 


. 


278 




279 


Portrait 


281 




282 




284 




285 


Portrait 


384 




395 


Portrait 


396 


Portrait 


398 




400 


Portrait 


400 


Portrait 


403 


Portrait 


494c 


Portrait 


4046 




420 


. 


430 




437 


Portrait 


440 




442 




452 


Illustration 


462 


Portrait 


473 


Portrait 


475 




476 


. 


478 




478a 




478c 




490 


Portrait 


495 


Portrait 


496 




506 




520 


Portrait 


555 


Portrait 


612 


, 


647 


. 


648 


. 


651 


. 


652 



Biographies and Illustrations. 



15 



Major Alanson Burr, 

Stephen Wilson, 

Prof. Jeremiah Hatch, 

Prof. James Baxter, 

Hon. Asher Wetmore Miner. 

Hon. Abijah Joslyn Wellman, 

Stephen Welcome Cole 

Herman Rice, 

Herman Rice, 

William H. Pitt, A. AL, M. D., Ph. D., 

William P. Brooks, 

Samuel A. Farman, 

A. W. Henry, 

Mills Family, . 

George Minard, 

John S. Minard, 

Charles Ricker, 

Mahlon L. Ross, 

P. C. Soule, M. D., 

Stephen H. Draper, 

Charles J. Elmer, 

J. B. Gordon, . 

R. B. Laning, Esq., 

O. T. Stacy, M. D., 

George H. Eldridge, 

William J. Glenn, 

David Kirkpatrick, 

Col. Samuel H. Morgan. 

Henry and William P. Stevens, 

Hon. Addison S. Thompson, 

Hon. Calvin T. Chamberlain, 

William Henry Bartholomew, 

Deacon Isaiah Jordan, 

LaFrone Merriman, 

Alvan Richardson, 

Hon. H. H. Wakely, 

The Childs Family, 

William Cranston, 

Richard L. Andrus, 

The Cowles Family, 

Nelson Hoyt, 

The Meads, . 

Stephen W. Thomas, 

Hon. Martin Butts, 

The Congdon Family, 



66 1 





712 




721 


Portrait 


729 


Portrait 


731 


Portrait 


732 


Biography 


733 


Portrait 


734 




735 




736 




766 




768 




770 




771 




772 




774 




774 




776 




779 




805 




806 




808 




809 




842 




843 




845 




847 




849 




850 




851 




852 




861 




863 




866 




877 




891 




900 




924 




925 




928 




929 




930 




938 




939 



Where the dark green pines and hemlocks grow, 

Where the fountains of hght from rock sources flow, 

Where the Red Man's foot had scarce ceased to roam, 

Our fathers established their pioneer home. 

'Tis the "top of the world," 'tis the land where we see 

The waters flow all ways to get to the sea ; 

To the north, to the south, to the east, to the west, 

The crystal streams spring to the broad ocean's breast. 

— W. A. Fergusson. 



Allegany and its People. 

y\ pENTENNIAL ^]VIeMORIAL j-fl^TORY. 



CHAPTER I. 

EARLY GLIMPSES OF OUR TERRITORY. 

" Realm of the Senecas ! No more 
In shadow lies the pleasant vale; 
Gone are the chiefs who ruled of yore, 
Like chaff before the rushing gale. 
* * -x- * * * # 
And hut and hall of council now 
Are changed to ashes cold." 

IT may be well, perhaps, before entering upon the subject proper of the 
history of Allegany county, to consider briefly the scene of the ad- 
ventures, exploits, hardships and privations, which will necessarily, to some 
extent at least, be recounted in succeeding chapters. 

The territory included within the present limits of the county of Alle- 
gany, up to the very dawn of the nineteenth century, with some few 
exceptions of "open flats '" along the winding course of the Genesee river, 
the Casconchagov of the early French Jesuit explorers. Shining— clear — 
opening. — Pleasant-open- valley. Clear-valley, or Beautiful- valley, as its name, 
somewhat differently rendered in the elastic Seneca language, implies, was 
covered with a prodigious growth of timber of various kinds, the stately 
pine largely i^redominating, yet liberally interspersed with hemlock, oak, 
ash. elm, chestnut, cucumber and hickory. On the river flats, also on the 
bottom lands along some of its larger tributaries, sometimes quite close to 
the banks, were the beautiful butternuts, which annually shed their fruitage 
of toothsome nuts. Huge buttonwoods and large cottonwoods and 
poplars, were also found in abundance along the river; wild plum trees were 
also frequent, and graceful elms of mammoth proportions, with such a multi- 
plicity of branches as sometimes to defy successfully any attempt to count 
them, at intervals were found; while the trees which fringed the river bank 
were for most of the way serving the purpose of trellises for the thousands 



18 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

of vines which attained a marvelous growth, and chmbed in some instances 
to their very tops profusely laden with grapes; the beautiful bitter-sweet 
and ivy also contributed to the variety. 

The open flats were covered with a luxuriant growth of grass, reiwrted 
by some enraptured explorers as attaining a prodigious growth and heigth. 
"tall enough," it was claimed, "to easily obscure and hide from observation, 
not only the horse, but his rider." In places this grass was burned off, ex- 
posing a soil, which, subjected to the manij)ulations of the rude husbandry 
of Indian women, laughed with a bountiful harvest of corn, beans, squashes 
and gourds, when only slightly tickled with their primitive farming im- 
plements. Fish of various kinds swarmed the waters, as yet suffering no 
hindrance from dams nor polluted with sawdust, and speckled beauties 
abounded in such profusion as would to day tempt from long distances the 
enthusiastic disciples of Izaak Walton. Not a tree had fallen a victim to. or 
even showed the scar of the white man's axe. 

It was in very deed a virgin wilderness, peopled with a considerable 
population of bears, wolves, elk, deer, raccoons, otters, panthers and other 
beasts of prey. This territory was sparsely peopled with a tribe of Seneca 
Indians, who lived in small villages along the river, and at different times 
camped out upon the highlands for purposes of hunting, or catching pigeons 
wherever they might chance to roost and build their nests. A dark and 
dreary though betimes a beautiful and enchanting forest solitude it must 
have been, its awful and oppressive stillness broken only by the laughing 
streams bounding over the p'3bbly bottoms, the frightful screams of some 
wild beast of prey, or made to echo the war-whoop of the Senecas, or the 
wild songs they sang when celebrating their feasts and dances. It was and 
had been for ages the terrestrial paradise of the Senecas. 

This was substantially the condition of things as they existed 100 years 
ago in the territory now covered by the county of Allegany, and the atten- 
tion of the reader is called to this uninviting scene, and it is hoped he may 
be sufficiently interested to follow carefully the process of evolution which 
has resulted in the Allegany of to day. presenting to the eye almost every 
variety of scenery; beautiful fields, and lofty wood-crowned summits, wind- 
ing streams and lovely valleys, rock-bound gorges and extended plains, 
dotted with quiet hamlets and thriving villages, in one instance almost ap- 
proaching city-like proportions, and peopled with a class of citizens drawn 
from many nationalities, but intelligent, patriotic, industrious, contented 
and happy. 



Early Explorations, Etc. 19 



CHAPTER II. 

EARLY EXPLORATIONS, ETC. 

The distant top of the wooded hight 
Was edged with a rim of tender light, 
And thicket, fountain, rock and tree, 
From cloudless sun a radiance drank, 
While washed the rapid Genesee. 
* * * -Sf * * * 

The shambling elk shrill whistle gave, 
While breaking through the thicket green 
To plunge his muzzle in the wave." 



ALTHOUGH the first white person whose foot pressed the soil of Allegany, 
whose name can be given with any degree of certainty, was the captive, 
Mary Jemison. the De-he-wa-mis of the Senecas, so generally referred to as 
the "White woman of the Genesee." As with her Indian captors she made 
her advent into the •• Genesee country," about 1759. when the party halted 
for a day and a night at the upper Caneadea village (Gah-yah-o-de-o of the 
ancient Senecas). which was in the present town of Caneadea, on their way 
to Gardeau, it is nevertheless reasonably removed from the field of conject- 
ure that possibly La Salle, and perhaps some others of the early French 
Jesuits or their subalterns, had already a full half-century before passed over 
this route of travel, which afterward for a time served as the pathway from 
the St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico. 

Remembering and ever keeping in mind this fact that in all the earlier 
explorations of our country, the natural water-ways were the medium 
through which the remote recesses of the vast forest solitudes were reached, 
and. glancing occasionally as you read at a map of Western New York, care- 
fully scan what follows. 

In his admirable address before the Livingston County Historical Society 
at Nunda in January, 1886, the late lamented Geo. H. Harris. Esq., of 
Rochester, asserted that " The great water route from the St. Lawrence to 
the south, sought by La Salle and other explorers, was by way of Lake 
Ontario, Irondequoit bay, and the Genesee river to Belvidere, the Oil and 
Ischua creeks to Olean. then down the Allegany, Ohio and Mississippi rivers 
to the Gulf of Mexico. There were variations in this route between the 
Genesee and Ohio rivers, the discovery of which caused a vast expense of 
time, money and human blood. During the French dominion in Canada 
their voyageurs were frequently upon the Genesee and its connecting trails. 
The first description of the river ever published was that of the good Father 
Charlevoix, who passed along the south shore of Lake Ontario, in 1721, 
Writing from Fort Niagara, he says ' There is a little river, which I would 
have visited if I had sooner been informed of its singularity, and of what I 



20 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

have now learnt on my arrival. They call it Casconchiagon. It is very nar- 
row, and of but little depth at its entrance into the lake (Ontario). A little 
higher it is 140 yards wide, and they say it is deep enough for the largest 
vessels. ' Two leagues (six miles) from its mouth, we are stopped by a fall 
which appears to be 60 feet high, and 140 yards wide. A musket shot higher, 
we find a second, of the same width, but not so high by two-thirds. Half-a- 
league farther, a third fall 100 feet high good measure, and 200 yards wide; 
after this, we meet several torrents, and having sailed 50 leagues farther, 
we perceive a fourth fall every w^ay equal to the third. The course of the 
river is 100 leagues, and when we have gone up it about 60 leagues, we have 
but ten to go by land, taking to the right to arrive at the Ohio, called La Belle 
Riviere. The place where we meet with it is called Ganos, where an officer 
worthy of credit, and the same from whom I learnt Avhat I have just now 
mentioned, assured me that he had seen a fountain, the water of which is 
like oil and the taste like iron. He said that a little farther on. there is 
another fountain exactly like it. and the savages make use of its waters to 
appease all manner of pains. " 

The officer to whom Charlevoix alluded was Joncaire, a Frenchman, who 
had been adopted by the Indians, and lived for some years at Lewiston, on 
the Niagara river. He was on the best of terms with the Indians, had two 
half-breed sons, Clanzonne and Chabert. The elder Joncaire made a number 
of journeys up the Genesee river, to Belvidere, over the divide to Oil creek, 
and so on, down the Allegany and Ohio rivers. One or both of the sons also 
made the same journeys. On these journeys they were sometimes provided 
by the French government with a number of lead plates, about eleven inches 
long, seven and one-half wide, and one-eighth of an inch in thickness, with 
inscriptions thereon, leaving blanks to be filled out with date and place of 
using them. They were to be buried at certain well defined places, like the 
confluence of important streams, or where some strongly marked geograph- 
ical feature existed. It was one of a class of ceremonies, which was con- 
sidered of importance in " taking jDOSsession " of the country in the name, 
and by the authority of the French sovereign. On one of these trips a plate, 
designed for such a purpose, was stolen from Joncaire w^hile going through 
the Seneca country, and on the 29th of January, 1751, Gov. Clinton, into 
whose possession it is presumed to have fallen, sent a copy of the inscription 
to Gov. Hamilton of Pennsylvania. 

The inscription as translated is: 

'• In the year 1749, of the reign of Louis the 15th, King of France, we 
Celoron, commander of a detachment sent by Monsieur the Marquis de-la- 
Galissoniere, Governor General of New France, to re-establish tranquility in 
some Indian villages of these cantons, have buried this Plate of Lead, at the 
confluence of the Ohio and the Chautauqua, this 29th day of July, near the 
river Ohio, otherwise Belle Riviere, as a monument of the renewal of the pos- 
session we have taken of the said river Ohio, and of all those which empty 
into it, and of all the lands on both sides, as far as the sources of said rivers, 



Early Explorations, Etc. 21 

as enjoyed or ought to have been enjoyed, by the Kings of France preceding, 
and as they have there maintained themselves, by arms and by treaties, 
especially those of Ryswick, Utrecht and Aix la Chapelle." .• 

••This was the tirst reliable account of the Genesee given by the old 
writers, and errs onlj^ in the exaggerated distances. The fountains men- 
tioned were a petroleum oil spring near Cuba, N. Y., and another in Venango 
county. Pa. The wonder expressed by Charlevoix, over 170 years ago, is 
still felt by all who have a personal knowledge of the Genesee river. From 
its source in Pennsylvania to its entrance into Lake Ontario, its course is 
through some of the most magnificent scenery, and is marked with wondrous 
changes wrought by the hand of nature." 

The third fall mentioned in this description, is the one at Rochester, and 
the fourth at Portage, which should have been given as three. The exag- 
gerated distances given are not to be wondered at, as the river was very 
tortuous, and its course lying for the most part through such an entirely 
primitive wilderness, the w^ay must necessarily have seemed much longer 
than it really was, and it was really much longer to travel with boats then 
than it is at the present time. 

It would of course be a satisfaction to know more of the olficer of whom 
Charlevoix speaks and how he pursued his journey, and how many men 
accompanied him, their names, etc.; but as that is impossible, and from the 
fact of the Genesee river being the principal stream of the county, traversing 
its whole length from south to north, thus furnishing its most prominent 
and distinguishing geographical feature, the reader will, it is trusted, agree 
with the writer in considering the foregoing account, even though meagre, 
as appropriate in this connection. I will close this chapter by introducing 
an extract from an address which the writer delivered before the Allegany 
County Historical Society, January 8, 1890. This expedition of Charlevoix's 
lieutenants had been briefly alluded to. •' I 'fancy that if our honored friend 
Major Richard Church, who is detained at home by illness this evening, 
would only provide himself with a sort of reversed horoscope of reasonably 
strong i^ower, adjust its focus for about 1720, and train it so as to sweep for 
some distance the banks of the river along about opposite his beautiful 
homestead, he Vv^ould be able to descry, through the intervening mists and 
shadows of the ages, the well defined outlines of the particular officer spoken 
of by Charlevoix, accompanied by a few privates and an Indian guide or two, 
as they pulled and poled their bateaux up the shallow waters, unloaded their 
store of trinkets, cam]) utensils and accoutrements, and prepai'ed for the 
portage to Oil creek I There is no reasonable doubt of it." 



22 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

CHAPTER III. 

OUR PREDECESSORS — THE SIX NATIONS. 

" The red man boasts no herald-roll, 
But views with equal pride of soul 
The painted symbol on his skin, 
Allies to memory of sires 
Famed for their prowess, while within 
His bosom wakes heroic fires." 

WHEN the white man first entered this beautiful Seneca country, he found 
numerous deeply-trodden paths threading the forest in different 
directions. They led from one Indian village to another, and occasionally 
branched off to their favorite hunting and fishing grounds, and here and 
there marked their intercourse with neighboring aboriginal tribes. These 
were the "trails," and were the routes pursued by the French missionaries 
and traders and by the Dutch and English in their intercourse with the In- 
dians. They afterwards served to guide our early pioneers through the 
forest, enabling them to appreciate the value and beauty of the country. 

One of these trails, the one with which we are just now more interested 
than any other, passed from Mt. Morris up the river to Gardeau and Canea- 
dea, and still on to the Allegany river at Olean, leaving the valley of the 
Genesee in the neighborhood of the Church manor-house at Belvidere and 
following the valley of VanCampen's creek to some point near Friendship 
village, from thence taking a feasible route to the oil spring in Cuba, and 
following the course of the water to the Allegany at Cornplanter's town later 
Olean Point, afterward for a short time Hamilton and now plain Olean. An- 
other branch of this important trail led from Belvidere up the river, fol- 
lowing its course, in a good part of the way being identical, with our present 
"river road," and passing on to Pennsylvania. Prom the upper Caneadea 
village, located on the east side of the Genesee river in the town of Canea- 
dea, nearly opposite the village of Houghton, a lateral trail branched off to 
the west, following ui3 the ravine just north of Houghton Seminary, thence 
striking almost exactly the line of the road to Rushford as at present located, 
and bearing from thence northwesterly through Centerville, Freedom and 
on to Buffalo. This was an important trail, and was much used during the 
French and Indian w^ars and in the Revolutionary times, communicating as 
it did so directly with the lake frontier. 

Prom the Caneadea village another trail passed easterly through Allen 
and Birdsall to the Canisteo river near Arkport, and was known by the early 
white explorers as the "Canisteo path." This w^as also a very important 
trail. It was over this trail that the hordes of savages, led by. Mohawk, 
Shongo, and Hudson, passed when they set out upon their expedition against 



Our Predecessors — The Six Nations. 



Wyoming in 1778. Many a war party has passed along this aboriginal high- 
way of travel. 

These trails were in fact the "highways "' of a once powerful nation of 
American Indians, the Senecas, one of the original Five Nations, the Iro- 
-quois, and. later, after the adoption of the Tuscaroras, of the confederacy of 
Six Nations, our immediate predecessors in the occupation of this section of 
our country. The Iroquois have been called the "Romans of the new 
world." Their federal system of government, although a pure oligarchy, 
sedulously, and with great ingenuity, guarded against centralization and the 
aggression of power, always recognizing the principles of local self-govern- 
ment, in the admistration of which their women were allowed a potential 
voice and influence, and their rights M^ere sacredly guarded and plainly de- 
fined. It has been claimed that the ultimate object of their federal pohcy 
was nothing less than a peaceful union of all the tribes of the continent, and 
is i^erhaps without a parallel in affording to its people more than 300 years of 
uninterrupted domestic unity and peace. 

Agriculture had to some extent begun to modify the life of the aborigi- 
nal hunters of New York when, in 1687, the Marquis De Nonville invaded 
the lower Genesee country. In his report to his government he claimed to 
have destroyed " more than a million bushels of corn." Said the late David 
Gray, of Buffalo, in a paper on "The last Indian Council of the Genesee,"' 
pubhshed in Scribner's Magazine, " In the midst of their fields they built their 
villages, some of which contained more than a hundred houses. Three sis- 
ter divinities of their religion were the spirit of the maize, the bean and the 
squash. A fancy superior to that of the average of savage peoples stamped 
their unwritten legends and mythology. They had even a rude astronomy, 
and mapped the heavens, giving names to the principal constellations. 
Among them the art of eloquence was cultivated as assiduously as that of 
arms. Their parliament was an indigenous growth in the depths of the New 
York forests." Of the annual councils of the sachems Gov. De Witt Chnton 
wrote that "in eloquence, in dignity and in all the characteristics of per- 
sonal pohcy, they surpassed an assemblage of feudal barons, and were per- 
haps not far inferior to the great Amphictyonic council of Greece." 



24 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE SENEGAS — THEIR ORIGIN, ETC. 

Lo ! the poor Indian, whose untutored mind 
Sees God in clouds, or hears Him in the wind ; 
His soul proud science never taught to stray 
Far as the solar walk or milky way ; 
Yet simple nature to his hope has given. 
Behind the cloud-topt hill a humbler heaven ; 
Some safer world in depth of woods embraced, 
Some happier island in the watery waste. 
Where slaves once more their native land behold. 
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold ; 
To be content 's his natural desire ; 
He asks no angels' wings, no seraph's fire. 
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky. 
His faithful dog shall bear him company. 

—Pope. 

IT^is "Written in the life of Mary Jemison ' ' Perhaps no people were more 
exact observers of religious duties than the Indians among the Senecas 
who were denominated 'pagans,' in contradistinction to those who, from hav- 
ing renounced their former superstitious notions, have obtained the name 
of Christians. They believed in a Great Good Spirit, whom they called in the 
Seneca language, Ha-weii-ne-yu, as the creator of the world and of every 
good thing; that he made man and all inoffensive animals; that he supplied 
them with the comforts of life, and that he was particularly jDartial to the 
Indians, who, they said, were his particular people. They also believed that 
he was pleased in giving them (the Indians) good gifts, and that he was 
highly gratified with their good conduct; that he abhorred their vices, and 
that he was willing to punish them for their bad conduct, not only in this 
world, but in a future state of existence. His residence, they supposed, lay 
at a great distance from them in a country that was perfectly pleasant; 
where plenty abounded even to profusion; that the soil was completely fer- 
tile, and the seasons so mild that the corn never failed to be good; that the 
deer, elk, buffalo, turkey and other useful animals were numerous, and that 
the forests were well calculated to facilitate their hunting them with success; 
that the streams were pure and abounded with fish, and that nothing was 
w^anted to render fruition complete. Over this territory they believed Ha- 
iven-ne-yu presided as an all-powerful king, and that without counsel he ad- 
mitted to his pleasure all whom he considered worthy of enjoying so great a 
state of blessedness. * * * According to the Indian mode of burial, the 
deceased is laid out in his best clothing, and put in a coffin of boards or bark, 
and with him is deposited in every instance, a small cup and a cake. Gen- 
erally two or three candles are put into the coffin, and in a few instances, 
at the burial of a great man. all the implements of w^ar are buried by the side 



The Senegas — Their Origin. Etc. 25 

of the body. The coffin is then closed and carried to the grave. On its be- 
ing- let down, the person who takes the lead in the solemn transaction, or a 
chief, addresses the dead in a short sjDeech in which he charges him not to 
be troubled about himself in his new situation nor on his journey, and not to 
trouble his friends, wife or children whom he has left; tells him that if he 
meets with strangers on the way, he must inform them what tribe he belongs 
to, who his relatives are, the situation in which he left them, and that hav- 
ing done this he must keep on till he arrives at the good fields in the country 
of Ha-wen-ne-yu; that when he arrives there he will see all his ancestors and 
personal friends that have gone before him, who, together with all the chiefs 
of celebrity, will receive him joyfully, and furnish him with every article of 
perpetual happiness. The grave is now filled and left till evening, when 
some of the nearest relatives of the dead build a fire at the head of it, near 
which they sit till morning. In this way they continue nine successive 
nights, when, believing that their departed friend has arrived at the end of 
his journey, they discontinue their attention. During this time the relatives 
of the deceased are not allowed to dance. ,, 

/ The tradition of the Senecas in regard to their origin is that they broke 
/ out of the earth from a large mountain at the head of Canandaigua lake, 
which they still venerate as the place of their birth. Thence they derive 
their name, Ge-nun-de- wah, or ' Great Hill, ' and were called • Great Hill Peo- 
ple,' which is the true definition of the word Seneca. The great hill at the 
head of Canandaigua lake, from whence they si^rung, is called Ge-nun-de- 
wah and has for a long time past been the place where the Indians of that 
nation have met in council, to hold great talks, and to offer up prayers to the 
Great Spirit, on account of its having been their birth-place; and also in 
consequence of the destruction of a serpent at that place in ancient times. 
in a most miraculous manner, which threatened the destruction of the whole 
of the Senecas, and barely spared enough to commence replenishing the 
earth. The Indians say that the foot of the big hill near the head of Canan- 
daigua lake was surrounded by a monstrous serpent, whose head and tail 
came together at the gate. A long time it lay there confounding the peojDle 
with its breath. At length they attempted to make their escape, some with 
their hominy blocks, and others with different implements of household 
furniture, and in marching out of the foot walked down the throat of the 
serpent. Two orphan children, who had escajoed this general destruction 
by being left on the side of the foot, were informed by an oracle of the means 
by which they could get rid of their formidable enemy, which was to take a 
small bow and a poisoned arrow, made of a kind of willow, and with that 
shoot the serpent under its scales. This they did and the arrow proved 
effectual, for, on its penetrating the skin, the serpent became sick, and ex- 
tending itself, rolled down the hill, destroying all the timber that was in its 
way, and disgorging itself. At every motion a human head was discharged 
and rolled down the hill into the lake, where they lie at this day in a petrified 
state having the hardness and appearance of stones, and the pagan Indians 



26 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

of the Senecas believe that all the little snakes (of the land) were made of 
the blood of the great serpent after it rolled into the lake. To this day the 
Indians visit that sacred place to mourn the loss of their friends and to cele- 
brate some rites that are peculiar to themselves. To the knowledge of 
white peoi^le there has been no timber on the great hill since it was first 
discovered by them, though it lay apparently in a state of nature for a great 
number of years without cultivation. Stones in the shape of an Indian's 
head may be seen lying in the lake in great plenty, which are said to be the 
same that were deposited there at the death of the serpent." 

The Senecas were very superstitious in regard to snakes, and in con- 
firmation of this statement, I will relate a legend told me by Capt. John 
Buck, an aged Indian, who when a boy lived at the upper Caneadea village, 
and was familiar with the different localities along the river in Caneadea and 
Hume. In the autumn of 1890 the writer, this Capt. John Buck, Geo. H. 
Harris of Rochester and M. B. Turpin of Mt. Morris, went from Fillmore to 
visit the site of the old Indian village of Caneadea. When in the neighbor- 
hood of the Holy Cross Cemetery, near Long Beard's Riff, Captain Buck, 
pointing over to a deep gorge or gully on the east side of the river, said (in 
substance, it would be impossible for me to give his exact words,) " May be 
you never heard of it, and maybe after I tell you, too, you won't believe it, 
but I am -going to tell you, how a long, long time ago, a great luliile 
ago, a big snake lived up on that mountain," pointing away off to the 
highlands in the east, "big snake took a notion, one day, to go to the 
river, and in going plowed out that deep gully or ravine. After this, snake 
frequently visited the river. One day just at or a little after sunset, an In- 
dian took a little drum and going to the mouth of the gorge where it empties 
into the river seated himself on a stone. He then commenced tapping on 
the drum. After beating drum awhile big snake came down and laid his 
head upon a stone near by the Indian. The Indian took a sharp little knife, 
and opening a vein just back of the snake's jaw, drew some blood into a smaU 
cup and drank it. This made the snake and the Indian brothers, and the 
Indian was called a ' Witch Indian ' ever afterward, and had supernatural 
powers and gifts. It was getting duskish at the time, and some of the blood 
being spilled upon the stones, it flashed up in a great blaze of fire, and lighted 
up whole country." Capt. Buck told this with every manifestation of pro- 
found belief in the remarkable story. 

A notable instance showing another strange superstition of the Seneca 
Indians, was furnished upon the death of the noted chief. Little Beard, who 
lived at Cuylerville in one of their largest villages, called after him " Little 
Beard's Town." He died in June, 1806, and June 16th occurred the "great 
eclipse" which I suppose was total. The Indians, who had buried their 
chief with all the honors of his rank and were entirely unacquainted with 
astronomy as relating to such phenomena, believed that it was their old 
chief, who, on account of some old feeling of hatred he held toward them, 
had placed himself between them and the sun, to prevent the growing of 



The Senegas — Their Origin, Etc. 27 

their corn and thus reducing- them to starvation. They held a hurried con- 
sultation, the result of which was that in their opinion the only thing which 
would effectually remove it was the use of powder and ball, and every gun 
and rifle which could be procured w^ere brought into use. and a continual 
firing kept up until the old fellow withdrew, and the obscurity was removed, 
which afforded great joy and relief to the ingenuous and fortunate Indians. 



CHAPTER V. 

INDIAN FEASTS. DANCES, ETC. 

''Where are your hoary magi-wrinkled seers, 
Clad in their dread apparehng; who made 
Rude rocky altars, stained, and mossed with years, 

And held terrific orgies in the shade ? 
Gone, like the shapes that populate a dream. 
Or twinkling dew, drank up by moon's effulgent beam." 

TN each year they had six " feasts," or stated times for assembling in their 
1 tribes and giving thanks to Ha-wen-ne-yu for the blessings they had re- 
ceived from his kind, liberal and provident hand, and to solicit a continuance 
of such favors. The first of these feasts occurred immediately after they 
had finished " sugaring." At this feast they gave thanks for the favorable 
weather, the g-reat quantity of sap they w^ere enabled to gather, and for the 
large amount of sugar they had been allowed to make. On these occasions 
the chiefs by turns arose, and addressed the assemblage in a kind of exhor- 
tation, in which they not only expressed their own thankfulness, but urged 
the propriety and necessity of general gratitude, and pointed out the course 
which ought to be pursued by each individual in order that Nau-ivah-ne-u 
might continue his blessings and the designs of the evil spirit might be 
thwarted. At the mai^le festival in olden times the leader made this si^eech: 

'• Friends: The sun, the ruler of the day. is high in his path, and we must 
hasten to our duty. We are here to observe an ancient custom, handed 
down to us by our forefathers, and given to them by the Good Ruler Ha- 
iven-ne-yu. He requires us to give thanks for the blessings we receive. We 
will be faithful to this command. 

" Friends, the maple is yielding its sweet waters. We join in thanksgiving 
to the maple, and also to Ha-wen-ne-itu. who made this tree for the good of 
the red man." 

The services of the day were closed with the "great feather dance." 
When they addressed the Good Ruler directly, they threw tobacco on the 
fire, that their words might ascend to him on the incense. They never used 
incense at any other time. The leader would say: 



28 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

'' Ha-2ven-7ie-yu! Listen now to our words. The smoke of our offering 
arises. Listen to our words as they arise to thee in smoke. We thank thee 
for the sweet water of the maple. We thank thee for the return of the 
planting season. Let our corn and beans and squashes grow. Ha-wen-ne-yu! 
continue to listen, for the smoke yet arises (throwing on tobacco. ) Preserve 
us from pestilential diseases, preserve our old men, and jDrotect our young. 
Ha-wen-ne-yu\ Thou dost love thy people, and hate thine enemies. Thou hast 
given us the panther's heart, the eagle's eye, the moose's foot, and the cun- 
ning of the fox; but to our enemies thou hast given the eye of the owl in 
day-light, the foot of the turtle, the heart of woman, and the stupid brains 
of the bear in winter. 

On these occasions, the chiefs would describe a perfectly straight line, 
perhaps ten miles long, turning neither to the right nor to the left, but push- 
ing their way over hills, through valleys, across gulfs, through swamps, or 
whatever else they might encounter, and direct their people to travel upon 
it by x:)lacing one foot before the other, with the heel of one foot to the toe of 
the other, and thus continuing until they arrive at the end. They took this 
method of impressing upon their people that they must not turn aside into 
the paths of vice, but keep straight ahead in the way of well-doing which 
would lead them at last to the paradise of Nau-iuah-ne-ii . 

After planting another feast occurred, at which they returned thanks for 
the favorable time they had had for preparing the ground and planting the 
seed. When the green corn became lit for use, a third or "green corn 
feast " was attended, at which a good portion of the time was spent in sing- 
ing, and dancing, and other ways of expressing their joy and manifesting 
their thankfulness for the addition to their diet of an article of food which is 
to day held in high estimation by the whole civilized world. 

The late Loren Houghton, of Caneadea, informed me that he once wit- 
nessed a "green corn dance, "or feast, which was participated in by several 
hundred Indians, delegations being present from Buffalo, Tonawanda, Cat- 
taraugus, and Big Tree reservations. This feast was held at the upper 
Caneadea village. Some idea of the multitude which attended may be in- 
ferred from the magnitude of the preparations made for their subsistence. 
Mr. Houghton said the succotash was made in six five-pail brass kettles, 
and all of them once full, only served for one meal. Twelve or fifteen deer 
were killed, and the venison, cut up in pieces of a pound or more in weight, 
was thrown in with the green corn and beans, and, without a particle of salt, 
all were boiled together. When sufficiently cooked the kettles were sur- 
rounded by the Indians, and each one helped him or herself, some eating 
out of the kettles with wooden spoons, -some with iron spoons, and some, pro- 
vided with bowls or other dishes, would take their portion and retire, giving 
others not so well equipped a chance immediately around the kettles. This 
feast passed off without any disturbance, no quarrel or unpleasantness 
marring the general good feeling or the high degree of enjoyment of all who 



Indian Feasts, Dances, Etc. 29 

participated. The next year the Caneadea Indians visited some of the other 
reservations to enjoy this feast, and thus it was passed around. 

A fourth feast was celebrated after corn harvest, and a fifth (at the close 
of their year) was always observed at the time of the old moon in the last of 
January or the first of February. This feast deserves particular description. 
The Indians having returned from hunting, and having brought in all the 
venison and sldns they had taken, a committee of from ten to twenty active 
men was appointed to su^oerintend the great sacrifice and thanksgiving to be 
immediately celebrated. Preparations were now made at the council-house, 
or place of meeting, for the reception and accommodation of the whole tribe, 
and then the ceremonies commenced. The whole was conducted with 
great order and harmony under the direction of the committee. Two white 
dogs, without spot or blemish, were selected, if such could be found; if not, 
the two that had the fewest spots were taken from those belonging to the 
tribe, and strangled near the door of the council-house. A wound on the 
animal, or an effusion of blood, w^ould si^oil the victim and render the sacrifice 
useless. The dogs were then painted red on their faces, on the edges of 
their ears, and on various parts of their bodies, and were curiously decorated 
with ribbons of different colors, and fine feathers, which were so tied and 
fastened as to make a most elegant appearance. They were then hung 
on a post near the door of the council-house, at the height of twenty feet 
from the ground. 

The frolic was then commenced by the assembled Indians, while the 
committee ran through the tribe and hurried the people to assemble by 
knocking on their houses. At this time the committee wore only breech- 
cloths, and each carried a paddle, with which he took up ashes, and scattered 
them in every direction about the houses. In the course of theiceremonies, all 
fire was extinguished in every hut throughout the tribe, and after removing 
the ashes, 'old coals, etc., a new one struck from the flint on each hearth was 
kindled. Having done this and discharged one or two guns, they v/ent on 
and repeated this ceremony at every house in the tribe. This finished the 
first day. On the second day, the committee danced and went through the 
town with bearskins on their legs, and at every time they started they fired 
a gun. They also begged through the tribe, each carrying a basket in which 
to receive whatever might be bestowed. The alms consisted of Indian to- 
bacco, and articles used for incense or sacrifice. Each manager at this time 
carried a dried turtle-shell containing a few beans, which he frequently 
rubbed against the walls of the house inside and out. The committee continued 
these performances for two or three days, during which time the people at 
the council-house recreated themselves by dancing. 

On the fourth or fifth day, the committee made false faces of husks, in 
which they ran about, making a frightful and ludicrous appearance. In this 
dress they ran to the council-house smearing themselves with dirt, and 
daubing every one who refused to contribute toward filling the basket of 
incense, which they continued to carry for alms. During aU this time they 



30 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

collected the evil spirit, or drove it off entirely for the jDresent, and also con- 
centrated within themselves all the sins of the tribe, however numerous or 
heinous. On the eighth or ninth day the committee, having received all 
their sins into their own bodies, took down the dogs. and. after having trans- 
ferred the whole of the sins into one of their own number, he, by a peculiar 
slight of hand or a kind of magic, worked them all out of himself into the 
dogs. The dogs, thus loaded with all the sins of the people, were placed up- 
on a pile of wood that was directly set on fire. Here they were burned, and 
with them the sins with which they were loaded, surrounded by the multi- 
tude who threw incense of tobacco or the like into the fire, the scent of which 
they say goes up to Nau-wah-ne-u, to whom it is pleasant and acceptable. 

This feast formerly continued nine days, but later was not usually con- 
tinued more than five or seven days, one dog was deemed sufficient. Dur- 
ing the continuance of this feast the chiefs reviewed the national affairs of 
the year just passed, agreed upon the best plan to be pursued through the 
next year, and attended to all internal regulations. On the last day the 
whole company partook of an elegant dinner of meat, corn, and beans boiled 
together in large kettles and stirred until the whole was completely mixed 
and soft. This mess was devoured without much ceremony. Some ate 
with a spoon by dij^ping out of the kettle, others served themselves in small 
dippers, some in one way and some in another, until the whole repast was 
consumed. They then performed the war-dance, the peace-dance, smoked 
the 2)ipe of peace, and then, free from iniquity, each repaired to his place of 
abode, prepared to commence a new year. 

In this feast temperance was observed, and order prevailed to a greater 
degree than would naturally be expected. They were fond of the company 
of civil spectators and treated them politely in their way, but, having been 
frequently imposed upon by the whites, they generally treated them with 
indifference. The late Charles M. Mills, of Hume, informed the writer that 
he had attended this feast as observed at the lower Caneadea village, just a 
little south of Rossburgh. On this occasion, John Hudson, quite a noted 
Indian in these parts, and also very eloquent, addressed the Indians, with 
such remarkable effect as to leave scarce a dry eye in the audience. Other 
pioneers have related to me substantially the same thing. Hudson left a 
great fame as an orator. Capt. Shongo once said " I know as much as Hud- 
son, but I can't say it." 



The Life of the Senegas. 31 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE LIFE OF THE SENEGAS. 

THE diseases of the Indians were superstitiously treated by charlatans. 
Vapor baths were quite generally resorted to. and were in many cases 
successful in removing disease. These were administered by digging a hole 
in the ground (clay being preferred) in which the patient was placed. Then 
covered with blankets he would be steamed by dropping heated stones into 
a small quantity of water at the bottom. After continuing the process for a 
sufficient time the patient was taken out and plunged into cold water. 
Thoroughwort. spurge and Indian hemp were used for emetics, the inner 
barks of the butternut and horse chestnut for cathartics, and water-pepper 
and mayweed were much esteemed as rubefacients. The Indians were 
familiar with many poisons and sometimes used them for self-destruction or 
for purposes of revenge. 

I am permitted to quote from "Our Life Among the Iroquois Indians."' 
by Mrs. Harriet S. CasweU. The authority is Old Silverheels, a pagan Cat- 
taraugus Indian. 

" Listen," said tl:ie old man, " Tliere is a wonderful medicine used by the Iroquois, which 
they believe will restore a man, even though shot through the body, if he can have it in season. 
They tell us that this medicine is composed of a little of the flesh and blood and fiber of every 
animal and every herb on this continent. It is prepared by special medicine men, and I will 
tell you its origin. Many, many years ago, a Seneca was killed by some southern Indians while 
upon the war-path. He was shot with an arrow through the body, and left in the woods near 
the trail. He had been a great hunter, but it was his habit to take only the skin of the animal, 
leaving the flesh for the wolves and bears to eat. As he lay dead upon the ground, there came 
along a wolf who looked upon the dead man with sorrow, and set up a wail which called all the 
wild animals about him. He then addressed them : ' Can we not in our united wisdom bring 
this dead man to life, who has been our best friend by always killing the larger animals and 
leaving their flesh for us to eat } ' The eagle, vulture, bear and all flesh-eating animals said, 
• We will try.' So they set to work to prepare a medicine. Each was to furnish the most 
potent remedy with which he was acquainted. An acorn cup contained the whole when fin 
ished. This they poured down the throat of the dead man. Then they sang to him, each one 
with his peculiar note, while the birds fanned him with their wings. All night long they sur- 
rounded him, making their best efforts to restore him. In the morning they discovered some 
warmth about the heart, and the question was raised, ' Who will go after the scalp which the 
enemy has taken from him ? ' After much discussion the chicken hawk offered to reclaim it. 
He flew with great speed, soon arriving at the enemy's camping-ground. He saw the scalp of 
his friend stretched on a hoop with many others, suspended on a pole and painted red. The 
whole settlement was dancing about it, and rejoicing over their victory. He seized it with his 
beak, flew back, and found the man sitting up and almost well. They soaked the scalp until it 
was soft and then htted it upon his head. They then taught this man how to make the most 
wonderful medicine which had restored him to life and which they named Ga-ne-gah-ah (a little 
liquid). And this is the origin of our famous medicine, which will restore the dead to life if 
taken in season. In our day this medicine is made into a very fine powder. Then some one 



32 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



takes a cup, goes to the brook, fills it, dipping toward the way the water runs, and sets it near 
the fire. A prayer is offered while tobacco is thrown upon the fire, so that the words may 
ascend with the smoke. The medicine is placed upon a piece of skin near the cup, then taken 
up with a wooden spoon and dusted upon the water in spots in the form of a triangle. If the 
medicine spreads itself over the surface of the water and wheels about, it is a sign that the 
invalid will be healed. If it sinks directly, there is no hope— the sick person will die, and the 
whole is thrown away." 

In the olden days the Indians celebrated the medicine feast. It was 
held at hunting time. " As soon as it is dark on the night of the feast, all 
those permitted to attend shut themselves in one room without light or fire. 
The embers are covered, the medicine is placed near them, and the tobacco 
by its side. Then they begin to sing something which proclaims that the 
crow and other animals whose brains form the medicine are coming to the 
feast. At the end of the song, the caw of the crow, howl of the wolf, etc., 
are imitated. Three times in the course of the night prayer is offered while 
throwing tobacco upon the smothering flames. They pray that the medicine 
may heal the sick and wounded. Through the night the door has been 
locked, and no one allowed to enter the house or to sleep, as this would spoil 
the medicine. Just before dawn the leader takes a deer's head, and, biting 
off a piece, passes the head to another, who does the same, until all have 
tasted. A little later the leader takes a duck's bill, and dipping it full of the 
medicine gives it to each one present, who puts it in a bit of skin, and, w^rap- 
ping it in several coverings, keeps it carefully until the next feast. The 
skin of the panther is preferred. Those who take part in these ceremonies 
are medicine men. These medicine men add pulverized roots of corn and 
squashes and bean vines to the original powder." 

"Perhaps you have been told," said old Silverheels. "that the Indian 
knows more about the healing herbs than any other race." "How can it 
be?" I asked skeptically. "I will tell you," said the Indian, "as my 
grandfather told me. An Indian hunter went forth to hunt. Suddenly he 
heard strains of beautiful music. He hstened but could not tell w^hence it 
came. He knew it was not from any human voice. When he thought he 
was approaching the sound it ceased. Then came Ha-wen-ne-yu to him in a 
dream and said, ' Wash yourself until you are purified; then go forth and 
you will again hear the music. ' So he purified himself and went into the 
thickest woods, and soon his ear caught the sweet strains, and as he drew 
near they became more beautiful. Then he saw that the wonderful music 
came from a plant with a taU green stem and tapering leaves. He cut the 
stalk, but it immediately healed and became as before. He cut it again, and 
again it healed. Then he knew it would heal diseases. He took it home, 
dried it by the fire, and pulverized it. When apphed to a dangerous wound, 
it no sooner touched the flesh than the wound was made whole. Thus Ha- 
wen-ne-yu taught the Indian the nature of medicinal plants, and from that 
time has directed him where they are to be found." 



The Life of the Senecas. 33" 



"When we read that the Indian ornamented himself with the husks of 
his favorite maize, and went forth from house to house with a basket to 
gather offerings from the people, we call it heathenish and barbarous, while 
the story of Ceres, goddess of corn, whose head was surrounded with 
sheaves, and who holds in her hand a hoe and basket, is picturesque and 
beautiful ! We listen to the Indian story of the woman in the moon, who is 
constantly employed in weaving a net. which a cat unravels whenever she 
sleeps, and that the world is to come to an end when the net is finished; and 
we say ' ridiculous ! " But the story of Penelope, weaving her purple web 
by day to be raveled by night during the prolonged absence of her husband, 
Ulysses, is a conception worthy of being expanded into a poem of a thousand 
lines, and translated into all languages I " 

Very few Indians were found who were lame, crijipled, crosseyed, blind, 
hunchbacked or limping; all were well-fashioned people, strong in constitu- 
tion, well-proportioned and without blemish. Their mode of living contrib- 
uted largely to these conditions. Their women were held in a degraded 
condition, did all the work, tilled the earth, and bore all the burdens except 
those of war and hunting, and even in hunting they were sometimes expected 
to haul in the game. Boys were schooled from early infancy in athletic 
feats, requiring skill and dexterity. The probation of the young warrior 
was attended with long fasts and extreme torture, and he was only given a 
name and a recognized position on his return from his first battle or expedi- 
tion. Those who fell in battle were scalped, and prisoners were either 
adopted or tortured. Fires were kindled by rubbing two sticks together, or 
by some device by which a stake was made to revolve and rub against a well- 
seasoned piece of wood until a blaze resulted. Their cooking was very 
simple, and. before the introduction of pails and kettles by the whites, the 
common way was roasting over a fire. They depended largely on parched 
corn, which they used on journeys, and often hid in holes or caches marked 
for recognition. Their amusements were quite numerous; running, leaping, 
paddling the canoe, games of small stones and ball. The ball game was the 
national pastime of the Senecas. in which many attained great proficiency. 
This was played very differently from modern baseball. * "Little David "' 
has been spoken of by the early settlers in northern Allegany, as a chamx^ion 
player. He was quite small of stature, but he excelled by far, all in his tribe, 
as a ballplayer, and, in these days of "Bisons," "Red Stockings," "Alerts," 
etc., he would no doubt be considered quite an acquisition to any asi^iring 
company of players. I think that in the name of this Indian is seen the 
work of Kirkland or some other missionary, perhaps the Jesuits, as it would 
be quite natural for them to recount to their Indian auditors the story of 
little David and Goliath, and quite in keeping with Indian habits and customs 
to adopt and use the name whenever it had a proper application. The broad 
level flats along the Genesee river afforded excellent grounds for the game, 
and sometimes attracted considerable numbers to witness it. Many of our 
pioneers attended these games, and retained vivid recollections of the excite- 



34 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

ment usually attendant upon them, and became quite familiar with the rules 
governing them. 

The Indian population of this region when compared with its present 
white population was never large, and immediately previous to the settle- 
ment of the county by the whites, was quite small. In 1819 an enumeration 
of all the Indians in the state was made under authority of the state govern- 
ment. From this it appears that the whole number on all the reservations 
of the Genesee river was only 456, and they never afterward numbered 
more. The Indians were generally weU-disposed, quiet and orderly, and 
practiced to some extent, in a rude and primitive way, some of the arts of 
husbandry, some keeping a few horses, sheep, cattle and hogs. 

Jellis Clute of Moscow was regarded by the Indians with a good deal of 
veneration. They respected his opinions, always looked to him for the 
settlement of matters of dispute arising from their relations with the whites, 
and in all such cases accej)ted his verdict as conclusive and carrying all the 
weight of a judicial decision. It was at his suggestion that they raised the 
price of venison, which they bartered with the whites for bread. A loaf of 
bread had always been the price of a ham, two loaves that of a saddle of 
venison. He taught them to drive better bargains, and they were quite apt 
in learning. So venison " went up," and afterward it took two loaves for a 
ham and four for a saddle of venison. 

Whenever any difficulty arising out of their social or domestic relations 
could not be settled by the home or local authorities, a messenger or mes- 
sengers would be dispatched to 0-wis-e-o-we (Buffalo), the residence of Sa- 
go-ya-wat-ha (Red Jacket), burdened with the whole subject in controversy, 
which was laid before the great chief. His decision was i^atiently awaited 
and generally faithfully carried out. 



CHAPTER VII. 

CANEADEA AND OIL SPRING INDIAN RESERVATIONS. 

" Fair was the scene ! Before the gaze 
Lay verdant fields of twinkling maize 
Bared to the full bright blaze of day ; 
And meads to charm romantic eye, 
Whereon the grass was thick and high, 
Spread green their carp>ets far away." 

IT was indeed most natural that at the treaty of Big Tree, when it was left 
to the Indians to decide as to the number, size and location of their 
reservations, that the territory about Caneadea, the chief Seneca town of 
the upper Genesee region, should be selected as one. Its upper village was 



Caneadea and Oil Spring Indian Reservations. 35 

the westermost town of that famous Iroquois Confederacy. It was the west- 
ern door of the "Long House," at which " Do-ne-ho-ga-weh," "open door," 
was required to reside, and was distinguished for its poHtical and strategic 
importance. And so its territory was made to correspond with its import- 
ance and dignity, being laid oif eight miles in length by two in width, the 
largest reservation on the Genesee. 

It is very pleasant in this connection to be permitted to make excerpts 
from the "Life History of Horatio Jones,"' a work to which the lamented 
George H. Harris of Rochester devoted some fifteen years. It is stiU in 
manuscript, but, through the kindness of Mrs. Julia E. Harris, his widow, I 
am enabled to present them. It is expected that Mrs. Harris, an accom- 
plished lady, will soon complete and publish this work. Every reader will 
join the writer in thanking her for her kindness in allowing this advance 
publication. 

"The "door" of the Long House, or westernmost town of the Senecas, 
prior to the Revolution was located upon the present farm of A. O. Arnold, 
in Caneadea. The locative title of the place was Gah-ne-ya-de-o, ' where the 
heavens rest, (or lean) upon the earth, ' now corrupted to Caneadea. In ac- 
cordance with national usage or law, Do-ne-ho-ga-weh, ' open door, ' the hered- 
itary military sachem of the Iroquois league, had here his residence. The 
person bearing the title at the opening of the Revolution was an aged man 
who had become distinguished for his feats of war. In his young manhood 
he had assumed the name of a white friend named Hutson. commonly pro- 
nounced Hudson. It Avas the custom of the whites who did not know the 
Indian name of a chief, to call him John,* and the Seneca sachem was better 
known by his white name John Hudson, than by his title, Do-ne-ho-ga-weh. 
As he advanced in reputation as a military leader, he was caUed Captain 
Hudson. Probably no Indian of his day was more familiar with the Iroquois 
domain, for both in peace and in war he made numberless excursions to all 
parts of the country. It is said that he had knowledge of every hill, valley, 
and stream of the territory termed. Un-ah-e (June-yah-e) 'The interior,' the 
country lying between the Senecas on the Genesee and AUegany and the 
settlements of the whites on the Susquehanna and in Pennsylvania. 

■•Just prior to the French war Capt. Hudson took his eldest cliild to 
Pennsylvania and left him with a white family at Hah-nee-jo-ney, ' Red 
Banks,' on the Allegany river, twenty miles above Pittsburgh. The boy 
was educated in the way of the whites, and the family treated him as one of 
themselves. One day in the early spring of 1756, when the men were absent, 
the door was suddenly opened, and the head of an Indian appeared, be- 
daubed with paint and crowned with feathers. For an instant he cast his 

* The knowledge of this fact has greatly assisted the writer in dispersing some of the shadows resting 
upon Indian genealogy. John Hudson, John Blacksmith, and John Luke each held the office of " Open 
door," and yet were almost totally unknown by the official name. In John Abeel (O'Bail) we find the great 
chieftain Cornplanter, and the latter-day Johnny John, was the distinguished "Slump Foot." Montour, Green 
Blanket, Tall Chief, Seneca, Mohawk, Gordon, Snow Banks, and a score of other Iroquois chiefs, were called 
John to designate their rank, and in time lost their native designation. 



36 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

glittering eyes from one to another of the silent, terrified group, then closed 
che door, and turned away. The mother burst into tears, and informed the 
children that the Indian was a spy from some western band, not a Seneca^ 
and would soon return with his friends and kill them all. She called Hud- 
son's little son and told him that all her family must die, but that he, being 
an Indian, might possibly escape. She dressed him in his best suit, and, 
after they had bade him goodbye with tears, covered him with some old 
rush mats in a corncrib. She bade him, no matter what happened them, 
not to make a noise or expose himself until after the departure of the Indi- 
ans; then to come out and watch for some one to rescue him. 

"From where he lay the boy witnessed the return of the spy with a 
large number of savages. He could hear the shrieks of the victims as the 
tomahawks and scalping-knives did their murderous work; soon all was over. 
After plundering the premises the Indians set fire to the house. A strong 
wind drove sparks and smoke toward the corncrib, and cinders fell so close 
to its side as to ignite the grass. The lad thrust his hand through the slats 
and patted out the flame. The savages suddenly departed without tiring 
the crib. After a time the boy ventured out. What a sight met his gaze ! 
The home he had learned to love was gone, and the bones of his friends lay 
among the ashes that marked the spot. He looked for food but found none. 
Running hither and thither about the place, a day or two later he heard 
voices, and looking across the river saw Indians in canoes. Hearing words 
in the Seneca tongue he went up the bank and shouted. Instantly every 
gun of the party was aimed at him; one of the Indians recognized him, they 
lowered the guns and took young Hudson with them to the Genesee. 

"When Hudson heard his son's story he swore to avenge the family, and, 
striking his war-post, enlisted a party to punish the guilty savages. Cross- 
ing from Ga-ne-ya-de-o to the nearest point on the Allegany, the party went 
down the river in canoes. On arriving at Red Banks. Hudson began sing- 
ing his warsong, which was heard by a party encamping there that recog- 
nized and hailed the Genesee chieftain. On learning his mission, the chiefs 
of the party, who were friends of the guilty savages, invited Hudson ashore, 
and showed him two white men, naked and fastened to stakes, surrounded 
with bundles of wood ready for torture. To appease Hudson's wrath they 
offered to give him the two men and one female prisoner to do with them as he 
wished. Hudson accepted the offer, placed the captives in his canoes, and 
paddling down the river camped on the opposite side. On questioning the 
captives he learned they had been captured in the interior of Pennsylvania. 
Supposing they were to be tortured, they begged this chief to spare their 
lives. The elder man, named Words* offered to give half he was worth at 
any time Hudson called on him, if he would save him from torture. Hudson, 
to test the truth of this statement, took two warriors, and, without revealing 
his purpose, conducted the prisoners up the Kissiminaritus river to where 

*Geo. Words, Mrs. Gray and others were captured in Tuscarora Valley, June 13, 1756, and released by- 
Hudson in July. — Day's Hist. Coll. of Pa. 384. Daniel E. Shongo, Salamanca. 



Caneaidea and Oil Spring Indian Reservations. 37 

the whites were captured. Words recognized the place and convinced Hud- 
son of his sincerity. Hudson conducted them back to the Allegany, and 
delivered them unharmed to the French at Fort Du Quesne. After the war 
Hudson went to Bedford, where Words was prominent, and he gave the 
Indian the deed of a house and lot in Bedford, made him other valuable 
presents, and always welcomed him and his friends when they visited Bed- 
ford. 

'* About 1770 Hudson's son who had escaped the massacre died, and the 
second son, Hah-yen-de-seh, variously interpreted, ' Dragging Wood ' and 
' Hemlock Carrier. ' was now the eldest of the family. He had become a 
leading warrior, and in the first campaigns of the Revolution won rank 
as a chieftain of merit. It is now impossible to separate the deeds of the 
old sachem during the early years of the war from those of his son.* 

"The second chief at Caneadea in 1779 was Gah-nee- son-go, ' Man fond 
of nannyberries. ' He and Hah-yen-de-seh had been warm friends from boy- 
hood, inseparable companions in peace and war, won their honors together, 
and now ranked equally as chiefs. Gah-nee- son-go was a dignified man of 
herculean frame and great strength. The British officers abbreviated his 
name to Shongo, and after the Revolution he was termed Col. Shongo. ' ' 

Another extract from Mr. Harris' book has reference to the expedition 
that captured Horatio Jones. "It would seem that Hah-yen-de-seh had 
changed his residence to a town afterwards known as Ah-wes-coy, on the 
west side of the Genesee some seven miles below Caneadea. but the latter 
name was usually applied to all the valley lying between the two villages. 
In later days Shongo told Barker that John Hudson and himself were the 
leaders of the expedition, and, as it was organized at the lower town, Hah- 
yen-de-seh was probably the one Shongo referred to, though old Capt. Hud- 
son accompanied and guided the party." 

In 1791 Col. Thomas Proctor went from Philadelphia to Bufl'alo Creek to 
attend an Indian council. He thus makes note of Caneadea: 

The next day arrived at an Indian town called Canaseder situated on a high bluff of land overlooking the 
Genesee river. It consisted of about thirty houses, and some of them done in a way that showed some taste 
in the workmen. * * * in this place was erected a wooden statue (or deity) fashioned like a fierce-looking 
sage. This form tliey worship by dancing before it on festive occasions or new moons, looking on it as 
through a veil or assistant, whereby they pay admiration to the supreme Spirit, as knowing it hath a form but 
not a substance. 

Major Van Campen was at Caneadea early in 1782. He makes no men- 
tion of the statue of which Proctor speaks. As only nine years had passed 
it was undoubtedly there, but he had other matters which engaged his atten- 
tion. His gauntlet-running ordeal excluded minute observations or study 
of religious rites and ceremonies. While Van Campen was at Caneadea, 
having successfully run the guantlet and become somewhat of a "lion," he 

* Unquestionably the younger Hudson, Hah-yen-de-seh, was the Hudson so well known to many of our 
pioneers. To his military reputation was added great fame as an orator ; indeed he was regarded by many 
as next in eloquence to the renowned Red Jacket. It was said that he was educated by Dr. Wheelock 
President of Dartmouth College. 



38 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

was made the guest of Caj^t. Nellis, whose son. Lieut. Nelhs, headed the 
party which made him a prisoner. Capt. NeUis was a tory renegade from 
the Mohawk country, who secured a commission, and came to Caneadea, 
where he spent his time in organizing bands of Indians and sending them 
out under command of his son to harass the border settlements of New York 
and Pennsylvania. His wife was a squaw, and he was probably the first 
white who ever lived at Caneadea. 

The spelling of Caneadea on the oldest majD we have yet discovered upon 
which any place in Allegany is put down with any reasonable degree of cer- 
tainty is Kar-a-ghi-ya-dir-ha. It has. when spoken rapidly, a sound quite 
like Caneadea. The map referred to is the Guy Johnson map of 1771, and 
the town is indicated as a chief town. There was another town, said to have 
existed about 1765 near Belvidere, named Kar-at-hy-a-di-ra. The place put 
down on the Johnson map as Gis-to-quat seems to me more likely to be the 
Belvidere town. Ga-o-ya-de-o, Gah-nee-ya-de-o and Gah-o-yah-de-o, were 
other of the early renderings. In the narrative of the Gilbert family, cap- 
tured in 1780, it is spelled Can-a-ca-de-ra, while Joseph Ellicott in 1797 wrote 
it Ka-oun-de-ou. Elisha Johnson (1807) made it Can-i-o-de-o. Capt. John 
Buck, who when a boy lived at the old village, pronounced the word much 
as we do, differing only in the decided accent he gave the third and fifth 
syllables, Can-e-ah-de-ah. 

The meaning was "where the heavens rest or lean upon the earth.'* 
This appears to be the case anywhere, but it is said there was a place in 
which this appearance was so decidedly emphasized that an Indian who had 
heard the name would, as he first approached it, recognize the place. Some 
early settlers claimed to have it direct from the Indians that its meaning 
was "the place where isinglass is found." In support of this definition it 
may be stated that mica was found in considerable quantities in two places 
originally included in Caneadea, one near the 0-wa-is-ki village and the other 
a mile or more above the upper Caneadea town. 

The territory to which this beautiful and now historic name originally 
applied extended from three miles above Portageville, Wyoming county, to 
Caneadea creek. When the treaty of Big Tree was consummated, and its 
boundaries defined, it was found to be considerably abbreviated in length, 
while in some instances it was made to extend farther back from the river 
than its original limits. Its boundaries were run by Augustus Porter in 
September, 1798. At that time it presented as perfect a primitive wilder- 
ness as Western New York could offer. The vaUey of the Genesee has been 
termed ' ' the terrestrial paradise of the Senecas, ' ' having in mind it is thought 
the lower part of the river, but if ever there was a region fitted by nature 
with all the conditions for an ideal home which a people like the Senecas 
could desire it was the rectangle laid by Porter in 1798. It completely fiUed 
all the requirements of such a race. 

The Senecas exercised undisj^uted dominion over the Caneadea Reser- 
vation until 1826, when negotiations were consummated, whereby the pur- 



Caneadea and Oil Spring Indian Reservations. 39 



chase of the whole territory by a syndicate of capitalists and land specula- 
tors was effected. The treaty at which the purchase was made, was held at 
Buffalo Creek on the last days of August, 1826. For a consideration of 
S 18, 2 16 the Senecas conveyed, with other parcels of land, the Caneadea Res- 
ervation. To the deed of conveyance was appended the names of 47 sachems, 
chiefs and warriors. A few of them are here given. Sa-gu-ar-gar-luch-ta 
or Young King, Forh-ku-ga or Little Billy, John A. Beel (0"Bail) or Corn- 
planter, Ty-wan-e-ash or Black Snake, On-on-da-ka-i or Destroy Town, On-a- 
ju-ah-ka-i or Tall Peter. Kan-e-ac-go or Blue Eyes, Nat-wen-dy-ha or Green 
Blanket, Muk-ha-da-gen or White Boy, Ha-pan-guish or Henry Two Guns, 
Shi-can-a-du-ah-que or Little Beard, Sa-tu-gan-a-cre or Twenty Canoes, As- 
lan-a-sa-ish or Silver Heels. Kan-a-ja-u-a-ri or Big Kettle, Sa-way-doc or 
George Red Eye, Kan-ish-shon-go or Capt Shongo; Tal-a-gan-a-ta or Red 
Jacket, Sa-ga-in-a-shat-se-a or Stiff Knee. Robert Troup, Thomas L. Ogden 
and Benjamin W. Rogers, signed by their attorney. John Grieg. 

Readers acquainted with Indian history will observe the difference in 
some of the names, Red Jacket is here Tal-a-gan-a-ta, while he is universally 
known as Sa-go-ya-wat-ha, though on the 1797 treaty paper he is Soo-goo-ya- 
waw-taw, and still it is certain there was only one Red Jacket. 

The sale of the reservation having been made and Messrs. Wadsworth, 
Waddington, Depace, Campbell. Ogden, Bayard and Muncy taken in as pro- 
prietors, preparations for removal to Tonawanda, Allegany and Buffalo were 
soon commenced, and in the summer of 1827 Joseph Jones, the "Quaker 
Surveyor," appeared with compass, chain and jacobstaff, and a corps of 
assistants to subdivide the tract into lots. In his general remarks descript- 
ive of the tract, and preliminary to the survey, Mr. Jones says: 

The bottomland is uniformly an alluvial soil of the first quality, and where it is not culti- 
vated, is covered with elm, butternut, sycamore, plum trees and a kind of timber which bears 
some resemblance to the balm-of-gilead, but is not the geniune. The table land is a sandy loam, 
and is timbered with large white pine, white oak, sugar maple and some birch, the high land 
with pine and oak, with some mixture of chestnut, white and soft maple, and the soil with few 
exceptions is a gravelly clay. The herbage on the first quality is May apple or mandrake, 
nettle, polypod balm, ginseng, leak, etc., that on the table land is fern, mandrake, spikenard and 
sarsaparilla, and on the highlands the sweet scomium, fern or brake, sarsaparilla, wintergreen, 
chequerberry, and prince of pine, in many places forms the principal shrubbery. 

Mr. Jones began work at the northern extremity of the tract, boarding 
first with Esau Rich, who lived just north of the Wiscoy. Opposite, and a 
little below the " Lond Beard Riff,"' a lot of about 170 acres was laid out into 
village and jmsture lots, with streets, public squares, cemetery, water lots, 
etc. The cemetery- was laid out adjoining, and on the north side of Holy 
Cross Cemetery. In no other particular has the dream of Joseph Jones's 
future metroiDolis of the upper Genesee been realized. Not even the splen- 
did waterpower, which was the controlling thing in his mind in locating this 
paper village, has been utilized, and the " Village Tract " is now the farm of 
Augustus H. Purdy. No mention is made in Mr. Jones's notes of any white 



40 History of Allegany County. N. Y. 

settlers or squatters occupying or improving any of the land he surveyed. 

During the survey of the tract the Indians gazed with awe (I don't think 
we can say with admiration) upon the operations of the party, and sadly 
made preparations for leaving their old home, which they all did by 1830. 
some going to the Tonawanda, some to the Allegany, and others to the Buf- 
falo reservation. In the winter following the lands thus surveyed, subdivided 
and numbered, were properly delineated upon an engraved map, showing 
all the lots, numbered from 1 to 82 with the number of acres in each, copies 
of which were profusely scattered before the admiring eyes of land specu- 
lators and those in quest of homes, and thus was oi^ened to the impatient 
forces of civilization the last reservation on the Gah-ah-yah-de-o of the older 
Indian tribes, the beautiful vale of the Senecas. 

The sales of land were quite rapid at first and the entire tract along the 
river was soon disposed of. Some of the least desirable lots v/ere not sold 
until 1855; the prices however were all the time advancing, so they " carried 
themselves" so to speak, and became no burden upon their owners. Im- 
provements were noticeable immediately upon the whites taking possession, 
and have continued to the present. The Western Nev/ York and Pennsyl- 
vania railroad runs the whole length of the reservation, following the line 
of the old Genesee Valley canal, and along its line, beginning at the north or 
lower end, are the villages of Rossburg. Fillmore and Houghton. Its agri- 
cultural lands, on the hills as well as the river flats, have been reclaimed, 
and the territory to-day embraces many excellent farms and comfortable 
and attractive homes. Save a single Indian apple-tree which marks the site 
of the lower town, and three or four others on the j^lace of the upper viUage, 
not a vestige of outward sign or token of Indian occupancy remains. 

Oil Spring Reservation.* The famous oil spring near Cub.i has been 
known to the whites for 200 years; how long known to the Indians, it is im- 
possible to tell. It was a muddy, circular pool of water 30 feet in diameter, 
the ground low and marshy immediately surrounding it, and the pool with- 
out apparent outlet or bottom. A tradition of the Senecas 'thus ascribes 
its origin. A very big, fat squaw was one day observing the pool, and 
becoming quite curious in her investigations, she ventured too near, fell in, 
and disappeared forever. Since this time, which, it is said, was many cent- 
uries ago, oil has risen from the spring. Curative properties of a high order 
have been ascribed to it, and the Indians made use of it " to appease all man- 
ner of pains." 

Under date of Albany, Sept. 3, 1700, Lord Belmont, in his letter of 
instructions to Col. Romer, ''His Majesty's Chief Engineer in America," 
used these words, "You are to go and visit the well, or spring, which is 
eight miles beyond the Seneca's further Castle, which it is said blazes up in 
a flame when a lighted coal is jDut into it." The Indians for years gathered 

* The author acknowledges indebtedness to the " History of Chautauqua County, N. Y.," published by 
W. A. Fergusson & Co., Wm. H. Samson of the Rochester Post-Express, and Hon. E. D. Loveridge of 
Cuba, for valuable information concerning the Oil Spring Reservation. 



Caneadea and Oil Spring Indian Reservations. 41 

the oil by spreading blankets over the surface. These readily absorbed the 
oil, as it floated on the top of the water. It was wrung out of the blankets, 
caught in a vessel, put up in vials, labelled '"Seneca Oil," and sold to the 
trade or dispensed to individuals. The writer hT3s seen it upon the drug- 
gist's shelves, and it was once highly esteemed as a medicine. Wells have 
been drilled in the immediate vicinity, the " surface indications " showing 
that oil would be found in paying quantities, but no trade in petroleum has 
been the result, notwithstanding it is claimed by some that oil exists in 
quantity sufficient to warrant putting down more wells and fully developing 
the territory. 

The writer is informed that some years since some parties made quite 
thorough exploration of the spring, and found it walled up like a cistern, in 
shape quite like a caldron kettle. Considering the great fame of the spring, 
and the miraculous healing properties ascribed by the Indians to its waters 
or oil, it was naturally expected that they would at the treaty of Big Tree 
make a reservation including it, and this was so understood by the Indians. 
We can well imagine their surprise when upon having read to them the deed 
of conveyance drawn up on the ground, and to w^hichis reasonably surmised 
the names of their sachems, chiefs and warriors had already been appended, 
it was discovered that no mention was made of the oil spring reservation. 
The attention of Thomas Morris, who acted for his father, Robert Morris, 
was called to this omission. The Indians were very much excited over it, 
and it has been said that a '• big drunk "' followed, during which they declared 
their intention to annul the whole transaction unless the Oil Spring reserva- 
tion was re-conveyed to them. The account says " Thomas Morris with his 
own hand took a sheet of paper, and wrote thereon such a conveyance, signed 
and executed it, and then handed it to Handsome Lake, a leading Seneca 
chief, stating to him the purport of the instrument. Handsome Lake took 
the paper with him when he shortly afterward went to Onondaga, or some 
other place east, where he soon after died and the paper was never after 
seen. Having never been recorded, it had no validity, and the status was 
legally the same as when the discovery of the omission was made." 

The paper title to the land being in the Holland Company, they sold it to 
Benjamin Chamberlain, Staley N. Clarke and Wm. Ghalliger, who held the 
lands adjoining it. It is claimed however, that they regarded it as Indian 
property, and treated it as such until some years after when Mr. Clarke was 
sent to Congress. While in Washington Mr. Clarke examined the books of 
treaties and made the discovery, much to his surprise (?) that the Oil Spring 
reservation was not named in the treaty papers, and that the legal title was 
in him and his two partners. The reader Mill probably find some trouble 
in suppressing the thought that these land buyers and speculators, had 
some correct intimation as to the existing conditions before they made the 
purchase. It certainly looks so to the writer. Immediately after making 
this important discovery, they took possession of the reservation, surveyed 
it into four equal parts, and one quarter was conveyed to Gov. Horatio Sey- 



42 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

mour of Utica, but the quarter containing the oil spring was conveyed to one 
Philonius Pattison. who. about 1856. cleared and fenced 80 acres, erected a 
house and barn, and planted an orchard. 

About this time the Indians directed Daniel Sherman, their attorney, to 
bring an action of ejectment against Pattison. It w^as done, and, after con- 
siderable litigation, the Indians won the case, almost wholly on the testi- 
mony of Governor Blacksnake, who related substantially what has already 
been recited, with the addition that he "had for years kept in a chest under 
his bed, a map made by Joseph Ellicott of the Indian lands sold at the treaty 
of Big Tree, with the reservations marked in red ink." 

Blacksnake said that Ellicott presented the map to the Senecas in a gen- 
eral council of the chiefs and warriors at the Tonawanda reservation about 
1801, when he stated that the majj contained a correct description of the 
eleven reservations, reserved to the Senecas by the treaty of Big Tree; that 
the eleven places marked in red on the map belonged to the red men. 
Among the places so marked was the Oil Spring reservation. This map is on 
file with the testimony of Blacksnake concerning it, in the county clerk's 
office at Little Valley. It is said that Mr. Seymour utterly refused to take 
any part in the defense of the suit. 

Since this action the title of the Indians has never been questioned, and 
they have continually exercised dominion over this land. The tract is nearly 
denuded of timber, and a large proportion of it has grown up to bushes; 
blackberries being the most notable product. It is controlled by the Indi- 
ans on the reservation at Salamanca, and until quite recently a single In- 
dian family has resided there, but now that has gone, and the territory is 
little else than a waste. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

SOME EARLY SKIRMISHERS AND PIONEERS. 

LORD BELMONT in his letter of instructions to Col. Romer, under date 
of Albany, Sept. 3, 1700, used these words " You are to go and visit the 
well or spring, which is eight miles beyond the Seneca's further castle, 
which, it is said, blazes up in a flame w^hen a lighted coal is put into it. "' Col. 
Romer was "His Majesty's Chief Engineer in America, "' and, it is reason- 
able to suppose, carried out the instructions of his superior officer. M. De 
Joncaire, a French officer under or in conjunction with Charlevoix, was the 
next white man whom I have been able to learn traversed the territory of 
Allegany, though it is reasonably certain that Father Hennepin and perhaps 



Some Early Skirmishers and Pioneers. 43 

LaSalle visited this region not far from the middle of the seventeenth cen- 
tury. Hennepin certainly visited Tonawanda, and probably also the upper 
Genesee. 

In 1759. Mary Jemison came from the Ohio town on her way to Gen-i- 
shu-a, and stopped for a day and a night at Caneadea, then a chief town, for 
rest. She was attended by the family into which she had been adopted, and 
perhaps other Indians. 

When Major Moses Van Campen in 1782. then a captive with the Indians, 
was compelled to run the gauntlet at Caneadea, he there found a Captain 
NeUis, who was living with a squaw wife. As Captain Nellis was a Tory rene- 
gade, who made his headquarters at Caneadea only to organize marauding 
bands of Indians, and prepare them for descents upon the frontier settle- 
ments, he could in no sense be considered a settler; in fact as soon as hostil- 
ities were concluded he left the country. 

The first half of the last decade of the last century found our territory 
absolutely uninhabited, save by a few Indians who had two or three villages 
near the northern limits of the county on the Genesee river, and the wild 
animals so prevalent in those days in all this region. Here reigned an 
impressive, an ominous stillness, like the stillness which precedes the shock 
of battle, a stillness which was soon to be broken and to never again return, 
for plans were even then being laid which involved the opening of this dense 
wilderness to the light of civilization, and the glorious arts of peace. 

In the spring of 1795, Nathanael Dike, a native of Connecticut, but who 
settled soon after the Revolutionary war was ended in the Mohawk valley 
somewhere near Canajoharie, where he lived for a few years and then made 
his way to Tioga Point, Pa., began settlement in the eastern part of present 
WellsviUe, on what is yet called Dike's Creek, and in a locality known as Elm 
VaUey. Mr. Dike was a man of good parts, a devoted patriot during the 
war for independence, serving on the staff of Gen. Joseph Warren of Bunker 
HiU fame, and later for a time a member of Washington's military family. 
It is said he was educated at Yale College, though it must be confessed that 
an examination of his account-book reveals no modern proficiency in scho- 
lastic acquirements. Beyond what has been above recited, but very little 
has been learned of Mr. Dike. No incidents attendant upon his advent into 
this new country have been handed down, and although many by the name, 
descendants and distant relatives, are to be found in our county, they seem 
utterly unable to aft'ord any certain information concerning the pioneer 
settler of Allegany. This is much to be regretted, as there must have been 
some interesting occurrences and exciting incidents attending his journey 
from Tioga to WeUsville. From Hornellsville up the Whitney Valley creek 
to its summit, thence down Dike's Creek, following substantially the route 
afterward adopted by the Erie Railway, the progress of the small party must 
have been laborious, slow, incurring hardships of every conceivable kind. 
His family consisted of himself, his wife, two sons and possibly other chil- 
dren, and it may be other persons helped make up the party. 



44 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

From a ci'itical examination of an account-book which he kept we are led 
to conclude that Mr. Dike was a sort of "all-round-man," and, as such, a 
very important person in a new country. He could turn his hand to almost 
anything, and must have been very useful to his neighbors in the many and 
varying exigencies sure to have occurred in the settlement of a new country 
one hundred years ago. His name frequently and honorably apj^ears in our 
early records, and, as if in some way atoning for the lack of specific know^l- 
edge concerning him, the stream uj^on which he constructed his cabin and 
made the first settlement in Allegany has been given his name, and so, in 
the long years to come, will the name, if not the memory, of Nathanael Dike 
be preserved. 

In the following year, 1796, Rev. Andrew Gray, Wm. Gray, Maj. Moses 
Van Campen, Matthew McHenry and Joseph Rathbun settled in what after- 
ward came to be Almond, some in Karr Valley, and some in McHenry Valley. 
These settlers had the advantage of the road (?) which Mr. Dike made the 
previous year, and travelled not nearly so far as he to get to their several 
locations. The first cabins they constructed must have been of the rudest 
kind, and they managed somehow to get along without any chimneys through 
the summer months, as Major Van Campen years after related " In the faU 
they all united, and in one week built three chimneys and killed thirty-six 
deer." Two brothers of Maj. Van Campen, Samuel and Benjamin, came 
from Pennsylvania, settling in Almond in 1797. Religious services, without 
doubt the first in the county, were conducted at Karr Valley by Rev. Andrew 
Gray, a clergyman of the Reformed Dutch Church, at his own house. May 1, 
1797. Mr. Gray afterward ministered in the neighboring settlements. 
Judge Philip Church described him as "a broad-shouldered man, of extra- 
ordinary muscular power, " and said " I remember his getting so earnest, 
on one occasion while preaching in Angelica, in enforcing religious precepts 
upon his back- woods congregation, that in his gestures he knocked to pieces 
our store desk that we gave him for a pulpit. " 

In 1798 John Cryder settled in Independence. Wliere he came from or 
went to is lost to history, but it is known that he built a house and sawmill, 
made a few other improvements, and suddenly left the country. The creek 
upon which he located is called Cryder 's Creek, and so his name is perpet- 
uated and passed down to remote generations. 

In the old cemetery at Elm Valley is a rude stone upon which is recorded 
the death on January 21, 1798, of " Zeriah Dike, daughter of James and 
Phebe Dike, aged 10 months and 5 days." This, was the first interment 
as far as can be ascertained of any white in Alleganj^ count3^ and it is quite 
safe to assert that Zeriah Dike enjoys the distinction also of being the first 
white child born in the county. 

So, with the few settlers whose names have been recited, and possibly as 
many more scattered about in settlements commenced in WeUsville, Almond, 
and Independence, the last century closes. Closes with religious services 
inaugurated, but not a school within the present limits of the county, but it 



Early Visitors — Extinction of the Indian Title. 45 

also closes with ominous forebodings which meant much to its grand old 
foi'ests. forebodings that the woodman's axe is soon to ring continuously in its 
valleys and on its hilltox^s. And so, as the index on the dial of the centuries 
points to IbOO. and the 19th century is dawning, the awful and oppressive 
stillness which lias hitherto pervaded the primitive woods of Allegany is 
broken, for, in the language of Alfred B. Street, often quoted but none the 
less appropriate, 

Through the deep wilderness, where scarce the sun 

Can cast his darts along the winding path, 

The Pioneer is treading ; in his grasp 

Is his keen axe, that wondrous instrument, 

That, like the talisman, transforms 

Deserts into fields and cities. He has left 

The home in which his early years were past. 

And, led by hope, and full of restless strength. 

Has plunged within the forest, there to plant 

His destiny. Beside some rapid stream. 

He rears his log-built cabin. When the chains 

Of winter fetter nature, and no sound 

Disturbs the echoes of the dreamy woods. 

Save when some stem cracks sharply with the frost, 

Then merrily rings his axe, and tree on tree 

Crashes to earth ; and when the long, keen night 

Mantles the wilderness in solemn gloom. 

He sits beside his ruddy hearth, and hears 

The fierce wolf snarling at the cabin door, 

Or through the lowly casement sees his eye 

Gleam like a burnkig coal. 



CHAPTER IX. 

EARLY VISITORS — EXTINCTION OF THE INDIAN TITLE. 

LTp to the American Revolution (1775-1783) our immediate territory was 
J known to only a very few venturesome explorers, whose restless 
natures and innate curiosity, coupled with a natural desire for speculation 
and love of adventure, with which they were highly endowed, impelled 
them to make the acquaintance of the country and its inhabitants. Jesuit 
missionaries, like LaSalle, and Hennepin, had also no doubt invaded its soli- 
tude, and the best of reasons exist for the supposition that the Rev. Samuel 
Kirkland had also visited the Caneadea villages, for he was a missionary 
among the Six Nations for a number of years previous to the Revolution, 
and " on January 16, 1765, he left the mission station at Johnson Hall on the 
Mohawk, in company with two Seneca Indians on a mission which embraced 
all the settlements of the Iroquois. They traveled upon snow-shoes, 
carrying a pack containing his provisions, some books, and a few articles of 



46 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

clothing, weighing in all about forty pounds." There is no doubt but that 
he visited the Caneadea villages on this mission. He had numerous ad- 
ventures with the Indians, but after a while "lived in great harmony, 
friendship and sociability " with them. Writing in March of one of those 
years when a sort of famine occurred (the corn had been short and the game 
was scarce), he said he had sold a shirt for four Indian cakes baked in the 
ashes which he could have devoured in one meal, but, on the score of pru- 
dence, he ate only one. ' ' He lived four days on ' ' white oak acorns fried in 
bear's grease." His suiferings and privations were as severe as any his 
Jesuit predecessors had endured. The discovery of a neatly-carved Jesuit 
cross on one of the timbers of the old Council House (which was more than 
twenty years ago removed from its site near the old Indian village of Can- 
eadea, by Hon. William P. Letchworth to his beautiful grounds at Glen Iris,) 
would seem to support the idea that it had either been done by a Jesuit, or 
by some Indians recently converted, or who had been made acquainted with 
the symbols of the ' ' true faith. " ' 

The territory embraced in the Caneadea Indian reservation, so remotely 
situated upon the ' ' upper Genesee, ' ' in contra-distinction to the ' ' lower 
Genesee country," was considerably remoA^ed from the scene of the depreda- 
tions of De Nonville's expedition, which invaded the lower Genesee country 
in 1689, but there is every reason to believe that it has been the scene of 
many a sanguinary conflict, not only long ago between aboriginal tribes, 
but also during the French and English controversy for the supremacy. 
The lower Genesee country was brought into very conspicuous notice by 
Sullivan's expedition against the Indians in 1779, and its settlement and 
occupation by the whites was no doubt much accelerated by that event. 

Some idea of the extent of production of the famous lower Genesee 
country can be learned from General Sullivan's report, wherein he says: 
"The quantity of corn destroyed, at a moderate computation, must amount 
to 160,000 bushels, with a vast quantity of vegetables of every kind. ^ ^ ^ 
and I am well persuaded that, except one town situated near the Allegany, 
about fifty-eight miles from the Chinesee (Genesee), there is not a single 
town left in the country of the Five Nations." The town Sullivan refers to 
must have been the Caneadea village, and it is no tax upon our credulity to 
suppose that the Indian population of this immediate neighborhood was pro- 
portionally as thrifty, and had comparatively as large corn fields and as 
great a variety of vegetables. 

Soon after the Revolution Robert Morris, the financier of that memor- 
able struggle, and the most potent individual ally that Washington had in 
the prosecution of the war, hearing the glowing accounts of those who had 
seen the famous "Genesee country," resolved to visit Western New York 
and see for himself if these accounts were true. He did so. and, after some- 
thing of an exploration, determined to make an extensive purchase. It is 
certain that he visited the site of Mt. Morris, and good authority says made 
the selection of what has since become famous as "Murray Hill," as his 



Early Visitors — Extinction of the Indian Title. 47 

future country seat. Whether this journey was made through the upper 
Genesee valley, or by way of the Conhocton and Dansville. the writer has 
failed to learn, but inclines to the opinion that the latter route was the one 
employed.* 

Negotiations were at once opened with the Commonwealth of Massa- 
chusetts, in which the pre-emptive right to purchase of the Indians had be- 
come vested by cession from the state of New York. 

Oliver Phelps, of Connecticut, had. for himself and others, begun 
negotiations in 1787, with a view to purchase a portion of the lands con- 
tained in this grant of pre-emption right ' ' from New York, and Nathaniel 
Gorham, about the same time, made an offer to the legislature of Massa- 
chusetts, of one shilling and six pence per acre for 1,000.000 acres of those 
lands, to be paid for in the public paper of the Commonwealth." This offer 
was not accepted, but had the effect of exciting public attention and to bring- 
other competitors into the field, who as fast as they appeared were taken 
into the association much after the manner of the modern "trust," ••com- 
bine" or ••syndicate," Messrs. Phelps and Gorham, having already united 
their interests and efforts. In April. 1788, Phelps & Gorham, acting for 
their company, purchased all the land comprised in the cession to Massa- 
chusetts for $1,000,000, payable in three years in the public paper of the 
state, which had become greatly depreciated. Phelps at once began opera- 
tions looking to the extinguishment of the Indian title, and was immediately 
confronted by another complication. He found that what was in common 
parlance called the "Lessee Company." had been formed, and had procured 
two leases from the Indians, covering a large portion of the territory just 
purchased by Phelps and his associates. Massachusetts promptly declared 
the leases void, and Governor Clinton commenced active operations against 
them, personally meeting the Indians in council, warning them of the in- 
validity of the leases, and taking evidence which established the fact that 
the leases had been procured by bribery and corrupt means. The influence 
however of the leasers and their agents with the Indians and others was so 
strong, at one time threatening to form a new state from the disputed terri- 
tory, at another time stirring up enmity and dissatisfaction among the Indi- 
ans, that finally the purchasers of the pre-emption right were forced to com- 
promise, and granted the lessees an interest in the property. Mr. Phelps 
then soon perfected arrangements for a treaty with the Indians which was 
opened on the 14th of July. 1788. at Buffalo Creek, which resulted in the 
Indians selling for i?5,000and an annuity of $500, about 2.600.000 acres lying 
adjacent to the Massachusetts pre-emption line. Meantime the scrip with 
which Phelps and Gorham and their associates had agreed to make pay- 
ment for the lands had so much appreciated in value, owing to the increased 
prospects of the state as a member of the Union, that they were unable to 

* I am aware that this may be questioned by some, and still I understand it is only claimed by the doubt- 
ers that he never set his foot upon the "Holland Purchase." Such a statement is easily reconciled with the 
fact of his visiting Mt. Morris, as that place is several miles east of the "' Holland Purchase." 






48 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

obtain it to meet their obligations, and suit was entered against them by 
Massachusetts. A compromise however was effected, by which they were 
allowed to retain the portion of the purchase to which they had extinguished 
the Indian title, re-conveying to Massachusetts the residue. This arrange- 
ment was the more easily perfected owing to the appearance of Mr. Morris 
with an offer to purchase these lands. 

On the 12th day of March, 1791, Massachusetts agreed to sell to Samuel 
Ogden, as agent for Robert Morris, all the lands before sold to Phelps and 
Gorham except the portion retained by them, and, on the 11th day of May, 
1791, the state conveyed to Morris, for a consideration of $225,000, the whole 
of this land by five separate deeds; the first tract adjoining the Phelps & 
Gorham purchase and comprising 500,000 acres. Massachusetts reserved 
in this conveyance one-sixtieth of the whole tract to satisfy a claim of John 
Butler, who had entered into a contract for the purchase of the same from 
Phelps and Gorham prior to their surrender of the lands back to Massa- 
chusetts, which interest Morris afterward purchased from Butler, thereby 
acquiring the entire title. This tract of 500,000 acres was retained by 
Morris, and sold by him in different tracts, and was called the "Morris 
Reserve." And so the reader can see how it came about that this tract so 
generally known as the "Morris Reserve " and so commonly referred to, 
covered two ranges of towns immediately east of the eastern "transit 
meridian," or eastern boundery of the HoUand Land Company's land. 

The land covered by the four other deeds, being 3,600,000 acres, was 
conveyed by as many separate conveyances, dated one December 4, 1792, 
one, February 27, 1793, and two on July 20. 1793. by Robert Morris to 
Herman Le Roy and others, as trustees for the Amsterdam capitalists, 
afterward so generally and favorably known as the Holland Land Company, 
of whom "Wilhelm Willink, was the largest owner, and Rutger Jan Schim- 
melpenninck bore the most conspicuous name. 

These conveyances all contained a covenant on the part of Mr. Morris 
to extinguish the Indian titles, and he at once set about the business. It 
was an undertaking of considerable proportions, and its accomplishment 
brought into requisition a high degree of skill, tact and diplomacy. Upon 
his son, Thomas Morris, devolved the task of procuring the consent of the 
Indians to hold a treaty. He proved an able lieutenant. He went into the 
heart of their country, followed their trails from the wigwam of one chief to 
that of another, and, after much difficulty and the most lavish use of all his 
persuasive arts, the Indians finally agreed to hold a conference and desig- 
nated Big Tree, now Geneseo, as the place where the council should be held. 
President Washington nominated Jeremiah Wadsworth as commissioner on 
the part of the United States, and the interested parties met in August, 1797, 
and negotiations began. Gen. William Shepard representing Massachusetts. 
A large tent was provided by Mr. Morris under which daily conferences 
took place. (This was the fact notwithstanding the popular tradition goes 
to the effect that the treaty was held under the umbrageous shade of a large 



Early Visitors — Extinction of the Indian Title. 49 

oak or elm.) William Bayard of New York represented the interests of the 
Holland Company, and Mr. Morris appeared through his agents, Thomas 
Morris and Colonel Williamson. Mr. Williamson's engagements were such as 
to call him away, so the whole responsibility of conducting the treaty devolved 
upon Thomas Morris. 

Great preparations had been made by Mr. Morris. A large herd of fat 
cattle had been sent on to furnish meat. Great numbers of Indians were 
present, attracted as much, perhaps, by the prospect of good cheer, as by a 
desire to consider the business in hand. After duly opening the council the 
commissioners offered their credentials, and explained the reason of their 
appointment; after which Mr. Morris presented in a speech of some length 
the object for which they had been convened. Representing the desire of 
his father to obtain by purchase a part, or all of their lands, and how much 
better it would be for them to dispose of aU, except what were actually 
needed for settlement, and place the money at interest, than to retain in 
their possession uncultivated wastes, whose only value to them could be 
such as were derived from the chase; and that this advantage would not be 
lost, for they could still use it for hunting the same as before, he concluded 
by offering them the sum of 5^100,000 for the entire tract which still remained 
to them in the state, allowing them such reservations as might be needed for 
actual use. 

After deliberating for some time the Indians returned an answer 
unfavorable to Mr. Morris, saying " they did not wish to part with any more 
of their land." Mr. Morris urged them to reconsider their answer, telling 
them they ought not to decide hastily, setting before them in different ways 
the favorable terms he had proposed. They again deliberated, and again 
they returned the same answer as before. Meetings and speeches suc- 
ceeded: Corn Planter, Little Billy, Parmer's Brother, Little Beard and Red 
Jacket, each taking a part in the discussion. Red Jacket assuming the chief 
burden of debate. Mr. Morris urged upon them the liberal sum he had 
offered for their lands. Red Jacket replied, "We are not yet convinced 
that it is best for us to dispose of our lands at any price." " But," replied 
Mr. Morris, " what value can they be 'to you as they now are, any farther 
than the consciousness that you own them '? " 

"Yes," said Red Jacket, "but this knowledge is everything to 
us. It raises us in our own estimation. It creates in our bosoms a 
proud feeling which elevates us as a nation. Observe the difference 
between the estimation in which a Seneca and an Oneida are held. We are 
courted, while the Oneidas are considered a degraded people. .A';' onlij to make 
brooms and baskets. Why this difference ? It is because the Senecas are 
known to be the proprietors of a broad domain, while the Oneidas are 
cooped up in a narrow space." 

"Ah," said Mr. Morris, "you presume too much in regard to the con- 
sequence of your nation. It is far from being as great as you suppose; and 
in proof of this let me refer you to the manner in which your deputation to 



50 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



the Miamis was received in 1793. TThough large, and composed of many of 
the first men of your nation, it had but httle influence. " "Very true," 
rephed Red Jacket, ''and ivky ? It was because we were in 6afZ cornpam/. 
We went with the pale faces. Had we gone alone, we should have been 
treated ivith the dignity lohich belongs to the Senecas throughout the world.'" 

While Red Jacket was still standing, some one interposed the remark, 
•'He's a coward." Turning around with a look of contempt, and in a tone 
and manner expressing the deepest sarcasm, he said, "Yes, I am a 
coward." And then, waving his hand over the broad and beautiful lands 
that were spread out before them, added: "Assure me that you can create 
lands like these, ivhich the Great Spirit has created for us, his red children, so that 
you can give us lands like them in return, and I ivill be brave; Until then I AM 

A COWARD, — I DARE NOT SELL THESE LANDS." 

The commissioners after listening to this talk began to consider the 
undertaking hopeless, and so urged Mr. Morris to use more decisive meas- 
. ures with them and bring them to terms one way or the other. Mr. Morris 
yielded to their sohcitations although contrary to his convictions, from his 
knowledge of the Indian character, as to its being the best method to pursue, 
^nd suggested to the Indians that they make him a proposition. After a 
brief consultation the Indians made him the offer of a single township on the 
line of Pennsylvania, at one dollar an acre, Red Jacket assuring him that 
lie could sell this at a sufficient advance to pay for the trouble and expense 
of the treaty. To this Mr. Morris would not agree, and told them if that 
was all they could offer they might as well return to their homes, as the 
sooner the conference was ended the better; upon which. Red Jacket sprang 
to his feet and said. "You have now come to the point to which I wished to 
bring you. You told us in your first address that even in the event of our 
not agreeing to sell our lands we would part friends. Here then is my 
hand." Mr. Morris taking his hand, he then added: "I now cover up the 
council fire." To all present but Thomas Morris the prospect of accom- 
phshing anything after this seemed quite hopeless; yet his hopes of success 
were so sanguine that he with some difficulty persuaded the commissioners 
to remain and give him the opportunity of a new trial. 

The next day after the council was thus abruptly broken up Farmer's 
Brother called on Mr. Morris, expressing much regret at what had trans- 
pired and the hope that it might not destroy his interest so obviously mani- 
fested for his nation. " Certainly not," said Mr. Morris, " you had a right 
to refuse to seU ycfar lands, but," he added, " the treatment he had received 
from his people at the close of the council, especially in allowing a drunken 
warrior to menace and insult him while they were yelling in approbation of 
his conduct, was uncalled for and ungenerous. He had not deserved this 
from them. For years they had had food at his house in Canandaigua, and 
liquor as much as was for their good, and whenever any of them had been at 
Philadelphia, his father had treated them with equal kindness and hospital- 
ity. " This was all acknowledged by Farmer's Brother, who much regretted 



Early Visitors — Extinction of the Indian Title. 51 

that the council fire had been so hastily extinguished. Had this not been 
done, they migiit have had another meeting to smooth over these difficulties. 
"With great tact Mr. Morris urged another ground of complaint. "Red 
Jacket," he said, " assumed the right of covering up the fire. This did not 
belong to him, for, according to your custom, he only who Idndles the fire has 
a right to cover it up." "That is so," said Farmer's Brother. "Then, as I 
did not cover up the council fire, it is still burning." After thinking a 
moment Farmer's Brother replied "yes," seemed pleased that it was so, 
and expressed a desire to have the council convene again. 

Mr. Morris intimated that he would like a delay of a few days to give 
him time to look over his accounts, pay for the provisions that had been con- 
sumed, coUect his cattle that had not been slaughtered, and arrange matters 
preparatory to leaving the treaty ground. He had acquainted himself so 
well with Indian customs that he had resolved to resort to another expedi- 
ent, after failing in his negotiations with the sachems. Among the Indians 
a rule prevails that their sachems shall have a right to transact whatever 
business belongs to their nation, whether relating to their lands or anything 
else. But, in transactions pertaining to lands, if their course is not satis- 
factory to the women and warriors, they have a right to terminate the pro- 
ceedings and assume the management themselves. The reason they give for 
this rule is that the land belongs to the warriors because they are the defense 
and strength of the nation, and to the women, because they are the mothers 
of the warriors. They recognize, therefore, "head" or "chief" women, 
whose privilege it is to select a speaker to represent their views. 

So Mr. Morris determined to refer his proposition to the chief women 
and warriors, and accordingly sought and obtained such a meeting. Then 
he made known to them his business, told them what a liberal offer he had 
made to their sachems, portrayed in glowing terms the advantages which 
would accrue from the annuity so large a sum would bring — how much food 
and clothing it would furnish them, thus relieving them of anxiety and toil 
and many hardships they now had to endure — that the sachems who were 
unwilling to sell the land always had enough to supply their wants; that they 
could kill game and feast on the meat, and go to the settlements and seU the 
skins and buy them clothing, and so did not care to sell their land for money 
which would enable the women to obtain for themselves and children food 
and clothing, whereas they were now often compelled to go hungry and 
naked. By accepting his proposition they would have the means of supply- 
ing their wants, and making themselves comfortable and happy. He dis- 
played before them a great array of beads, blankets, silver brooches, and 
various other ornaments of which he knew them to be particularly fond, 
and said he had brought them with him with the design of making them 
presents in the event of a successful treaty, but he had made up his mind 
that, as the women were not to blame for the breaking off of the negotiations, 
they should have the presents just the same as though his offer had been 
accepted. He then proceeded to distribute among sparkling eyes and joy- 



52 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

ful hearts the beautiful presents he had brought. These gifts ]3roved. a 
most powerful addition to his arguments, and were the means of a favorable 
turn to their counsels. 

For several days after this the chiefs, women and warriors could be 
seen scattered about here and there in small parties earnestly engaged in 
conversation which resulted in a renewal of negotiations. After a little Mr. 
Morris was informed that their council-fire was still burning, but after this 
would be conducted by the women and warriors. 

Cornplanter, being the principal war chief, appeared on this occasion 
in behalf of the warriors and women. In his opening speech he said, " They 
had seen with regret the misconduct of the sachems, they also thought Mr. 
Morris was too hasty; but still they were willing the negotiations should be 
renewed, and hoped they would be conducted with better temper on both 
sides." Mr. Morris offered a few remarks of a conciliatory nature, and 
Farmer's Brother spoke for the sachems, saying that these^ proceedings 
were in accordance with the customs of the nation. And so negotiations 
w^ere renewed and prosecuted to a successful termination. The Indians 
consented to sell- -their lands for the sum proposed, ^100,000, leaving their 
reservation to be settled as they could agree. It was agreed or provided 
that the |100,000 should be vested in stock of the Bank of the United 
States by Mr. Morris, and held by the President of the United States as a 
trustee for the use and behoof of the said (Seneca) nation of- Indians. 

This treaty, from the magnitude of its effect upon a large percentage 
of the territory of Allegany county, and in consideration of its importance 
in some other respects, really marks an epoch in Western New York and 
AUegany history, and for that reason we introduce the essential part of the 
conveyance by which the Indians parted with the title to that portion of 
New York embraced within the limits of the HoUand Company's Purchase, 
excepting of course the reservations. After the usual preliminaries, such 
as naming the parties and stating the consideration, it proceeds thus: 

" Now THIS INDENTURE WITNESSETH, that the Said party of the first part, for and in consideration of 
the premises above recited, and for divers other good and valuable considerations, them thereunto moving, 
have granted, bargained, sold, aliened, released, enfeoffed, and confirmed, and by these presents do grant, 
bargain, sell alien, release, enfeoff and confirm unto the said party of the second part, his heirs and assigns for- 
ever, all that certain tract of land, except as hereinafter excepted, lying within the county of Ontario, and 
state of New York, * * * bounded as follows : East by the land confirmed to Oliver Phelps and Nathan- 
iel Gorham, * * * southerly by the north boundary line of the state of Pennsylvania, v/esterly partly by 
a tract of land ; part of the land ceded by the state of Massachusetts to the United States and by them sold to 
Pennsylvania, being a rightangled triangle, whose hypothenuse is in or along the shore of Lake Erie ; from 
the northern point of that triangle to the southernmost bounds of a tract of land one mile in width, lying on 
and along the east side of the strait of Niagara, and partly by the said tract to Lake Ontario ; and on the north 
by the boundary line between the United States and the King of Great Britain, excepting nevertheless, and 
always reserving out of this grant and conveyance, one piece or parcel of the aforesaid tract at Canawaugus, 
(Avon) of two square miles, * * * one at Big Tree, (Geneseo), of two square miles, to be Little Beards 
Town, * * * one other tract of two square miles at Squaky Hill, * * * one other parcel at Gardeau, 
* * * one other piece or parcel at Ka-oun-a-de-au (Caneadea reservation), extending in length eight miles 
along the river, and two miles in breadth, * * * one at Cattaraugus, also one of forty-two square milss, 
at or near the Alleghany river, also two hundred square miles partly at the Tonawauk (Tonawanda) creek, 
also excepting and reserving to them the said parties of the first part and their heirs, the privilege of fishings 



Early Visitors — Extinction of the Indian Title. 53 

and hunting on the said tract of land hereby intended to be conveyed. And it is hereby understood by and 
between the parties to these presents that all such parcels of land as are hereby reserved-, * * * shall be 
laid off in such manner as shall be determined by the sachems and chiefs residing at, or near the respective 
villages where such reservations are." 

There were present on the occasion of this treaty besides the commis- 
sioners ah-eady named, Nath. W. Howell, Joseph Ellicott, Israel Chapin, 
James Rees, Henry Aaron Hills, and Henry Abeel. Jasper Parish and Hora- 
tio Jones were present as interpreters. The names of fifty-tw^o sachems, 
chiefs, and warriors were appended to the deed of conveyance. A few of 
them are here given. Koy-eng-giieh-teU, alias Young King; Koiv-u-ta-no, 
alias Handsome Lake; Sat-ta-kan-gu-yase, alias Too Skies of a length; On-a- 
ya-ivas, alias Farmer's Brother; Soo-goo-ya-ivaw-taw, alias Red Jacket; Gish- 
ka-ka, alias Little Billy; Ow-nea-sJiat-ai-kai, alias Tall Chief; On-nong-gaih- 
e-ko, alias Infant; Koe-en-tivah-ka, alias Corn Planter; Qo-sau-kaw-new-daio- 
ki, alias Destroy Town; Soor-oo-wan, alias Pond Nose; She-gum-daugh-gue, 
alias Little Beard; To-no-iuan-i-i/a, alias Capt. BuUett; Ah-gua-tie-ya, alias 
Hot Brand; Haw-fua-nowe-wo-am, by Young King; Ka-on-ya-naug7i-gu, alias 
John Jemison. Robert Morris signed by his attorney, Thomas Morris, and 
the entire transaction was certified by Jeremiah Wadsworth on the part of 
the United States and William Shepard on the part of Massachsetts, the 
preliminary papers having been approved by John Hancock, governor of 
the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. 

The simplicity of the Indian character had a fresh illustration in the 
eagerness with which they desired to know about a bank; the President hav- 
ing directed that the money they received for their lands, in case they were 
sold, should be invested for their benefit in stock of the "United States 
Bank " in the name of the President and his successors in office as trustees 
of the Indians, and they earnestly inquired "What is a bank?" It was 
explained to them so that they came to understand that the United States 
Bank at Philadelphia was a large place where their money would be planted, 
and where it would grow, like corn in the field. They were also made to 
understand that the dividends from it might be greater some years than 
others. This was explained by referring to planting, as they knew from 
experience that some years they would have from the same ground a better 
crop than others. After this when speaking to Mr. Morris about their 
money they would inquire " What kind of a crojj they ivere going to have that 
year?'' They were also interested in ascertaining how large a pile the 
money they were to receive would make? This was explained by telling 
them how many kegs of a certain size it would take to hold it, and the num- 
ber of horses it would take to draw it. 

The agreement as to number and size of the several reservations was 
reached after a good deal of debate and controversy. Instead of moder- 
ate very exorbitant claims were presented, growing out of rivalry between 
different chiefs. Their comparative importance would be graduated by the 
size of their domain, and the number of people they would thus be enabled 



54 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

to have about them; hence they were individually ambitious of not being- 
outdone in the size of their reservations. Red Jacket put in a claim to about 
one-fourth of the entire tract sold. Cornplanter wanted about the same 
amount, and other chiefs were ambitious of securing extensive reservations; 
and they wished them marked out by natural boundaries, such as rivers, 
hills, or the course of streams. Mr. Morris gave a resolute denial to these 
demands, requiring them to fix upon a certain number of square miles, which 
should not be far from 350 in the aggregate. The difficulty of settling upon 
the size of their respective aUotments was a source of a great deal of per- 
plexity, and finally Mr. Morris was requested to assume the office of arbiter 
and decide for them, which he accomplished generally to their satisfaction. 

In this account of the treaty of Big Tree, 1797, I have drawn largely 
from J. Niles Hubbard's " Red Jacket and his People, " and have been favored 
by Geo. W. Harding, Esq., v/ith access to valuable papers, which he some 
years since procured and collected to use in an important suit involving the 
title to certain lands upon the Caneadea reservation. For various reasons 
the council at Big Tree was one of the most notable convocations of Indians 
ever held, and in point of numbers was largely attended, while the stand- 
ing and influence of such men as Red Jacket. Cornplanter, Farmer's Brother 
and Little Beard, assigned to it an importance second to none of the memo- 
rable conferences which have been held with the Indians of our state and 
immediate vicinity. And then the result, clearing the title to such a vast 
area of fertile and highly desirable land, of itself alone places it in the list of 
important treaties, and will, it is trusted, be ample reason for devoting so 
much space to it in this history. 



CHAPTER X. 

EARLY SURVEY AND SURVEYORS. 



AFTER the treaty of 1797 had been concluded, the first step, preparatory 
to bringing the lands into market, was the running of boundarj^ lines, 
laying out the several reservations, surveying the township lines, and sub- 
dividing the several townships into lots, and the work was prosecuted in the 
order named. The Transit Meridian, or eastern boundary line of the Holland 
Company's purchase, was run in the summer of 1798 by Joseph and Ben- 
jamin Ellicott, with an instrument made expressly for the purpose by Ben- 
jamin Ellicott and the famous German instrument maker, David Rittenhouse, 
of Philadeli:>hia, to which place Benjamin repaired for that purpose. It was 
a large and cumbersome affair, and I believe was never afterward much 
employed. It, or rather such parts of it as are left, is now in the rooms of 



Early Survey and Surveyors. 55 

the Buffalo Historical Society, where it was placed a few years ago by the 
late David E. E. Mix, of Batavia; a very wise and thoughtful disposition of 
an interesting historic instrument. The strange thing about it is that so 
many of the parts should disappear ! There must have been quite a number 
in this surveying party of the EUicotts, for it was an enterprise which 
involved considerable work, and together with the surveyors and their 
assistants sent out upon the different township lines, must have been the 
cause of considerable astonishment on the part of the natives. Besides the 
EUicotts, the names of thirteen other surveyors are given by Turner, which 
list includes Augustus Porter, but no mention is made of Wm. Peacock, who 
surveyed T. 6. R. 1. (Hume) nor Alexander Rhea who surveyed T. 5. R. 1. 
(Caneadea.) Some idea of the magnitude of these operations may be inferred 
from the fact that Mr. Ellicott " contracted with Thomas Morris, to deliver 
on the Genesee river, or the shore of Lake Ontario near the mouth of that 
river, 100 barrels of pork, 15 barrels of beef, and 270 barrels of flour, for the 
supply of the surveyors, and their assistants the ensuing season," and at 
the request of the Agent General, made a list of articles to be provided for 
the next season's campaign, consisting of a diversity of articles, "from 
pack-horses to horse shoes, nails and gimlets, from tents to towels, barley 
and rice to chocolate, coffee and tea, and from camp kettles to teacups, esti- 
mated to amount to $7,213.33." "This statement however did not include 
medicine or wine, spirits, loaf sugar, etc., for headquarters." He also 
calculated the wages of surveyors and other hands for the next six months, 
at $19,830. Augustus Porter represented the interests of Mr. Morris in the 
survey and establishment of the boundary lines. Mr. Ellicott and his sur- 
veyors and assistants having arrived on the ground, the first work was to 
establish the southeast corner of the Purchase. The Pennsylvania line was. 
accurately measured from the southwest corner of Phelps and Gor ham's; 
purchase, or the 82d milestone, twelve miles west, and there they erected a 
stone monument for such corner. The whole company was then divided 
into parties to prosecute the undertaking to advantage. The principal 
surveyor, Joseph EUicott, assisted by Benjamin Ellicott, one other surveyor, 
and the requisite number of hands, undertook the running of the eastern 
boundary line, while the other surveyors, each with his corps of assistants, 
were detailed to run the different township lines. 

Thus prepared with a suitable instrument, Mr. Ellicott and his brother, 
with their party, established a true meridian line north from the corner 
monument, by astronomical observations at different stations, to guard 
against accidental variations. The progress in running this line was slow; 
it could not be otherwise, as a great amount of labor was involved in clearing 
the vista, which was made three or four rods wide on all the prominent 
elevations, and great care was exercised in all the observations, which ren- 
dered anything like haste an experiment too hazardous to be permitted. 
June 12th the party on this line had advanced so far north that they estab- 
lished their store house at Williamsburg, about three miles south of Geneseo, 



56 History of Allegany County. N. Y. 

to which place they had poled their supplies up the Genesee river in flat 
boats. On the 22d day of November following, eighty-one and one-half miles 
of the line was established, but the precise date of its completion I have not 
been able to ascertain. This line, which defined the west bounds of the 
Church Tract, passed through the Cottringer, Ogden and Cragie tracts 
about two miles from their west boundaries, as described in the conveyances 
from Robert Morris. However as their titles were of later date than the 
conveyance to the Holland Company, no deviation from the established 
meridian was made. The location of the Ogden and Cottringer tracts being 
moved two miles to the east, the other tracts were reduced in area by the 
amount lying west of this line. In the same year (1798) Augustus Porter 
came to survey the boundary lines of the reservations made by the Indians 
at the treaty of 1797. His notes of the survey of the Caneadea reservation 
bear date Sept. 3, 1798. George Burgess is reported to have been with the 
party establishing the Transit meridian, but could not have been with them 
all the time for his "Traverse of the Genesee river, beginning at an Elm on 
the Kananscraugas, and ending at the Pennsylvania line," is dated 1798 and 
must have taken considerable time. 

" September 7, 1810, On this instant commenced surveying the land 
belonging to John Barker Church, Esquire, situated in the county of Alle- 
gany, State of New York. Beginning at a pine stake standing on the Transit 
line, and marked on the south side with the letters John B. Church " were 
the words with which the gallant Major Moses Van Campen began his notes 
of the subdivision of the Church Tract. The business was of course prose- 
cuted with dispatch but no mention is made of the date of completion. 
Probably it was finished in 1811. This was a very important work as it pre- 
pared for market 100,000 acres in the heart of Allegany. The most exhaus- 
tive inquiry has failed to reveal the names of his assistants. Tradition says 
that his favorite axeman was a half-breed Indian, but his name is lost. It is 
said however that he was a remarkable man for the business. Tall, strong, 
of quick motion and quick to perceive, he knew just what and how much to 
cut, and was a valuable helper. Major Van Campen's notes are in possession 
of Major Richard Church, who some years ago offered them to the board of 
supervisors, if they would preserve them, or have them faithfully copied. 
An offer which the board for some reason (it can hardly be said reason for 
there is no reason in it) refused to accept. Major Church has withdrawn 
his offer, but it is hoped he may yet make some disposition which will make 
them available to the public, for they are very valuable, and, under a special 
act of the Legislature passed a few years ago, they may be authenticated 
and certified by a justice of the Supreme Court, so as to be conclusive 
evidence in court. 

Elisha Johnson's Survey of the Cottringer Tract. In the spring of 1807 
Elisha Johnson, then a young man, came with his ijarty to subdivide the 
"Cottringer Tract," then lately purchased by John Greig and others, and 
as 'all the northern part of Granger and the northeastern part of the town of 



Early Survey and Surveyors. 57 

Hume is included ia that tract it is but fair to make mention of it. From 
Mr. Johnson's report to "John Greig and gentlemen concerned in the pur- 
chase of the Cottringer Tract " it appears that his first work was to re-sur- 
vey, and establish the boundary lines, which for a part of the way were not 
sufficiently distinct, and for the purpose of settling the matter of an encroach- 
ment on the part of the Church Tract adjoining it on the south. In his 
preliminary remarks Mr. Johnson mentions a road from " Mt. Morris to 
Caniodea (another spelling for Caneadea) where wagons pass, but the road is 
very crooked and otherwise wants improvement." Regarding the advan- 
tages oifered for settlement, he says: "The last season (1806) there was a 
sawmill erected on the Wiscoy Creek, about three miles from its junction 
with the Genesee river, and is now in operation, and are there making pro- 
vision for putting a gristmill in operation next season, which will accommo- 
date the south part of the tract. " The strange thing about this is that no 
sawmill was built there until 1828, and the gristmill was put up in 1829. 
Was Mr. Johnson wrongly informed, or was this an advertising scheme to 
induce people to settle '? 

As to health, etc,, I will quote Mr. Johnson, verbatim et literathn et 
capitalatim (Mr. J. was profuse in the use of capitals): "As the altitude. 
Purity of the Air, Sweet Softness of the water, are the Governing influences 
as it Relates to Health, incline me to conclude that this tract is healthy ex- 
cept the Valley along the Genesee River, which is known and considered as 
producing many diseases, which must be attributed to the water of the 
river, and the Depth of the Valley, being such, that the Rays of the Sun, 
act very Powerful on the flats and water, which necessarily produce copious 
exhalations, and the Air becoming so rarified The dew coming on at an 
Hours Sun, so that Herbage on the flats is very wet with dew at Sunset, 
while on the Hills it remains dry. Fogs here are common in the warm 
season, at Night and Morning. Some Peculiar Property Exists in the 
Valley, that Causes many of the Natives and White inhabitants to have 
Swelled throats. I think However, when the land is more Cleared, which 
will cause a inore free circulation of Air, some of the stagnant waters 
drained, and having the flats present fields of Grass in Place of the Present 
Luxuriant Growth of Natural Vegetation, these Complaints will not be so 
common." Mr. Johnson makes mention of there being " Seven Families of 
Indians, who Improved forty acres of the open Flats, and had enclosed the 
residue." This was at the lower Caneadea village. He speaks of a number 
of squatters, who had preceded him, as N. Dixon on lot 108 and James Smith 
on lot 113, and says, " It being requested of me to apprize their Betterments, 
I have considered their Value to a Purchaser, and not the Value of the Ex- 
pense. It will probably be your duty, if they are worth the sums apprized 
to as to purchasers, to cause the monies paid to the different Possessors, if 
they do not purchase themselves. But I should not think it a duty in- 
cumbent on you, to suffer many of these inhabitants, if any, to remain in 
their respective possessions, after the Lands are offered for sale, if they do 



58 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

not purchase, as it would iiaturciUy impede the settling of these lands by 
enterprising men; they very naturally not wishing to associate with such 
neighbors, and the prospect of good society, schools, etc., would wear an 
unfavorable aspect. Relating to his search of minerals, etc.. he says: "And 
also could not find any of the Lime, Granite, Free or Grit Rock, but was in- 
formed that there was an excellent quarry of Grit Stone on the ' Caneodeo ' 
(another rendering) Reservation, of which I saw specimens, and makes ex- 
cellent Grind Stones, and used by the inhabitants of this part of the country, " 
which was somewhat erroneous; the quarry was without doubt on the 
Caneadea Creek quite a distance south of the reservation. 

The reader I am sure will pardon me for making just a little invasion of 
the town of Genesee Falls, which for years was a part of Allegany, to quote 
an interesting historical fact not very generally known. Quoting still from 
Mr. Johnson's report, "It is known to you Probable, that this Tract is 
Nondon Tract; or so called by the Inhabitants Living in its Neighborhood. 
This was the ancient Indian Name for a Large Village of Indians that Lived 
during the last war (the Revolution) in lots 105 and 107, it being a place 
where many of the American Captives were Taken. On lot 107 is a Small 
Hill which presents an Ancient fortification, by whom or when done is not 
known to the oldest Indians on the tract." This is what is known as "Fort 
Hill ' ' on the Dunn and Mills place. No traverse of the river is found or even 
alluded to in Mr. Johnson's notes. 

The allotment of Alfred was made in 1795 by one John Smith in the em- 
ploy it is presumed of Phelps and Gorham, and it is doubtful if the sub- 
division of any other town in our county preceded it. Moses Van Campen 
subdivided Independence in 1815. The Patterson Tract, part of townships 
one and two, range two Morris Reserve, was surveyed by Van Campen in 
1817. In 1818 he surveyed the Cazenove Tract (West Almond). The Bond 
Tract (Ward), was subdivided in 1822 by Daniel McHenry, and the Willing 
and Francis Tract, comprising Willing, part of Wellsville and part of Ando- 
ver, was surveyed into lots by John M. Wilson in 1823. In 1825 L. G 
Shepard* subdivided the Dickey Tract in Grove. 

After the subdivisions were made and the lands came to be sold, the 
services of the surveyor were in frequent demand, and this was met by 
local talent in almost every neighborhood; indeed surveyors sprang up as if 
by magic, some good ones, others not so good, a few, perhaps, adventurers 
and charlatans. Their work, compared with that the surveyors of the 
present day have to perform, might be said, to use a modern (?) colloquialism 
to be a "pic-nic." The lines they had to follow were freshly marked, the 
corners (or at least the "corner trees"), still standing, the facilities were 
good, and the work was rapidly done. The pioneer surveyor's equipment 
was generally very plain, a light open-sighted compass, in some instances 
with no levels upon the plate, in others with but one. In a few instances 

*An extended notice of the subdivision of the Caneadea Indian Reservation by Joseph Jones, the Quaker 
surveyor, is made in the history of Hume. 



Early Survey and Surveyors. 59 

two levels were attached. It is averred that one of the early Southern Alle- 
gany surveyors, used a compass the graduations of which were made on a 
circle described on a sole-leather face, and a surveyor in the northwestern 
part of the county, from his using a compass some part of which was made 
of wood, was commonly called " the wooden compass surveyor." 

In looking over the records in the different town clerks' offices one 
frequently stumbles upon crude and elastic descriptions. " Beginning at a 
pine stump from a quarter to a half mile distant from the red tavern," is the 
way a certain road survey in Hume commences; an important road too! 
Many such descriptions are to be found. The compasses were all used upon 
a Jacob-staff, which made a good stout cane for the surveyor when going 
from one station to another, and the chains, (the best they had) were made 
of coarse iron wire. But the pioneer surveyor did his work as he must. 
He ran his lines, stuck his stakes, established his corners, and — died; and 
while his body returned to the dust from whence it came, and his spirit to 
God who gave it, his stakes rotted away, his corners disappeared, and, now, 
in most instances, the blazed trees which marked his lines are gone, and the 
surveyor of to-day is frequently caUed upon to retrace and restore those 
lines and re-establish those corners. This, all things considered, is the 
most difficult task in the whole practice of surveying. 

Here are the names of a few of the many surveyors of pioneer days. 
Joseph and Benjamin Ellicott, Augustus Porter, George Burgess, Moses 
Van Campen, Elisha Johnson, William Peacock, Joseph Jones, John Smith, 
Daniel McHenry, John M. Wilson, and L. G. Shepard were all employed 
upon tract, township or subdivision work, as were others whose names I do 
not know. Then came Nicholas Van Wiclde, Samuel Van Wickle, Alvin 
Burr. James Reed, Jonathan Rogers, Samuel Jones, Samuel Liver more, 
Asa Morse. Simeon Capron. Christopher Hurlbut, Samuel White. Russell 
Burlingame, Wait Arnold, Asa Lee Davidson, Henry W. Tracy, Hiram 
Draper, Wittel Larabee, Charles Collins, James P. Rounsville, Henry C. 
Jones, Seth Wetmore, and — , but the list must close, with many more un- 
named than named. Peace to their ashes! 



CHAPTER XI. 



ROBERT MORRIS. 



ROBERT MORRIS, at one time the proprietor of all of Western New York 
west of Phelps' andGorham's Purchase, thus becoming identified with 
the territory of Allegany county, and the source of all its land titles, was a 
prominent figure, and potential character, during the Revolutionary period. 
He was born in Lancashire, England, January 20, 1734. In 1745 his father 



60 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



emigrated to America, settling at Port Tobacco in Maryland, where he en- 
gaged quite extensively in the tobacco trade. He met his death in a very 
singular manner, while Robert was yet a youth. A ship from some foreign 
port was consigned to him. The custom then was to fire a gun when the 
consignee came on board. Mr. Morris had a presentiment that the cere- 
mony might prove fatal to him, and requested that it be dispensed with, and 
the captain so ordered, but a sailor, desiring to honor Mr. Morris and sup- 
posing the omission accidental, seized a match and fired the gun as Mr. Mor- 
ris was leaving the ship. A portion of the wadding fractured his arm, 
mortification ensued and death resulted. 

When Robert Morris was thirteen he was placed in the counting house 
of Charles Willing, a leading merchant of Philadelphia, and by 1754 showed 
so much proficiency in mercantile afl:airs as to recommend him to a partner- 
ship with a son of his employer. This firm continued in business until 1793, 
and at the beginning of the Revolution was the largest commercial house in 
Philadelphia, and when the first difficulties occurred between the colonies 
and the mother country, although he was to be seriously affecced thereby, 
he was one of the i^atriotic merchants of Philadelphia who signed the non- 
importation agreement, which restricted commercial intercourse with Great 
Britain to the bare necessaries of life. He also opposed the stamp act. He 
was elected a delegate to the Congress of 1775, and served on the military 
and naval committees. On July 1, 1776, his vote was recorded against the 
Declaration of Independence, and on the 4th he declined to vote at all, assign- 
ing as a reason that it was premature and inappropriate but the measure 
having been adopted he signed it. When the news of the battle of Lexing- 
ton reached Philadelphia, it found him j^residing at a dinner on the anniver- 
sary of St. George. He joined with a majority of the company in putting a 
sudden stop to the celebration in honor of an English saint, and helped to 
upset the tables that had been spread. A few days after the battle of Tren- 
ton it became a matter of great importance and no little concern to the com- 
mander-in-chief to obtain a sufficient sum of money in specie to use in keep- 
ing himself well advised as to the movements of the enemy. Applying to 
Mr. Morris for that purpose he received this answer: 

Philadelphia, Dec. 30, 1776. 
Sir, — I have just received your favor of to-day, and sent to Gen. Putnam to detain the 
express until I collected the hard money for you, which you may depend shall be sent in one 
specie or other, with this letter and a list thereof shall be enclosed herein. I had long since 
parted with considerable sums of hard money to Congress, and therefore must collect from 
others, and, as matters now stand, it is no very easy thing. I mean to borrow silver and prom- 
ise payment in gold, and then collect the gold the best way I can. Whilst on this subject, let 
me inform you that there is upwards of twenty thousand dollars of silver at Ticonderoga. 
They have no particular use for it, and I think you might as well send a party to bring it away, 
and lodge it in some safe place convenient for any purpose for which it may hereafter be wanted. 
Whatever I can do shall be done for the good of the cause. 

I am, Sir, yours, etc., 

Robert Morris. 



Robert Morris. 61 



When in December, 1777, Washington had for the second time recrossed 
the Delaware, the time of service of nearly aU the eastern troops had expired. 
To induce them to engage for another six weeks he offered a bounty of ten 
dollars each and applied to Mr. Morris: for the funds. The money was 
forthcoming, and accompanied with a letter in which he congratulated the 
commander-in-chief upon his success in retaining the men, and assured him 
that "if farther occasional supplies of money are w^anted, you may depend 
upon my exertions either in a public or private capacity. ' ' 

With Benjamin Franklin and others Mr. Morris was in March, 1777. 
chosen to represent the assembly of Pennsylvania in Congress; and the next 
November was associated with Mr. Gerry and Mr. Jones as a commission 
to repair to the army for a confidential consultation with the commander-in- 
chief upon the best plan for the conduct of the winter campaign. In August, 
1778, he was appointed a member of the standing committee on finance. 
The years 1778-79 were the most distressing time of the war, and in the 
attending emergencies, Mr. Morris not only advanced his money freely, but 
he also put in requisition an almost unlimited credit. During a period of 
nearly hopeless despair, Mr. Morris in addition to money and credit fur- 
nished several thousand barrels of Hour to the famishing armies. This aid 
came very timely, as it was being seriously contemplated to authorize the 
seizure of provisions wherever found, a measure which would have been 
unpopular with aU sections of the country and might have turned the tide 
of popular feeling, then flowing so strongly in favor of the Revolution. The 
public records show many transactions similar to those just related. Gen- 
erals of divisions as well as the commander-in-chief turned to Mr. Morris 
as a last resort when money and provisions were wanted. To his large pri- 
vate means and credit were added financial abilities of the highest order, 
and when no other resource seemed available he would fairly compel others 
to use money and credit for the colonial cause. 

With him in financial negotiations to will a thing was to do it. So he 
was appointed by the Continental Congress "Financier," or what we now 
term Secretary of the Treasury, and perhaps in no country was ever a 
finance minister placed in charge of a treasury whose condition was w^orse. 
Not a dollar in it, and a debt of $2,500,000 staring him in the face. To this 
duty of financiering for Congress and the country and its cause was Mr. 
Morris caUed in such a terrible serious crisis. When apprised of his 
appointment to this important office he said: "In accepting this office I 
sacrifice much of my interest, my ease, my domestic enjoyment, and inter- 
nal tranquillity. If I know my own heart, I make these sacrifices with a dis- 
interested view to the service of my country. I am willing to go further. 
The United States may command anything I have except my integrity, 
and the loss of that would disable me from serving them more." 

He began his official career by establishing confidence and restoring 
credit. Among the financial expedients to which he resorted was the estab- 
lishment of the Bank of North America. Bonds signed by wealthy Individ- 



62 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

uals were given as collateral security for the performance of the engage- 
ments of the institution, and he headed the list with a subscription of £10,- 
000. At a time of the gloomiest depression Mr. Morris interviewed Gen. 
"Washington. The subject of an attack on New York was broached. To this 
Mr. Morris dissented, claiming that it would be too great a sacrifice of men 
and money, that its success was quite doubtful, that even if successfvil it 
would be barren of results as the enemy having command of the sea could 
again land fresh troops and retake it. Conceding these objections Washing- 
ton said: "What am I to do? The country calls for action, and moreover 
the army cannot be kept together unless some bold enterprise is undertaken. " 
Mr. Morris replied, "Why not lead your forces to Yorktown? there Corn- 
wallis may be hemmed in by the French fleet by sea, and the American and 
French armies by land, and will ultimately be compelled to surrender? " 
"Lead my troops to Yorktown ! " said Washington, appearing surprised at 
the suggestion. "And how am I to get them there? One of my difficulties about 
attacking New York arises from want of funds to transport them thither; 
how then can I muster the means required to enable them to march to 
Yorktown? " " You must look to me for funds, " rejoined Mr. Morris. " And 
how are you to provide for them?" said Washington. "That" said Mr. 
Morris " I am unable at this time to tell you, but I will answer with my head 
that if you will put your army in motion I will supply the means of their 
reaching Yorktown." After a few moments reflection Washington said: 
"On this assurance of yours, such is my confidence in your ability to per- 
form any engagement you make, I will adopt your suggestion." 

The army soon arrived at Philadelphia, and Mr. Morris experienced 
considerable difficulty in furnishing the promised supplies. At last he hit 
upon the idea of borrowing twenty thousand crowns from Chevalier de 
Luzern, the French minister. The Chevalier objected that he had only 
funds enough to pay the French troops, and could not comply unless two 
expected vessels loaded with specie arrived from France. About the time 
the troops were at Elk, preparing to march on Yorktown, the ships arrived, 
the money was received and especial pains taken to parade the specie in open 
kegs before the army. The men were at once paid and cheerfully 
embarked on the expedition which resulted in the crowning triumph of the 
Revolution. 

John Hancock in one of his letters to Mr. Morris during a severe crisis 
says: "I know however you will put things in a proper way; all things 
depend upon you, and you have my hearty thanks for your unremitting 
labor." Gen. Charles Lee, in a letter addressed to Mr. Morris when he 
assumed the duties of secretary of an empty treasury, wrote " It is an office 
I can not wish you joy of; the labor is more than- herculean; the filth of that 
Augean stable is in my opinion too great to be cleared away, even by your 
skill and industry." Paul Jones appointed Mr. Morris his executor, and as 
a token of his high esteem bequeathed to him the sword he had received 
from the king of France. Mr. Morris presented it to Commodore Barry, 



Robert Morris. " 63 



with a request that it should fah successively into the hands of the oldest 
commodore of the American navy. 

In a book of travels written by the Marquis de Chastellux, who was in 
the United States from 1780 to 1782, a major general of the French army 
serving under the Count de Rochambeau. he writes of Mr. Morris, after 
visiting him at his home in Philadelphia, "He was a very rich merchant and 
consequently a man of every country, for commerce bears everywhere the 
same character. Under monarchies it is free; it is an egotist in republics; 
a stranger, or, if you will, a citizen of the universe it excludes alike the virtues 
and the prejudices that stand in the way of its interests. It is scarcely to 
be credited that amidst the disasters of America Mr. Morris, the inhabitant 
of a town just emancipated from the hands of the English, should possess a 
fortune of $8,000,000. It is however in the most critical times that the 
greatest fortunes are acquired. The fortunate return of several ships, the 
still more successful cruises of his privateers have increased his riches 
beyond his expectations if not beyond his wishes. He is in fact so accus- 
tomed to the success of his privateers that when he is observed on Sunday 
to be more serious than usual the conclusion is that no prize has arrived the 
preceding week. * * * Mr. Morris is a large man, very simple in his 
manners; his mind is subtle and acute, his head perfectly well-organized, and 
he is as well versed in public affairs as in his own. * * * He lives with- 
out ostentation but not without expense, for he spares nothing which can 
contribute to his happiness and that of Mrs. Morris to whom he is much 
attached." Quite likely this account of the wealth of Mr. Morris, is not 
exaggerated. The translator of a London edition of the above work speaks 
of the great money-making facilities which Mr. Morris enjoyed, his relations 
being such as to enable him to obtain special permits to ship cargoes of flour, 
etc., in a time of general embargoes. At one period, says the translator, he 
circulated his private notes throughout the country as cash. So the close of 
the Revolution must have left him in the possession of wealth far exceeding 
that of any other citizen of the new republic. 

With the return of peace the energies of the i^eople were directed into 
other channels. The somewhat congested population along the seaboard 
became restive and sought opportunities for exj)ansion. This led to the 
appropriation of lands farther inland, and the development of the interior 
regions. Mr. Morris was quick to perceive the possibilities of the situation, 
and turned his attention to land speculation and soon became the largest 
individual land holder in America. He had great credit, not in the least 
impaired by the business of the Revolution. He borrowed money to replace 
funds he had borrowed during the war, sometimes in large sums, and offer- 
ing and giving security on his city property and immense estates. A reac- 
tion soon followed this, what in our days would be called " boom," and when 
it came it found Mr. Morris possessed of an immense landed estate and 
largely in debt for the purchase money. Reverse followed reverse in quick 
succession, and Mr. Morris was swept from opulence to poverty, and 



64 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

merciless creditors made him for a long time the tenant of a prison. It has 
been supposed by some that his reverses were owing in part at least to large 
advances he made the young republic. His son, Thomas, however is author- 
ity for this statement: "My father's j^ecuniary losses were not owing to 
his public engagements in the war of Independence. Heavy as those engage- 
ments were, the last years of the war having been supported almost entirely 
by his advances and by his credits, he was eventually reimbursed by the 
public. ' ' It was very saddening to those who were enjoying the fruitage of 
his labors, and sharing in the blessings they received as the direct result of 
his wonderful financiering, that his last years should be clouded with adver- 
sity, even to the darkness of abject penury, so plainly intimated in this 
extract from a letter to the late Benjamin Barton: 

You have now the clearest information I can give you. I have been frequently applied to about this 
affair, but hope there is an end of it. If however you should find it necessary to write again, be good enough 
to pay the postage of your letters for I have not a cent to spare from the means of subsistence. 

I am sir, Your very obt serv't, 

Robert Morris. 

Mr. Morris died at Morrisania, N. J., Nov. 6, 1806. His name and public 

services will be long and gratefully I'emembered. 



CHAPTER XII. 



BOUNDARIES OF ALLEGANY COUNTY, 



FOR ten or twelve years subsequent to 1772 the territory included within 
the present boundaries of Allegany county, formed a part of Tryon 
county, which was that year erected out of Albany county, and was made 
to comprise all the country in the state of New York west of a north and 
south line extending from St. Regis to the west bounds of the township of 
Schenectady; thence running irregularly southwest, to the head of the Mo- 
hawk branch of the Delaware river, and along this stream to the southeast 
corner of the present county of Broome, thence in a northwesterly direction 
to Fort Bull on Wood Creek, near the present city of Rome, all west of the 
last mentioned line being then Indian territory. In 1784 this same territory 
took the name of Montgomery, and five years later (1789) all of the state 
west of Phelps and Gorham's pre-emption line was set off as Ontario. In 
1796 Steuben was erected from Ontario, to consist of all of the Phelps and 
Gorham Purchase south of the parallel of latitude which now bounds most 
of that county on the north, including therefore the township which now 
form the eastern range of towns of Allegany county. 

Genesee county was formed from the portion of New York bounded on 
the east by the Genesee river from its mouth to the mouth of Canaseraga 



Boundaries of Allegany County. 



65 



ALLEQANY COUNT Y, 

S HO W/N<^ 

r H L 

PROPRIETARY^ TRACTS 

INTO WH/CH ITS T E-Fi-Fi.lTaR.Y WAS OIVIOEDy 
PR.IOR TO ITS 

FOf^MATtON 



wroM/fv^ County. 



Z 

Zi 
o 



Lr 
< 

< 
h 

< 



HOLLAND 
PURCHASE. 



.SI Oil. SpfL/r>/<f 




Ll"^ If^qsTON 



K 



LE'Roy 

AiQEV£f^S. 



As. 



County. 



Phelps 

ANO 
QORHAMS 
PUR.CHASE 



A 
^ 



09 



Q F F'eLNfNSVLVAh^/lA. 



66 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

creek, and from thence by a line running south to the Pennsylvania line. 
This last-mentioned line at the same time marked the western boundary of 
the Phelps and Gorham Purchase of Steuben county as originally defined, 
and today is the western boundary of the towns of Burns. Alfred, Almond, 
Andover and Independence. The act erecting the county of Genesee w^as 
passed March 30, 1802. Its name was singularly appropriate, comprising 
as it does so large a part of the widely and favorably known "Genesee 
County." then "far west." 

An immense tide of immigration about this time flowing hitherward 
from the east, it was not long before projects for other new counties were 
put on foot. In 1806 numerous petitions were presented to the Legislature 
asking for the formation of Allegany, Cattaraugus and Niagara counties 
from the southern and western parts of Genesee. These petitions were ex- 
tensively circulated, and received the signatures of some 750 citizens of the 
territory to be affected by the proposed legislation, including the Ellicotts 
and many other leading men of the western part of the state. It seems the 
Legislature heeded the prayer of the petitioners, for on the 7th of April, 
1806, an act was passed creating the new county of Allegany, and James W. 
Stevens, Philip Church, and William Rumsey were named in conformity 
with the prayer of those petitioning as Commissioners to locate the site for 
the county buildings. The northern boundary of the county thus formed is 
the same parallel of latitude that now forms the north line of the greater 
part of Steuben county, and included the towns of Eagle, Pike, and Genesee 
Falls in the present Wyoming county, and Portage, Nunda and Ossian in 
Livingston county as now defined, the first five set off in 1846, and Ossian 
in 1856. To gratify the curiosity of close students of early local history, 
it is thought best to quote quite freely from the Act. 

CHAPTER CLXII. OF THE LAWS OF NEW YORK FOR 1806. 

An act to erect part of the county of Genesee into a separate county by the name of Alle- 
gany : Be it enacted by the people of the state of New York represented in Senate and 
Assembly, that all parts of the county of Genesee, beginning at the southeast corner of said 
county and running thence northerly forty-two miles along the western boundary of Steuben 
and Ontario counties, thence westerly thirty-eight miles, along the dividing lines of townships 
numbered seven and eight, to the northwest corner of township number seven in the fifth range 
of the Holland Land Company's land, thence southerly forty-two miles along the western boun- 
dary of the 7th, 6th, 5th, 4th, 3d, 2d, and ist townships of the fifth range of the Holland Land 
Company's land to the Pennsylvania line, thence easterly thirty-eight miles along the Pennsyl- 
vania line to the place of beginning, shall be, and hereby is erected into a separate county, and 
shall be called and known by the name of Allegany. 

The organization of the county government was deferred for one year, 
and it was provided that courts should be held at specified times (the first 
on the 2d of June in the next year). Continuing the Act says: 

And be it enacted that the Courts of Common Pleas and General Sessions of the Peace, be 
holden at any convenient house in the village of Angelica, which may be appointed by the 
Sheriff of Allegany for that purpose, and that the prisoners of the county of Allegany be con- 
fined in the gaol of the county of Genesee until further legislative aid in the premises. The 



Boundaries of Allegany County 



67 



A L LE qA NY . 



AS, <Z R. E. AT ^ O 
By ACT O F T H E. L Eq I S L.AT U KC. 



Q E. N 



s ^ s County. 




RENN'^YLVANI A 



J NO. S.A^/NAR,D Pe-t- 



68 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

inspectors of elections in the several towns in the county of Allegany, sh-ill return the votes 
taken at any election for governor, lieutenant-governor, senators, members of assembly and 
representatives in Congress to the clerk of the county of Ontario, to be by him estimated as 
part of the aggregate number of votes given at such election in the county of Allegany ; and 
that all writings relating to real estate in Allegany should be recorded in the Genesee county 
clerk's office until after the first courts were held, and that the new county should form part of 
the seventeenth Congressional district of the state. 

To more clearly comprehend the territorial extent of Allegany as origi- 
nally defined, the reader is referred to accompanying map. 

It was for only a brief time however that the boundaries fixed by the Act 
of April 7, 1806, were allowed to remain, as we find that important changes 
were made by an act or acts rather, which passed the Legislature on the 
11th of March, 1808. One enacted that " All that part of the county of Alle- 
gany west of the meridian line between the 2d and 3d ranges of townships 
of the Holland Land Company's land be annexed to the county of Genesee." 
The three ranges of townships thus cast off com]3rised the present towns of 
Allegany, Franklinville, Farmersville, Freedom, Hinsdale, Humphrey, Isch- 
ua, Lyndon, Machias, Portville, Olean and Yorkshire. These towns were 
soon after made a part of Cattaraugus county by the provisions of the act 
creating the counties of Cattaraugus, Niagara and Chautauqua. 

The other act referred to fixed the present eastern boundary line of Al- 
legany county. Parts essential to copy read as follows: 

•' Be It enacted * * * (-j^^t; ail that part of the county of Steuben lying west of the 
division line between the 6th and 7th ranges of towns in the said county, and south of the 
division line between the 6th and 7th towns be annexed to the county of Allegany * * * 
that the supervisors in the county of Allegany * * * shall direct to be raised and levied on 
the freeholders and inhabitants of the said county, the sum of $1,500 for the building of a 
courthouse and a jail in and for said county, * * * jj^at Moses Van Campen, John Gibson 
and William Higgins, or any two of them, be and are hereby appointed commissioners to 
superintend the building of the courthouse and jail in the county of Allegany, which said court- 
house and jail shall be erected on one of the public lots near the square of the village of Angel- 
ica, * * * that that part of Allegany comprehended within the ist, 2d, 3d, and 4th towns 
of the 7th range of the county of Steuben hereby annexed to the county of Allegany be erected 
into a town by the name of Alfred, and that the first town meeting of the said town of Alfred 
be held at the dwelling house of Benjamin Van Campen (in Karr Valley, Almond, as the writer 
is informed), and that all that part of the county of Allegany comprehended within the 5th and 
6th townships of the said 7th range aforesaid, be erected into a town by the name of Ossian, 
and that the first town meeting of the said town of Ossian be held at the dwelling house of 
David McCurdy ; and that all that part of the county of Allegany bounded east by the east 
bounds of the said county, north by the north bounds of said county and south by the division 
lines between the 5th and 6th townships in said county, be erected into a town by the name of 
Nunda, and the first town meeting of the town of Nunda be held at the dwelling house of Peter 
Granger (m present Pike, Wyoming Co.), and that all that part of the county of Allegany 
bounded north by the south bounds of the said town of Nunda, on the west by the west 
bounds of the county of Allegany, south by the Pennsylvania line and east by the Transit 
Meridian line, * * * be erected into a town by the name of Caneadea, and that the first 
town meeting in said town of Caneadea be held at the dwelling house of Jedadiah Nobles ; and 
that all the remaining part of the county of Allegany be and remain a separate town by the 
name of Angelica." 



The Church Tract. 69 



In 1846, the northwestern part of the territory assigned by the act just 
referred to to the town of Nunda was set off to Wyoming (a small county 
only a few years before formed from Genesee, embracing the territory now 
covered by the towns of Eagle, Pike and Genesee Falls, Wyoming county), 
and by the same act Portage and Nunda, as at present defined, were added 
to Livingston county. In 1856 the town of Ossian in the extreme northeast 
corner of the county, after being reduced from its original size by the erec- 
tion of the town of Burns, was also set off into Livingston county, leaving the 
county of Allegany with its present boundaries as appears by the last of the 
series of small maps accompanying this history. A separate map has been 
prepared showing the subdivision of the county in 1808. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



THE CHURCH TRACT. 



THIS tract, the largest in the county held by an individual proprietor, em- 
bracing all of x\mity, Angelica and Allen, the north part of Scio and the 
south part of Granger, and a portion of some 150 acres in the town of Hume, 
in all 100,000 acres, was in round numbers twenty-six miles long, and six 
miles wide, and, quoting from the Sheriff's deed to Philip Church, dated 
May 6, 1800, "admeasured according to the following bounds and lines, to 
wit: Beginning at the southwest corner of a certain tract of Fifty thousand 
acres granted by the said Robert Morris to Garrett Cottringer (this is now 
the northwest corner of Mr. Dwight Gillett's farm in Hume), thence running 
east along the southern boundary of the said tract six miles, thence south 
with a breadth of six miles, between lines to be run from the two extreme 
points of the aforesaid line in a direction to form right lines with the east 
and west boundaries of the said tract of Fifty thousand acres so far as that 
a line from a point of termination of the said lines, so to be run and parallel 
to the first above mentioned line, will include within the said lines one hun- 
dred thousand acres of land; together with aU woods, underwoods, waters, 
water courses, privileges and advantages, hereditaments and appurtenances 
whatever to the said tract of land and premises belonging or in any wise 
appertaining, and the reversion and reversions, remainders, yearly and 
other rents, issues and profits thereof, and all the estate, right, title, inter- 
est, use, trust, property, claim and demand whatsoever, both in law and in 
equity, of the said Robert Morris of in and to the same." 

Major Moses Van Cam|ien subdivided this tract into lots of three-fourths 
of a mile square, beginning his work, Sept. 7, 1810, at the northwest corner 
of the tract. His notes besides giving the measurements gave the character 



70 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

of the soil, its surface, timber and herbage, and located the points on his 
lines where streams crossed them or gullies or high ridges, and furnished 
sufficient data upon which to fix the prices of the different lots. Probably 
every kind of timber found within the county was then standing upon this 
tract, and as for soil, it presented a great variety from the richest bottom 
lands on the Genesee river, to the thinnest clay and hardpan on the hills, not 
on all the hills however as some of the hill land is of the first quality. Many 
convenient mill sites were found, and a goodly number were utilized. Game 
and fish were found in great abundance. 

Settlement was begun at Angelica in 1801 by Judge Church, and in a 
number of instances land was sold and boundaries established in advance of 
the subdivision of the tract.* From about 1810 up to 1845 settlements were 
many and nearly the whole tract had been taken by 1850. The first sales 
were made at |2 and ,^2.50 per acre, in afew years advancing to -$5 to .^7.50 
per acre, while some lots, covered with an extraordinary growth of pine and 
oak, brought very remunerative prices. Purchasers came from New Eng- 
land, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and as a rule were enterprising, self- 
reliant, sturdy men, who made good citizens and did well their part in 
reclaiming the desert places and transforming its forests into beautiful 
farms and thriving villages. It will not be necessary to pursue the treat- 
ment of the " Church Tract ■* here to further extent as the town histories of 
Scio, Amity, AngeKca. Ahen and Granger will take up the progress of set- 
tlement and other events in their proper order. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



THIS CENTURY S FIRST DECADE. 



I^HE year 1801 opened quite auspiciously. Capt. Philii^ Church appeared 
to make an exploration of the 100,000 acre tract purchased the year 
previous at the foreclosure sale at Canandaigua. He was met at Almond by 
Major Van Campen, John Gibson, John Lewis and Stephen Price. He had 
stopped a day at Geneva, to supply himself with provisions and camp equip- 
age. The party on their way to the tract, pursued almost identically the 
route afterward adopted by the Erie Railway, entering the territory near 
the southeast corner. A most thorough and exhaustive exploration was 
made, which proved of great service to Van Campen in the sub-division 
which he afterwards made, and to Capt. Church in establishing prices, and 
the location of roads, villages, mills, etc. 

The reconnoissance completed, Capt. Church and Van Campen deter- 

* Evart Van Wickle came in i8o2, and in the capacity of surveyor and local agent was employed by Judge 
Church for several years. A small log land office was erected at Angelica in 1802. 



This Century's First Decade. 71 

mined on a " trip to Niagara Falls "" while the others returned to Almond. 
This trip was the pioneer visit to this wonder from all this section. They 
encountered hunger, fatigue, hardship and exposure, and before reaching 
New Amsterdam (Buifalo), they were compelled to resort to whatever sus- 
tenance the native forest offered. Capt. Church soon returned to New York, 
where he assiduously devoted himself to preparations for actual and active 
settlement. 

It was during this year that the first marriage in Almond occurred, 
Peter Putman and Polly Waters being the contracting parties. The first 
death there that of Matthew McHenry also occurred this year. 

In 1802 Capt. Church sent Evart Van Wickle to select a site for a village, 
and begin settlement. The site was determined upon, and also the name- 
for the embryotic village. With filial reverence and aifection he named the 
place, the first village in Allegany county, for his mother, Angelica, the 
eldest daughter of Gen. Philij) Schuyler. The same year a store was estab- 
lished, the first in the county, by Capt. Church, his friend John Gibson con- 
ducting it. Previous to this the nearest store was at Hornellsville. In 1802, 
at Angelica, was also erected by Capt. Church, the first saw^mill. This year 
John Gibson bought 20 acres of land, bounded north by Main and west by 
Olean streets, at one dollar per acre, agreeing to put up within a year, a 
framed building twelve by sixteen feet " square ! '" Silas Ferry and John 
Ayers cut a road from Angelica to Almond, and Joseph Taylor came and 
opened the first public house in the village and county. A log land-office was 
this year erected. Bath was the nearest postoffice, over 40 miles distant, 
and the few settlers had to arrange as best they could to get their mail. 
Any reliable settler who w^ent to Bath, was commissioned with lots of 
errands, and to bring in the letters for the whole settlement. Postage w^as 
high, money very scarce, and so comparatively few letters were sent or 
received. 

Ephraim Sanford and Zephaniah Huft", from Wayne. Steuben county, 
put in an appearance in 1802. Striking the river at the "Transit," they fol- 
lowed down the stream as far as the falls at Portage, then crossed, and 
returned upon the west side to the place from whence they started, select- 
ing lands in the vicinity of Caneadea. where they soon after settled with 
their families. 

It was as early at least as 1801 or 1802 that the first road was constructed 
in the county. It followed the stream up from Hornellsville. entering the 
county at Almond, thence, following the Whitney valley creek to Alfred, it 
went on to Andover, where, striking the source of Dike's creek, it passed 
down that stream to the Genesee river at Wellsville, thence by way of Marsh, 
Honeoye and Oswayo creeks to the Allegany river and on to Olean, then 
most likely called Hamilton. This was done under the administration of 
Charles Williamson as agent of the Pulteney estate, and was considered to 
be greatly to the interest of that vast landed property as it furnished a w^ay 
of communicating with the headwaters of the Ohio. Nathanael Dike's old 



72 History op Allegany County, N. Y. 

line of blazed trees and scantily-cut-ont sledroad was largely followed, in 
some cases improved in course as well as construction. 

In 1808 four brothers, Benjamin, Elisha, Calvin and David Chamber- 
lain, coming- from Pennsylvania, located on the river near the ' ' Transit. " ' in 
Belfast. This made quite a little settlement, and a road was soon opened 
from the mouth of Dike's creek (Wells ville) through Scio and Belmont, and 
very soon after, as far down as Caneadea. In 1803 also occurred the first 
capital crime in Allegany, the victim being one Stevens, who was killed in a 
quarrel over cards, and was the first one buried in the cemetery at Angelica. 
The man who killed him (name now unknown) was tried at Geneva and sent 
to states prison for life. Nathanael Dike built a sawmill this year, the site 
being just within the present limits of Wellsville adjoining Andover. A 
single timber of the dam remains to mark the spot. A road was opened 
from Angelica to Belvidere in 1803. 

In 1804 John T. Hyde, who had previously settled near Nathanael Dike's 
place, and whose daughter Phebe he married, removed to what is now Amity, 
purchasing the place now owned by N. Bosworth. In this year Capt. Church 
erected for a temporary residence at Belvidere, a framed structure of liberal 
dimensions, which, from its being painted white, came to be known all over 
Western New York as "The White House." This was said to be the first 
painted dwelling in New York west of Canandaigua. The building is stiU 
standing, and is now used as a hay-barn. The nails used in its construction 
were all wrought by hand. Betsy Sanford, daughter of Ezra Sanford, was 
born in April, 1804, being, it is claimed, the first child born in Caneadea. 
James Rice and Timothy Hitchcock came in 1804, from Bainbridge, Che- 
nango county, settling at Caneadea village, being the first ones there. Rice 
built the first house, a log one, no sawmill being near. The first religious 
service in Caneadea was held by Rev. Ephraim Sanford at his own house, 
where Oramel now is, in 1804. The first whice male child born in Angelica 
was Moses Van Campen Chamberlain, who " came to town " March 31, 1804, 
and Widow S. Smith taught the first school in the same town that year. 

Among the more important events of 1805 was the settlement of Dr. 
Ebenezer Hyde, a brother of John T. Hyde. He was the first practicing 
physician in the county, and an acquisition of very much importance to the 
sparsely-settled population. He at once erected a very superior log struct- 
ure of quite ample dimensions, the logs all nicely hewn and carefully " dove- 
tailed " at the corners. It occupied the ground now covered by the resi- 
dence of Mr. S. H. Whitcomb, and later was opened as an inn. An upper 
room in this house was afterwards finished off as a hall for the use of 
the Masonic order. It was here the first meetings of that fraternity were 
held in the county. In his practice Dr. Hyde traveled sometimes 40 or 50 
miles over the worst of roads, and sometimes with no roads at all, following 
paths and blazed trees, having in some instances an Indian as a guide. The 
Indians on the Caneadea Reservation i^atronized him, and some of them were 



This Century's First Decade. 73 

his best paying patients, for there was a period of a few years when the 
Indians had more money than the whites. 

February 25, 1805, the foicn of Angehca was formed from Leicester, in 
territorial extent being 12 miles wide and 34 miles long, and was represented 
on the board of supervisors on the first day of October by Benjamin Riggs; 
the session being at Batavia. The supervisors constituting this early board 
and towns they represented were: Angelica, Benjamin Riggs; Batavia, 
Isaac Southerland; Erie, Daniel Chapin; Leicester, John H. Jones; North- 
ampton, Gibbons Jewit; Southampton, Christox^her Laybourn; Willink, 
Peter Vandeveuter. As appears by the minutes, David McCracken was 
chosen clerk; no mention is made of any presiding olficer. Joseph Ellicott 
was re-elected county treasurer, and a bounty was offered of $5 for "each 
wolf taken and killed in the county aforesaid the ensuing year." 

A previous board (1803) had " Resolved unanimously, that twenty miles 
be considered a day's journey, to be computed going and returning, and that 
each supervisor be entitled to $2 for 20 miles." Reuben Riggs (was he a 
brother of the supervisor?) made out a bill for his services as constable in 
the case of Joseph Rhineberger. who was taken from Angelica to John Jones, 
Esq., at Leicester. It was in September, and, to quote literally: 

From Thursday the 22d to Wednesday the 28th myself and two Gards ; We have considered our Selves 
intitled to the Same Wages, as if We Were at our own imploy. Which is for myself 8s. per day, and the 
men 6s. each, and five Shillings per day for our Expenses, Which amounts, to, for myself at ihirtet-n Shilling^ 
per Day, ii-?7 

for the two Gards at iis. per Day Each, 19-25 

& the boarding of Rhineberger three & half. Days 2.19 



$32.81 
The above accounts We Submit to your Superior judgments, after considering this our Wages here, & the 
hardships of laying in the Woods, & that We Were Volunteered to the Service. Reuben RiGns. 

Angelica, Oct. the 20th 1803. 

If Benjamin Riggs Supervisor, had as hard a time of it in getting to 
Batavia to meet with the board of supervisors, as Reuben did in getting to 
Leicester, he j)robably spent two nights in the woods ! 

The next year, so say the old Genesee county records, Luke Goodspead 
represented Angelica on the board. The name of the latter is at least sug- 
gestive of less time on the road (V), and greater expedition in traveling if 
nothing more. The session of the Genesee county board of supervisors for 
1807 was the last one at which Angelica or any part of present AUegany was 
represented. 

-By act of the Legislature, March 28, 1805, the Lake Erie Turnpike-road 
Company was organized. It was to extend from Bath to Lake Erie, and 
Fred. A. Dezeng, Philip Church, Henry A. Townsend, Adam Hoops, William 
Helm, Dugald Cameron, George Hornell and George McClure were named 
as corporators. 

Other events of importance in 1805 were the marriage of Capt. Church 
and Anna Matilda, eldest daughter of Gen. Walter Stewart of Philadelphia, 
and their commencing house-keeping in the "■ White House '' in June of that 



History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



year, the youthful couple finishing the journey thitherward by traveling- 
from Bath (44 miles) on horseback, a part of the way following a bridle (why 
not bridal) path and marked trees. In 1805 Joseph Knight and son Silas, 
from Oneida county, located at the mouth of Knight's Creek in Scio. Mr. 
Knight cut the road most of the way from Belmont, and only a sled road at 
that. From this it might be inferred that the statement just made as to 
cutting a road from the mouth of Dike's creek to Belfast and farther down 
was incorrect. Such discreimncies in statements depending entirely upon 
the accounts of the old settlers will inevitably occur. Benjamin Van Cam- 
pen opened the first inn in Almond in 1805. He was a brother of the re- 
nowned Major Moses Van Campen. The inn was in Karr VaUey. In 1805 
also Moses and Jeremiah Gregory, John Gaddis and Samuel Rodman settled 
on Canaseraga creek in Burns. In August of 1805 occurred the birth of 
Deborah Reynolds, the first in Belfast. 

From the time of the first settlement to 1802, Allegany formed a part of 
Ontario with the county seat at Canandaigua. Then (1802) Genesee county 
was set off from Ontario, the shire-town being Batavia. As the settlements 
increased the people came to regard their necessary journeys to Canandai- 
gua and Batavia on legal business as burdensome and oppressive, and, m 
1805. began the agitation for a new county, which resulted in the passage by 
the Legislature, of an act on the 7th of April, 1806, whereby the county of 
ALLEGANY was formed from territory embraced in Genesee county. 
How the new county came to be named Allegany, or who suggested it, the 
writer has never been able to learn. The act creating the county, which in 
territorial extent was seven townships east and west, and seven north and 
south, named Angelica as the county seat, and it was in fact the only town 
in the county. No courts were held until the fall of 1807, though the act 
provided for a court to be held in June, 1807. 

In 1806 it came about that the extreme northern part of the county was 
to receive attention from those seeking homes in this new country, and set- 
tlers began coming in from the north and east. Roger Mills from Canajo- 
harie came in the spring of this year, having passed a part of the previous 
season in Pike. After making an extended exploration, he made choice of 
lots 36 and 37 in Hume, where were the upper falls of the Wiscoy, and very 
favorable sites for dams and mills. In 1806 came also James Wilson, a native 
of Ireland, and began active operations in Allen, and Richard Friar, from 
Kingston. Ulster county, who was the first to settle in Friendshii^. In this 
year occurred the first birth in Scio. Polly, daughter of Silas Knight. .The 
first religious services in Burns were conducted by Robert Parker, a Meth- 
odist, at the house of Moses Gregory in 1806. 

In 1807 Clark Crandall from Rensselaer county, and Nathan Green from 
Madison county purchased land, and began making improvements in Alfred, 
the former in the northeast part of the town near " Baker's Bridge. " Cran- 
dall came to be very prominent in town and county affairs, was associate 
county judge, and a member of the Legislature. Roger Mills threw a dam 



This Century's First Decade. 75 

across the Wiscoy at •• Mill's Mills '' in Hume, and erected a sawmill in 1807. 
John Harrison and Simeon and Zebiilon Gates settled in Friendship this 
year. 

Although 1807 marked the first settlement of only one town in the county, 
a constant stream of immigration Was pouring into the towns where settle- 
ments had already been made, and the year closed with a considerable 
accession to the population. In November, was convened, in the inn kejit by 
Evart Van Wickle, the first court ever held in the county. 

In the spring of 1808 Joseph Maxson from Otsego county, then only 18 
years old. arrived in Pike with two cents in money and a few articles of pro- 
vision and clothing. Bartering the shoes on his feet for an axe. he pushed 
on. following the neM'ly-opened Allegany road to Centerville Center, and 
there made the first opening in that town. 

The location of the county seat at Angelica was one of the pet projects 
of Judge Church. [He has heretofore been called Capt. Church, but having 
on the 8th of June, 1807, been appointed by Gov. Morgan Lewis '"First 
Judge of the Court of Common Pleas for Allegany county," he will hereafter 
be referred to as judge.] It being, however, so far to one side of the geo- 
graphical center of the county, it began quite early to excite in his mind, 
and in the minds of others interested, serious ai^prehensions of an attempt 
to remove it to some point farther west, so as to better accommodate the 
people. Accordingly the aid of the Legislature was again invoked, and, on 
the 11th of March, 1808, an act was passed restoring the three western 
ranges of towns to Genesee, and adding the western range of towns from 
Steuben county, which made the county seat substantially in the center east 
and west as well as north and south. By other provisions of the act the 
county was divided into five towns — Angelica, Alfred, Caneadea, Nunda and 
Ossian. 

In 1808 Roger Mills put up a gristmill in Hume, and Judge Church 
erected one at Belmont. The first religious services in Andover were held 
by Rev. Silas Hubbard, at the house of Nathanael Dike in 1808. Eneas Garey 
from Vermont began improvements in 1808 in Rushford. He built the first 
framed barn in that town but in just what year cannot be told. The first 
birth in Friendship was that of Sherman Haskins, March 8, 1808, in a sugar 
camp. 

During all these years the Genesee river was crossed only by fording, 
by canoes, or on the ice. but, in 1809. a bridge was begun by Wilson Redfield, 
and finished by Jonathan Millett, at the "Transit." So at least say some 
authorities, and, being so particular in giving names of builders, it would seem 
conclusive. It still seems strange that a bridge should be built at any other 
point earher than the one at Judge Church's, which is said to have been 
put up in 1811. Whenever and wherever it was, the first bridge was an im- 
portent event to the people. 

By the act of March 11, 1808, -^1,500 was authorized to be raised and 
levied on the freeholders and inhabitants, for building a court house and 



76 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

jail, and Moses Van Campen, John Gibson and William Higgins, were 
appointed* commissioners to superintend the construction. It was provided 
that the county treasurer should have 1 per cent for receiving and paying 
out the money thus appropriated. 

Joshua Skiff an Otsego county man* made his appearance in Hume in 

1809. He became a man well and favorably known throughout the county. 
In 1809 David Sanford built a saw and gristmill in Belfast, the first in that 
town. The first marriage in Friendship was in 1809, James Sanford and 
Sally Harrison the contracting parties. Silas Bellamy and Betsy Knight 
were the first couple married in Scio, the year 1809. Edward Green this 
year erected the first framed house in Alfred. The first birth in Center- 
viUe was that of Calvin P. Perry, in June 1809; and the first death, that of 
the same person, the same month. Dr. Ebenezer Hyde the same year 
opened the first public house in Amity. Silas Bellamy and Silas Palmer 
settled in Scio in 1809. 

The year 1810 was marked by an increasing number of actual settlers, 
and the inauguration of new enterprises and improvements. The first 
school in Amity was taught this year by Polly Baker. Joseph Baker, wife 
and seven children, and Joseph Woodruff, wife and three children settled in 
Andover in 1810. Major Alanson Burr was among the most prominent of 
the settlers this year, locating in Caneadea. Bethiah Belknap and Samuel 
Gordon were born in Rushford in 1810; the former in the spring, the latter 
June the 12th. They were the first births in that town. The first inn kept 
in Centerville by a Mr. Thatcher; the first in Caneadea by Lucretia Radley. 
The first gristmill in Friendship was built in 1810 by Aaron Axtell and 
Sylvanus Merriam. It was on the south branch about half way between 
Friendship village and Nile. The first religious services in Friendship were 
held in a barn by Samuel Vary in July, 1810, and first school by Pelatiah 
Morgan in the winter of 1810-11. The first birth in Allen, that of William 
Wilson, occurred Jan. 30, 1810. The first gristmill in Burns was built by 
Daniel Shull, and the first school was taught in that town by David Crooks 
in a log schoolhouse one-half mile west of Canaseraga in 1810. February 8, 

1810, the Legislature passed an act incorporating the " Angelica and Alle- 
gany Turnpike Company." in which Philip Church. John Mullender and 
John T. Hyde were named as associates. 

An enumeration of the inhabitants was made and a census taken in 1810 
by the United States, which gave a population of 1,942 to the five towns of 
the county shown in the accompanying map. 



This Cintury's First Decade. 



/^S O ^F{ N LD AND Di^/DEO JNTO TOWNS BY 
ACT OF MA/iC/iU.I'xiO? 



Q £ ^ E S E E <^0 U N r Y. 




/V / A 



78 History OF Allegany County, N. Y. 



CHAPTER XV. 

second decade. — 1811-1820. 

PROMINENT among the settlers in the northern part of the county in 
1811 was Benjamin Blanchard from Vermont, who located in Center- 
ville. John Gordon, Samuel Hardy, Tarbell and William Gordon settled in 
Rushford this year. The first marriage in Centerville occurred this year, 
William Foy and Ruth Morrill. The war of 1812 interrupted to some extent 
the progress of settlement. A sufficient number of inhabitants were found 
from which to secure quite a number of enlistments, and some were drafted. 
The board of supervisors constituted Robert Hoops a commissioner 
to attend an Indian council at Cold Spring, for the purpose it is 
supposed of entreating the Indians to side with the United States. The In- 
dians finally determined to espouse the cause of the United States, and no 
further anxiety was experienced in regard to them. Rockwell Hopper from 
Chenango county, and Harry Burns from Oneida county settled in Scio in 
1812, staying there only a year they moved down to Belfast where they re- 
mained the rest of their lives. Eleazar Burbank and George P. Ketchum 
began improvements in Caneadea this year. The first school in Hume was 
taught by Caroline Russell in 1812. Settlement was commenced in Cuba in 
1812, by Salmon Abbott, from Luzerne county. Pa., locating near the site of 
the reservoir. From the proceedings of the board of supervisors for this 
year, which is far back as the records have been preserved, we learn that 
the board consisted of six members, the town of Olean (then very large) in 
Cattaraugus county being by law required to be represented upon the Alle- 
gany board. The following are their names and the towns they represented; 
John T. Hyde. Angelica; Thaddeus Bennett, Caneadea; John Griffith. Nunda; 
Clark Crandall, Alfred; Richard W. Porter, Ossian; and Cornelius Brooks, 
Olean. The board met at the jail, and adjourned at night to meet at 6 o'clock 
the next morning. A resolution was passed appropriating $o to pay Tim- 
othy H. Porter for "Pleading for the People vs. Berry,'' acting in the capaci- 
ty of District Attorney. Eli Griffith and John Mullender were allowed pay 
for "going to the lines." and Robert Hoops, for attending Cold Spring coun- 
cil, was allowed rj^8.06. Cattaraugus county was charged one-half of the clerk's 
fees $32.50. At the June term of the Court of General Sessions, in 1812, 
Jasper(?) Clark was indicted for intent to commit murder. Afterward 
tried and cleared, but was bound to keep the peace especially toward James 
McHenry. 

In 1813 Mark Blanchard and Eber Hotchkiss erected the first sawmill 
in Centerville. and a Mr. Warren built the first gristmill in Rushford. It 
must have been quite a rude affair for it is said the bolt cloths were book ' 



Second Decade.— isl 1-1820. 79 

muslin, and the upper stone hung at the end of a shaft from a tub-wheel, 
with no intermediate gearing. 

A settlement was made between Alfred Station and Alfred Centre by 
David Satterlee from Rensselaer county, in 1813. The first birth in Wirt 
occurred in 1818, the new comer being Benjamin Crabtree. At the annual 
session of the board of supervisors in 1813, it was " Resolved that in equal- 
izing the rolls the board establish the following rates: unimproved lands -|1 
per acre, and improved lands $2 per acre." Prisoners were taken to the 
jail at Bath. The Alfred school fund this year was $28.70, and the town at 
that time comprised all south of Ossian in the eastern range of towns in Al- 
legany. The town, and a large one at that, of Ischua, Cattaraugus county, 
was represented on the board this year. 

Pliny Bannister was the pioneer teacher in Rushford conducting a 
school in the winter of 1813-14. The first school in w^iat is now Wellsville 
was taught by Ithamar Brookings in 1814 near the east line in the Dike 
neighborhood. The first religious services in Amity were held at the house 
of Samuel Van Campen, by Rev. Robert Hubbard in 1814. This year Rich- 
ard Hull, Abel Burdick, Stephen Coon and Stephen Coon, Jr., Jesse Whit- 
ford and James C. Burdick, made beginnings in Alfred. Rev. Dr. N. V. 
Hull was a son of this Richard Hull. The first postoffice in Almond was 
established in 1813 or '14. Perkins B. Woodward taught the first school in 
Centerville in the winter of 1813-14. The first religious services in Hume 
were held at the house of Roger Mills during the war of 1812-14, being con- 
ducted by missionaries from Rushford and Caneadea. A decided improve- 
ment in roads now began to appear. The clearings were much enlarged, 
and fields which were stumpless rewarded the ardent labors of the pioneer 
with bounteous crops of grass, wheat, corn, oats and rye. Large bounties 
w^ere paid for the destruction of wolves, which made havoc among the sheep 
of the early settlers. Deer were very plenty, and venison constituted quite 
a percentage of the meat used. The trusty rifle was largely depended on to 
secure it. Every settler was more or less a hunter, some attaining to rare 
skill and achieving no little fame. 

Levi Benjamin from Vermont settled in Rushford in 1815, about a mile 
north of the village. He was the first postmaster. In 1815, Rodman Place 
from Rensselaer county settled in Alfred, and David Stillman from the same 
county, settled near Alfred Centre. The Peaveys settled in the west part of 
Allen this year, giving their name to the Peavey road. This year came, also, 
to Burns Horatio Tilden, from Avon, and Alvah Cruttenden from LeRoy. 
Samuel Hunt from Vermont came to Caneadea, and Samuel H. Morgan to 
Cuba locating near the Reservoir, while Ebenezer Steenrod made his begin- 
ning in Friendship. 

1816 was distinguished by the erection of carding mills at Friendship 
and Mills Mills, events of great importance. To each of these in time w^ere 
added machinery for fulling, dyeing and pressing the home-spun and home- 
woven cloth made by the pioneer wives and daughters, and w^hich did such 



80 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

good service. "Shoddy" was a thing of the far distant future, and the 
wearing quahties of garments made from those cloths, were wonderful in- 
deed. Paris Green. Amos Burdick and Russell Davis from Madison county 
settled in Alfred this year. This was probably the first Paris Green ever 
seen in the county, and preceded by an ordinary lifetime the event of the 
potato-bug! The first house (a log one) where the village of Belfast is was 
put up in 1816 by Alex. V. P. Chamberlain, and William Miller from Avon 
settled in Burns, having to cut a road over a mile to reach his land. John 
Hoyt from Vermont settled in Caneadea immediately erecting the first saw- 
mill in that town at the mouth of Caneadea Creek. Settlement was com- 
menced this year in Granger by Reuben Smith, his sons Wilcox and Isaac, 
and sons-in-law Rufus TurnbuU and James McCoon. In 1816 the woods of 
New Hudson were also made to ring with the axe of its first settler. John 
Spencer. Matthew P. Cady and others built the first sawmill in Rushford on 
Caneadea Creek, and Judge James McCall opened the first store in Rushford. 
Lucy Moore taught the first school in Scio in Silas Knight's house. 1816 
was and is known as ' ' the cold season. ' ' According to aU accounts it was 
in very deed a very cold one; frosts occurring in every month in the year 
shortened the crops to a mere nothing, but the most pinching times came 
on the next year. 

The prospects were dreary when 1817 dawned. In addition to the hard 
times, which closely succeeded the war, was the general shortage of the 
limited area of crops. The condition of some of those settlers, who had no 
teams nor other means to get out to the older settlements for corn and 
wheat, became before harvest distressing if not alarming. With some leeks 
were a blessing being some degrees better than nothing as food. Ground- 
nuts and "putty root" also helped. In cases of dire necessity potatoes 
that had been planted were dug up and eaten. Ripening grain was eagerly 
watched, some of the earliest to rijjen was harvested, cured as quickly as 
possible for threshing, placed in a large kettle over a fire and briskly stirred 
to get in a condition to grind, then hurried off to the nearest miU. Some of 
the old settlers used to claim in all sincerity that the sweetest cakes and best 
bread they ever tasted was made from flour thus prepared. In 1817 came 
Samuel Thatcher from Vermont, and Stephen Collins and Isaac Burdick 
from Madison county and settled in Alfred, Collins coming all the way on 
foot, and covering his first log-house with split hollow basswood logs. This 

year came also Chester Rotch, Otto, and Lefever, and settled at 

Allen Centre, and a Mrs. Armstrong settled in the southern part of that 
town. Nathaniel Bennett from Vermont located in the north part of Burns 
in 1817, journeying all the way with horses and wagons. Luther Houghton, 
wife and family of five children, settled in the northwest part of Caneadea 
this year. A small creek in the neighborhood stiU bears his name as does 
also the village near where he located, the postofiice, and the Wesleyan seat 
of learning at that place. Cyrus H. Clement, also from Vermont, settled in 
Caneadea in 1817, as did Joshua Wilson and sons Simon, Freeman S. and 



Second Decade.— 1811-1820. 81 

Lewis and Angus Mcintosh. Russell Higgins and Packard Bruce built the 
first gristmill in Centerville this year, and Gen. Calvin T. Chamberlain built 
in 1817 the first sawmill in Cuba. Ira Hopper from Steuben county bought 
land and settled in Granger this year. Joel Stockwell, a Vermonter, " took 
up'' a large farm on the river flats in the extreme northeast corner of 
Hume in 1817, and Daniel Atherton opened the first public house in West 
Almond. At the January term of court Medad McKay was indicted for 
murder. About this time there seems to have been an epidemic of assault 
and battery cases. Indictment after indictment was found, very many of 
the parties being pronounced "not guilty " by the jury. In cases where 
they were held they were fined from $1 to $150; $1.50 to $2.50 being generally 
the amount imposed. 

In 1818 Amos Crandall and Samuel Lanphear and families came from 
Rhode Island and settled in the north part of Alfred, bringing their goods 
on an ox cart, a horse being hitched on ahead of the oxen. About this time 
was built the first framed house and barn in Elm Va]le3^ by whom author- 
ities dilfer. The first framed house in the valley at Andover was built by 
Asa S. Allen about this time. Settlements w^ere many this year. John 
Common from Northumberlandshire, Eng., came to Angelica, John T. Ford 
to Belfast. James Matthews to Birdsall Centre. Samuel Whipple and Ezra 
Whiting to Burns, Thos. Worden, Samuel Horton, Oliver Smith, Charles 
Abbott, James Osmond, and John Wheeler, afterward so weU known as 
supervisor and member of assembly, came to Granger and began improve- 
ments. The settlement of Grove was commenced in 1818 by John White, 
from Herkimer county, moving his family in with an ox team; cutting his 
own road from Nunda. His house, a log structure, which he at once erected, 
was the first in town. Alexander Bailey came about the same time. Ros- 
well Gibbs came this year to the northwest part of Hume, and Oliver Austin 
to Wirt. 

By an act of the Legislature passed March 19. 1818, it was declared 
"That so much of the Genesee river, from the confluence of the Canasaraga 
creek, up to the bridge near the house of Philip Church, Esquire, in the 
town of Angelica in the county of Allegany, except from the foot of the falls 
to the head of the rapids, in the town of Nunda, and so much of said river as 
is included from the Pennsylvania line down to Phillipburgh MiUs, in the said 
town of Angelica, be, and is hereby declared a public highway: Provided 
that nofhing in this act shall be construed to extend to or affect any mill, 
or dam for the use thereof, that may have been erected, or the building 
thereof commenced on either of the said streams of water before the passing 
of this act. And be it further enacted. That if any person or persons shall 
hereafter cut or fell any tree or trees into said stream, or roU any log or 
logs therein, except for the purpose of rafting the same, or place any other 
obstruction therein and shaU not remove the same out of said stream with- 
in 48 hours thereafter, every such person shall forfeit and pay the sum of 
five dollars for every such offense, * * * Provided nevertheless. That if 



History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



any person erecting any mill or other works, on either of the above men- 
tioned streams, shall cut or dig a sufficient canal, or make a sufficient lock or 
locks, so that the navigation of the same be not injured by means of such 
dam or dams, mill or works, such persons shall not be liable to any penalties 
of this act. ' ' 

April 10, 1818, an act was passed appointing Thomas Dole of Nunda, 
John Hoyt of Caneadea, and James McCall of Rushford, commissioners to 
lay out a road on the west side of the Genesee river through the Caneadea 
Indian Reservation, and to " agree with and satisfy the Indians owning and 
possessing said land, for their reasonable damages for said roads passing 
through their improved lands," and $1,000 was appropriated for the pur- 
pose. 

In 1819 Joseph Claire from Rensselaer county settled in Alfred and 
Luther Strong built the first saw-and-grist mill in Andover about f of a mile 
east of the village. Edmund Coats settled in Angelica in 1819. Angelica 
was the largest place in the county. All roads were laid with direct refer- 
ence to reaching the county seat. Many people were called there during 
' ' court week. ' ' It was on the line of the Lake Erie Turnpike, and had already 
become a place of considerable importance, attracting men of means and 
enterprise as well as the more distinguished in the legal profession. Lewis 
H. Ford came to Belfast this year (1819) and Stephen Mundy from New Jersey 
purchased 500 acres in the west part of Burns beginning active operation in 
clearing and making improvements. Daniel IngersoU purchased land and 
began improvements in the north part of Caneadea this year, and Newman 
Crabtree began the first sawmill in Genesee on Little Genesee Creek. The 
first birth in Genesee was that of Francis K. Bell and his was the first death, 
he being born Nov. 25, 1819, and dying Dec. 29, 1819. Darling Smith, Curtis 
Coe and John Bouton settled in the northeast part of Granger. Elijah 
White came to Grove this year, and "White settlement" still retains his 
name. Dexter settled in the northeast part of Hume on the river flats. A' 
burial place was enclosed adjoining his north line and is still known as the 
" Carpenter burying ground. " Capt. Isaac Van Nostrand, who afterward 
became a very prominent man in town and county affairs, came to Granger in 
1819, and built its first sawmill. 

In October, 1820, Franklin Cowdery started at Angelica the Angelica 
Republican, the first newspaper of Allegany. Previous to this the nearest 
printing-office was at Bath. This was a great convenience to the pe%>le and 
was an event second to no other in this decade. In 1820 the first store in 
Centerville was opened by Sparrow Smith, and Judge John Griffin located 
in Cuba, purchasing the lands upon which the village has grown up. The 
first framed dwelling in Independence was put up this year by John Teater, 
and the first religious services were held on New Year's Day at the house of 
Samuel S. White, Rev. Daniel Babcock a Seventh-day Baptist conducting 
them. The settlement of Hume village was commenced this year by 
Sylvanus Hammond building the regulation log house, and Spencer Lyon 



Second Decade.— 1811-1820, 



83 



LL EC AN y 



<:; E N E S £: £ 




84 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

located in the south part of New Hudson. Abel and James Tarbell and 
Nathan C. Kimball came to Rushford, and Hazard P. Clark settled in the 
south part of Andover. The first birth in Birdsall occurred this year, that 
of James E. Matthews, and Bolivar made her first attempt at population, 
other than by immigration. Almond W. Cowles being the recipient of especial 
attention ujjon his birth. Rachael Gilbert, for the extravagant compensation 
of seventy-five cents per week, taught the first school in Bolivar (in a log 
school house of course) and was followed the succeeding winter by Austin 
Cowles, who, in 1820, conducted the first religious services in that town. The 
first store and jDublic house was opened in what is now Ward about this time 
by Joseph Goodrich, who came in 1819. 

This decade, notwithstanding the existence during the first part of it of 
discouraging oonditions, at its close showed a great improvement over the 
preceding one. Important roads were opened, and the last years were 
marked by a large influx of population. More men of means were turning 
their attention to its inviting prospects; its wealth of pine forests was coming 
to be considered with reference to and in connection with improved facilities 
for transportation, and instead of being regarded with abhorrence, " shied " 
around and avoided as undesirable, became the subject for many close cal- 
culations on the part of capitalists. The older clearings were becoming in 
many cases well conducted farms showing thrifty husbandry, while new 
ones were continually being made. The appalling monotony of uninterrupted 
forest was broken, clearings in some cases connecting with clearings. Vil- 
lages and hamlets began to appear. Centerville, Rushford, Pike and Friend- 
ship had been formed and their supervisors took their seats at the annual 
meeting of the board. The census taken that year revealed 9,330 inhabitants 
in the county, which was subdivided into nine towns as appears by the 
accompanying map. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THIRD DECADE. — 1821-1830. 



IN 1821. Joseph S. Raymond opened the first inn in Belfast, near present 
village. Henry Bennett settled on theStateroad, in the eastpart of Gran- 
ger. The first birth of a white child in Grove occurred, that of Laura Bai- 
ley. The first public house in Scio was opened by Alfred Johnson, in a small 
log house just south of the town line. The first school in New Hudson was 
taught this summer by Mrs. Graham McKean. Philip Appleby from 
Onondaga county settled in Wirt. It is said that he caught 42 deer in one 
trap in the course of three or four years. The first marriage in BirdsaU 



Third Decade— 1821-1830. 85 

occurred, the parties being Samuel Van Wickle and Harriet Freeman. As 
the last decade closed with nine towns in the county, represented by as 
many supervisors, who annually met at the county seat to transact the 
county business we give the organization of the board at the commencement 
of this decade. This year the board of supervisors organized by electing 
Jesse Bullock chairman, and Amos Peabody clerk. 

1822. Elijah Woolworth settled in Alfred, raising some grain on a farm 
in the west part of the town on which some improvements had already been 
made. Joseph Jennings settled in the south jDart of Allen, and Adelbert 
Root began improvements in Bolivar. An association of early settlers in 
Bolivar, Christopher Tyler, Luther Austin, Asa and Austin Cowles built the 
first sawmill in that town near the village. Settlement in ClarksviUe was 
commenced by John and Horatio Slayton, a little south of the center. It 
was then one unbroken woods from Cuba to their purchase and they had to 
cut a road the entire distance. Joseph Palmer also settled in ClarksviUe. 
The first birth in ClarksviUe that of Joseph P. Slayton occurred this year. 
Hannah Scott taught the first school in Birdsall, and the Baptist Church in 
Friendship was organized with six members. Jabez Burdick made a chop- 
ping and built a log house on lot 3 in Genesee, and Samuel Moses settled in 
the northeast part of Granger. Riley Parker began improvements in Grove, 
and Jonathan Parsons made the first beginning at Brewer's Corners. 
Jacob Baldwin and Stephen Cady built the first gristmill in Cuba on Oil 
creek, about two miles from the village, and King and Graves opened the 
first store in Cuba in 1821 or 1822. Jesse and Philip Haseltine settled on 
lot 74 Independence, building a log house and cutting and logging three 
acres of an old windfall without the help of a team. "Pudding and milk " 
was their chief article of food eaten from wooden troughs with legs. Cal- 
vin and Samuel Riggs also came to Independence. The first marriage in 
New Hudson occurred, that of Earl Gould and Catharine Eastwood. Benj. 
Palmer built the first sawmill in Scio, and Jonah French made a beginning 
in Wirt. The town of Hume was erected. The board of sujjervisors con- 
sisted of 13 members, Jesse Bullock was made chairman and Amos Peabody 
clerk. 

1823. The first religious services in BirdsaU were held at the house of 
Wm. Dey, by Rev. Robert Hubbard, a Presbyterian. Samuel Davie came 
to Bolivar, bringing the first span of horses in town, and the only one be- 
tween "Notch Hill " in Wirt and Ceres. Ebenezer Kellogg also settled here. 
In the spring Jabez Burdick was appointed pathmaster, his beat extend- 
ing nearly seven miles, and his was the only family on it. He and his son 
worked about 60 days, and used ^10 of public money. Blakely and Drake 
built the first sawmill at Hume village. Abner Comstock settled in the 
northeast part of Granger, and Beriah Crandall started the first tannery in 
Independence. Prominent among the early settlers of this year were Jacob 
McElheny who settled at Black Creek, and C. H. Ingham, who opened a 
public house (a log one) at Hume. 



86 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

The towns represented on and the members of the board of super- 
visors were, Angehca, Vial Thomas; Allen, James Wilson; Alfred, 
Jonathan Lanphere; Almond, Geo. Lockhart; Caneadea, Hiram Gray; Cen- 
terville, Alfred Forbes; Cuba, C. T. Chamberlain; Eagle, Torrey Buckley; 
Friendship, Sylvanus Merriman; Hume, Joshua Skiff; Pike, George Barlow; 
Rushford, Matthew P. Cady; Nnnda, Geo. Williams; Scio, Nathan Wright; 
Ossian, Nathaniel Porter; Independence, Nathaniel Covil. Sylvanus Mer- 
riman was made president and Amos Peabody clerk. Some of the sessions 
were at Maj. Van Campen's house, others at the Court House. Joseph Wil- 
son was sheriff and his bill including fuel was $600.94; $420 interest was 
voted to be paid on the |6,000 loaned to -build the court house, clerk's office 
and improve roads. $1,000 was parcelled out among the towns for bridges. 
On the morning of Dec. 30, occurred the first murder (outright) in the 
county, that of Othello Church of Friendship by David D. How of Angelica. 

1824. This year Andover village consisted of one framed building and 
three log houses, and its first store was opened by Asa S. Allen, the first 
log school house had been built in 1823. James Adams came from Vermont, 
with wife and two small children in a lumber wagon drawn by oxen, being 
24 days on the road. The first death in Birdsall occurred, that of Leah 
Riggs, and Wm. Lord erected the first sawmill in that town on Black Creek. 
Martin and Asher Miner settled in Allen; and Joseph Wells and RosweH 
Streeter in Genesee. Ira Parker and Daniel Moses began improvements in 
the northeast part of Granger; Nathanael Covil built the first gristmill in 
Whitesville, and James Maxwell one at Spring Mills, the first ones in 
Independence. Smith Dexter and Ebenezer Parker also settled in Inde- 
pendence. Micah Hall came to Rushford, and John, Joseph and Matthew 
Engle and Oliver and Daniel Dean settled in West Almond. Phny Evans 
settled in Wirt and H. B. Newton made a beginning in Bolivar. On the 
" third Friday in March " occurred the first execution in the county, David 
D. How being hung. People came from great distances to witness it. The 
gaUows was erected on the north side of the square near the present Charles 
Hotel. Belfast and Andover were erected, the former taken from Canea- 
dea, as Orrinsburgh, the latter from Alfred. 

1825. Stanley Gleason settled in Belfast, and H. B. Newton and Asa 
Cowles opened a store in "Root Hollow " BoUvar. Theodore Halsted came 
to Cuba. The first Methodist Episcopal Church in Birdsall was formed by 
Rev. Eleazar Dewey. Ezekiel Crandall, Riverious Hooker, Jr. and John 
Loop settled in Genesee in December, and James D. McKean opened the 
first store in Hume village. Nathaniel E. Mills opened a store at Mill's 
Mills, and started an ashery. The Indians would bring ashes in bags from the 
Reservation and exchange them for goods and trinkets. New Hudson was set 
off from Rushford as Haight, which name it carried until 1837, and Bolivar was 
taken from Friendship. The board of supervisors this year consisted of 
20 members representing as many towns. The board met Nov. 15, and 
organized by choosing Sylvanus Merriman president and Edward Renwick 



Third Decade— 1821-1830. 87 

clerk. The next morning they met at the public house of Alexander D'Au- 
tremont, and removed Mr. Renwick and elected Matthew P. Cady clerk. 
A state census was taken this year and the enumerators' bills were audited 
by the board, calling them "marshals," their accounts ran from |5.62 to 
$32.50. The amount of bridge money raised was $188.16. The bounty on 
wolves was raised from §5 to $10. John Ayers was appointed to sui^erin- 
tend repairs to the court house. 

1826. Burns was set off from Ossian. Allen received quite an acces- 
sion to its population by the settlement of James and Samuel Willison, 
James, John, Robert, George and WiUiam Burthwick. A postofiice was 
established at Hume village with C. G. Ingham P. M. and the first public 
house in Burns village was opened by Simeon D. Brown. A Methodist 
Episcopal Church at Short Tract was organized by Elder Buell, and Emily 
Page taught the first school in Grove in John White's log cabin. Jared C. 
Hurd settled at Black Creek, New Hudson, and Simeon Brown in Ward. 
Ege Pierson made a beginning north of Allen Centre. Calvin T. Chamber- 
lain was elected president of the board of supervisors and Amos Peabody 
clerk. Alvin Burr was appointed treasurer. The enormous sum of $15 was 
voted to repair court house, jail and clerk's office. It was voted to appro- 
priate $25 for a stove and pipe for the court house, but it turned out to cost 
forty. A resolution was passed directing Nicholas Van Wickle to make 
maps of the county and the several towns providing the cost shall not exceed 
$100. The county this year paid $285 bounty on 17 old and 28 young wolves, 
and the state paid $225. Allen paid ten dollars bounty to Aaron Hale for 
one fullgrown wolf, and Cuba seemed to be especially infested with wild 
cats eight being killed, the killers receiving a bounty of one dollar. On 
August 31st at the council house on Buffalo Creek a treaty with the Seneca 
Indians was concluded, at which, for $48,216 they parted forever with their 
title to the Caneadea Reservation, and the whites were allowed to purchase 
and occupy this desirable territory. This was one of the most important 
events of this decade. The Legislature April 12th passed an act authorizing 
Samuel King, Asa Lee Davidson and Martin Butts to erect a dam across the 
Genesee river at Belfast. 

1827. The first death in Ward occurred, that of Luther Powell, and the 
first school in Clarksville was taught by Maria McDougal. Andrew Clark 
settled in Allen, John CoUer in Cuba, D. P. Carnahan in Friendship and John 
Cook and Marmaduke Aldrich in Granger. The first Genesee Seventh-day 
Baptist Church at Little Genesee village was organized with 14 members, by 
Wm. B. Maxson and John Green. Grove was erected this year, and 23 
towns were represented on the board of supervisors. C. T. Chamberlain 
was made president and Amos Peabody clerk. Some sessions were held at 
the house of Hugh Magee. Alvin Burr was re-elected treasurer. The 
county paid $156 bounty on eleven fullgrown and eight young wolves, and 
the state paid $102.50 as bounties. This was the first year in which justices 
of the peace were elected. Governor Clinton recommended " the survey of 



History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



a route for a canal, to unite the Erie canal at Rochester with the Allegany 
river." And so among the intelligent and discerning the hope of improved 
methods of transporting the products of farm and forest to the seaboard 
markets was kindled, and people began to take courage. 

1828. Isaac N. Town opened the first store in Canaseraga, and the first 
inn in Clarksville was kept by Daniel S. Carpenter. Allen received quite a 
start in the settlement of Henry Burt, Thomas Cole, Robert K. King, Jared 
Atwater, Uriah Cook, Solomon Woodworth, Austin Mundy and Henry 
Laight. Elias Hull opened the first public house in Birdsall and Joseph B. 
Welch the first store. Elias Scott settled in Bolivar, David S. German in 
Cuba, Rowland Coon, Dea. George Potter, and Daniel and John Edwards 
began operations in Genesee. The first religious services in Clarksville 
were held at the house of Nelson Hoyt, by the Methodists. The first settle- 
ment at Wiscoy, in Hume, was made by Lawrence Wilkes, a blacksmith, and 
a sawmill was built by Ebenezer Mix of Batavia. This year came to Inde- 
pendence, Lewis B. Pitch, to New Hudson Benjamin Whipple, to Willing 
John Graves, and John Scott to Wirt. The board of supervisors was organ- 
i2ied by electing C. T. Chamberlain chairman and Nicholas Van Wickle clerk. 
Some of the sessions were held at Hugh Magee's house. Alvin Burr was 
again elected treasurer. The president by vote was directed to sign a 
memorial for toll bridge across the Genesee at Belvidere. The court house 
debt still remained unpaid, and |420 was voted to be paid as interest thereon. 
$100 was voted to repair court house, clerk's office and jail, and $10 appro- 
priated to pay for a county seal. 13 fuUgrown wolves and one whelp were 
reported, for which the county paid $67.50 and the state $62.50. The need 
of a county almshouse began to be apparent and was shown by this resolu- 
tion passed by the board: " Resolved that the president sign the petition in 
behalf of this board to the Legislature, praying for the passage of a law 
authorizing the supervisors of the county of Allegany to loan money and 
build a poorhouse, and that James Wilson, Jesse BuUock, William Hicks, 
Asa S. Allen and Lazarus S. Rathbon be a committee to superintend the 
same." This year a survey was made of a canal route from Rochester to 
Olean. 

1829. The First Baptist Church of Andover was organized with twelve 
members. Stephen Wilson settled in Belfast and Jeremiah Beebe in Cuba. 
Elliott Smith and Ebenezer D. Bliss began improvements in Genesee, and 
Abram Lampman and Salmon Remington came to Granger, and Henry Torry 
opened a public house at Mixville as Wiscoy had come to be called. Nelson P. 
Coats settled in Independence, Asa Parks in Willing, and John Scott in Wirt, 
and many improvements were observed in all sections. 

1830. Amity and Genesee were erected, Amity from Angelica, and 
Genesee from Cuba. Orrin Kingsley and Isaac Wheeler opened a store at 
Mixville and Dr. Keyes settled there, its first physician. Nelson McCaU 
established a store at Black Creek corners New Hudson. Jeremiah Burdick 
and Leonard Daniels settled in Bolivar, and Samuel S. Ayers in Cuba. 26 



Third Decade.— 1821-1830. 



89 



A LLE<;/\^v/, 



IN 
l<h3 0. 



C E. N e S E. E 



C^ O U N T ^ 




90 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

towns were represented on the board of supervisors. Clark Crandall was 
elected chairman, and L. Rathbon clerk. Alvin Burr was again elected 
treasurer. Before this but five committees had been appointed and those 
mostly special. Now it was " resolved that the chair appoint all committees 
considered necessary to transact the business of the board. " Among the rules 
adopted was this, " Art. 3. No spirituous liquors shall be brought or drank in 
the room while the Board are in session, nor smoking (allowed) in the same 
during the session." The committee on equalization reported as follows: 
Alfred and Allen $1.65, Almond $1.75, Amity and Birdsall $1.35, Andover 
and Scio $1.03, Angehca $2. 50, Belfast $1.56, Bohvar, Genesee and Independ- 
ence $1.06, Burns and Friendship $1.55, Caneadea and Rushford $1.60, Cen- 
terville and Hume $1.70, Cuba and Grove $1.50, Eagle $1.45, Haight $1.40, 
Nunda $2.70. Ossian $1.70, Portage $2.85, Pike $3.45. Some dissatisfaction 
in regard to the report being expressed the subject was reopened and Amity, 
Friendship and Hume were raised each 15c. on the acre, Centerville 10c. and 
Rushford 5c. A resolution was passed to raise $500 for a bridge near 
Church's, and $300 for one near the Transit, or, if committee considered it 
advisable, to appropriate the whole $800 to build a bridge between the two 
places. Richard Charles was appointed physician to the jail. 

Mr. Hull, of Birdsall, from the committee on jjoorhouse, suggested abol- 
ishing all distinction between town and county poor, recommended the ap- 
pointment of superintendents of the poor; that they be authorized and 
instructed to purchase a farm not exceeding 200 acres, and commence erect- 
ing buldings for the poor, and to loan money not to exceed $3,000. The 
report was accepted, resolutions passed and Messrs. Van Nostrand, Hull, 
Lockhart, Gordon and Merrick were appointed to make nominations for 
superintendents. S. S. Haight, Angelica; Lorenzo Dana, Friendship; An- 
drew C. Hull, BirdsaU; Stephen Major, Almond and Wm. P. Wilcox, Nunda, 
were nominated and elected the first county superintendents of the poor in 
Allegany. A new bell was ordered for the court house at $100. S. S. Haight 
was appointed to attend a meeting of the Bath and Lake Erie Turnpike Com- 
pany. The sheriff's account for the year was $525. " Expenses for county 
purposes, $1,475.75, Wolf Bounties $467.50, Bridge Money $1,000, Paid on 
Court House debt $2,315." One panther, 23 wolves and 18 whelps were 
accounted for. 

This decade was distinguished for rapid increase in population, and the 
large number of new towns erected. The board of supervisors was fast assum- 
ing the proportions and dignity of a real legislative body. School-houses and 
churches were being erected, and a general appearance of thrift and enter- 
prise was plainly observable. An enumeration of the inhabitants was made 
by United States marshals and the population found to be 26,276. By an 
act of the Legislature passed April 17th, a "Survey of a canal route from 
Rochester to the Allegany river " was directed. It is not learned that the 
survey was made. 



Fourth Decade.— 1831-1840. 91 



CHAPTER XVII. 

FOURTH DECADE. — 1831-1840. 

IN 1831 the first gristmill in Granger was erected by Luzon and 
Lewis Van Nostrand. By actofLegislatureof February 19, apart of Can- 
eadea was annexed to Belfast, making the township lines of the Holland Land 
Company the town line. April 21, a bill passed the Legislature making pro- 
vision for a bridge across the Genesee river near the mouth of Caneadea 
creek, and naming David Hitchcock, Timothy Rice, and Arad H. Franklin 
commissioners to superintend its building, their compensation to be "$1 per 
day." April 26. a bill was passed appointing Nathan Rumsey, Henry C. 
Jones and James Sprague commissioners to lay "a public highway, or so 
alter the present ones as to make one continuous road from the village of 
Angelica in the county of AUegany, on the best and most practicable ground 
and shortest distance, to the village of Batavia in the county of Genesee." 
The first Methodist Episcopal Church of Whitesville was organized with 
about 25 members by Rev. J. D. McKenney. Orlin Marsh settled in New 
Hudson, and Henry Hagadorn and Lot. Harris in WiUing. The board of 
supervisors organized by electing James Wilson chairman and Nicholas Van 
Wickle clerk. 

In 1830 1200 was raised to purchase the right of Geo. Williams and 
others, to a bridge at Portageville, and Geo. Williams and his associates re- 
fused to accept of any consideration, but were willing to give it to the public, 
so the $200 was directed " to be laid out on such bridge, as might be directed 
by the town of Portage upon Williams and others assigning the right to the 
public." $2,885.31 was raised to discharge the debt incurred for the con- 
struction of court house, clerk's oflice and repair and improvement of roads. 
A resolution was passed appropriating $2,500 to defray expense of building 
■poor house. $1,200 was appropriated for extraordinary expenses. James 
Wilson was directed to employ counsel to defend a suit brought by Philip 
Church against the county. It was ordered that the county treasurer give 
bonds in the sum of $10,000. 

We give the towns and their population in 1830, and the amount of 
school money assigned to it for this year. Alfred, 1.416 pop., $73.77; Allen, 
898 pop., $46.78; Almond, 1,804 pop., $93.98; Amity, 872 pop., $45.43; Andover, 
598 pop., $31.16; Angelica, 998 pop., $51.99; Belfast, 743 pop., $38.71; Birdsall, 
543 pop., $28.29; Bolivar, 449 pop., $23.39; Burns, 702 pop., $36.57; Caneadea, 
782 pop., $40.74; Centerville, 1,195 pop., $62.27; Cuba, 1,059 pop., $55.17; 
Eagle, 892 pop., $46.47; Friendship, 1,502 pop., $78.25; Genesee, 219 pop., 
$11.41; Grove, 1,388 pop., $72,31; Haight, 655 pop., $34.13; Hume, 951 pop., 
$49.55; Independence, 877 pop., $45.70; Nunda, 1,291 pop., $67.26; Ossian, 812 
pop., $42.31; Pike, 2,016 pop., $105.03; Portage, 1,839 pop., $95.81; Rushford, 



92 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

1,115 pop., $58.09; Scio, 602 pop., $31,37. Andrew C. Hull, Samuel S. Haight, 
Moses Smith, Amos Burdick, Jr., and James Wilson were elected superin- 
tendents of poor. $6 was appropriated to purchase a desk for the surrogate, 
and Peter Cherry was appointed to do the necessary printing. 

1832. But little legislation directly affecting Allegany was passed. 
April 20, the Legislature passed an act authorizing Harvey H. May to erect 
a dam across the Genesee river in Amity. The old Lake Erie Turnpike hav- 
ing become an undesirable thing with its tollgates exacting fare from every 
passer-by. its demoralized management ignoring the conditions of its 
franchise, a bill was passed April 25th declaring thirty miles of the east end 
of it a public highway. Henry Winn settled in Willing and Benjamin Van 
Fleet in New Hudson. The first Baptist Church in Richburg was organized 
by Rev. Eliab Bowen, and the first store in West Almond was opened by 
Samuel M. Eddy. No new towns were formed this year, neither is it re- 
corded that any first settlement of towns were made. There was however 
quite an influx of immigration, and the old settlements were considerably en- 
larged. The older farms were i)utting on the appearance of the eastern 
towns from whence our pioneers emigrated and things began to look com- 
fortable and wear a home-like appearance. 

The board of supervisors met November 13th and organized by electing 
Wm. Welch chairman and Sam'l Van Wickle clerk. The first business done 
was to appoint John Simons, Tarbell Gordon and David Stillman a committee 
to make arrangements for board, etc. They soon reported that Daniel 
McHenry would board and lodge them at the rate of $2 per week, keep a 
horse for 62+0. per week, and would keep up fires and furnish candles in 
addition to board and lodging at 75c. per day all told. The board adopted 
the report and availed themselves of the terms offered. 

Under an act of the Legislature the board of supervisors and the judges 
of the county, five in number, elected by joint ballot the county sui:>erin- 
tendents of the poor. They elected James Wilson, Moses Smith, Jonas 
Wellman and Samuel S. Haight. Asa S. Allen was elected treasurer and 
Patrick Gregg physician to the poorhouse. On motion of Jesse Angel of 
Almond it was " Resolved that the county of Allegany and the several towns 
interested in that part of the Bath and Lake Erie Turn])ike lying between 
the western termination thereof and the house of Jesse B. Gibbs in Almond 
release and forever quit claim the same as a public highway." And the old 
turnpike became a common road. A petition to the Legislature was signed 
asking for the passage of a law requiring the supervisors, town clerks and 
justices of the peace to audit town accounts on the Friday next succeeding 
election. Benj. F. Smead's bill for printing in 1831 was allowed at $19. Jesse 
Bullock's account as sheriff was $765.22. The county paid for 14 grown 
wolves and ten whelps $190, and the state paid $95. First formal annual 
report from the county treasurer. 

Capitalists had begun to visit the county with an eye to investments, 
and some of our people had prospered to an extent which naturally caUed 



Fourth Decade.— 1831-1840. 



93 



A LLEQAN Y 

IN 

194-0 



<'£N£S££ C o u fw T Y 



L IV I r\/C, ST O N 



Co UNTY. 




94 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

attention to the assessment rolls to learn if possible the extent of their 
accumulations. The tax rolls however gave but little intimation of aggrega- 
tions of wealth, and the matter came to be the subject of talk and discussion. 
So the board at this session resolved that the clerk and assistant clerk direct 
a circular letter to the several town clerks in regard to the assessment of 
personal property. Luther Couch a justice of the peace of Hume was allowed 
$4.75 on skunk certificates. Luther C. Peck and George Miles were retained 
by th6 county to defend a suit brought by Philip Church. 

1833. April 15th West Almond was formed from parts of Angelica, 
Almond and Alfred, and the first sawmill was erected there. Settlement 

was begun in Alma by Warren Hough and Longcore. Albert B. Crandall 

commenced operations in Genesee, teaching a school the next winter and 
chopping by moonlight. Henry C. Champlin settled on Dodge Creek, Gene- 
see. The Erie canal had changed the direction of shipment of the surplus 
crops from the Susquehanna route to the seaboard via Bath and Hornellsville 
to the more feasible and shorter Genesee river route northward where the 
canal gave the settlers better markets at the new cities of Buffalo and 
Rochester, and they became anxious for a lateral canal connecting with the 
Erie to furnish easier transportation for their surplus grain and the wealth 
of their forests. A meeting at Geneseo in 1825, held under a call signed by 
Philip Church, Daniel H. Fitzhugh, Wm. H. Spencer, Ira West, Jonathan 
Child and Heman Norton, was the first step in an organization which secured 
favorable legislation for ' ' a canal from Rochester along the valley of the 
Genesee and Canaseraga and of a canal from Genesee river to some point on 
the Allegany river. " Only two or three bridges as yet spanned the Genesee. 
Canoes, skiff sand rafts were extensively used, while, in low water, the many 
shallows afforded good places for fording. 

1834. The Third Seventh-day Baptist Church in Genesee was organized 
with 12 members, and in Independence the 1st Seventh-day Baptist Church 
was organized by Rev. Stillman Coon with 40 members. Charles Rogers 
and Enos Gifford settled in Willing. Heeding the importunities of the people 
along the Genesee Valley the Legislature passed an act authorizing a survey 
of a route for a canal to connect the Erie canal and the Allegany river, and 
the survey was made under the direction of J. C. Mills. Only the part 
relating to town and county audits can be found of the proceedings of the 
board of supervisors for this year. The poorhouse had been completed and 
was furnishing food and shelter for 92 inmates. 10 wolves and 27 whelps 
were paid for this year the sum being $235. The state also paid $89.50. 
This year James Pinkerton of Caneadea killed an old wolf and 11 young ones. 
April 30th an act passed the Legislature authorizing and directing the survey 
of a canal route from Rochester to Clean, and May 1st another directing the 
survey of a road from Hammond sport to Angelica. 

1885. The Third Baptist Church of Cuba with 22 members was organ- 
ized by Rev. Mr. Tuttle, also the first Baptist Church in Hume with 22 
members by Elders James Reed, J. C. Sangster and A. Miner. The Bap- 



Fourth Decade.— 1831-1840. 95 

tists of West Almond also organized with 88 members, with Rev. J. P. Evans 
as first pastor. Jacob Truax settled in Willing. 27 towns were represented 
upon the board. Josiah Utter was chosen chairman and S. C. Wilson clerk. 
The state paid $67.50 for ten grown wolves and seven whelps. Lindsley Jos- 
lyn, Richard Charles, Matthew P. Cady, Jesse Angel and Ezra Smith were 
elected county superintendents of the poor. The board resolved to raise 
$500 toward a bridge at Buttsville (Belfast). The most disastrous flood in the 
Genesee river and some of its tributuaries occurred this year. Old settlers 
speak of it as the "great flood," and it has since been used as a time marker. 
The water reached its greatest height October 19th it having rained hard 
for two or three days. Large quantities of corn were destroyed. Not a 
bridge was left upon the Genesee river from Rochester to Pennsylvania. 
Fences, houses, barns, mills and dams were taken away and much loss and 
great inconvenience followed. Calvin T. Chamb erlain was elected member of 
the Assembly. Clarksville was set off from Cuba, and an act was passed 
incorporating the village of Angelica. 

1836. A select school started in Alfred by Bethuel Church, the begin- 
ning of Alfred University. The first white child born in Alma, Emeline 
Hurlbutt. John Whiting made the first settlement in Fillmore. Baptists' 
first house of worship in Hume erected, and first school taught in Willing by 
Betsey Lovell. The board of supervisors consisted of 28 members and 
organized with Josiah Utter chairman and T. I. Lyon clerk. Richard 
Charles. Elias HuU and Ezra Smith, elected superintendents of the poor. 
Charles D. Robinson appointed physician to the jail. Asa S. Allen resigned 
the office of county treasurer, accepted. The judge and supervisors elected 
Andrew C. Hull county treasurer; Thomas Smith "sealer." State paid 
for seven wolves $35 and the county for six $30. The bill of George Miles dis- 
trict attorney was $466.08. Sheriff Moses Smith's bill was $1,008.32 and the 
superintendents of the j)oor drew $2,256. The Church lawsuit was still on 
and a bill of $125 for fees of Azor Tabor and M. T. Reynolds was allowed, as 
assistant counsel. AUegany was entitled to elect two members of the As- 
sembly, and C. T. Chamberlain was re-elected and Azel Fitch elected. May 
12th an act was passed to incorporate Angelica academy. May 13th a bill 
was passed authorizing the supervisors of the counties embracing the Hol- 
land Purchase to obtain from the HoUand Company, and have the various 
county clerks record or file, " such field-notes, maps, books and other statis- 
tical information" as they should decide to ask for and " the local agents 
consent to furnish." A good move. Was ever anything down about it? 

1837. First public house in Alma by Azor Hurlbutt, and first death in 
Wihing, a young child of Austin Butler. By an act of the Legislature " that 
part of Little Genesee creek, extending from the sawmill now owned and 
occupied by Messrs. T. and M. Cowles, in Bolivar in the county of Allegany, to 
the Pennsylvania line is hereby declared a public highway. ' ' April 4th the 
name of the town of Haight was changed to New Hudson. The AUegany 
Mutual InsuranceCompany was incorporated by act of the Legislature passed 



96 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

April 13th. The bill provided that "Jesse Angel, Benedict Bagley, Ezra 
Smith, Edward H. Johnson, Richard Charles, Augustus A. Common, Gilbert 
B. Champlain, William A. Kirkpatric, Orleton N. Messenger, Milton McCall, 
Ransom Lloyd, Lawrence Hull, Hiram Wilson, John B. Church and Samuel 
King, and all other persons, who may hereafter associate with them in the 
manner hereinafter prescribed, shall be a corporation, by the name of ' The 
Allegany Mutual Insurance Company,' for the purpose of insuring their 
respective dwelling-houses, stores, and other property against loss or dam- 
age by fire." This company continued for ten years when it closed, assess- 
ments having become so frequent and oppressive as to make a member- 
ship in the company undesirable. The board of supervisors organized by 
electing Josiah Utter chairman and Thomas J. Dwyer clerk. Ezra Smith, 
Alanson Burr, John Brathwait, Samuel C. Wilson and Chauncey F. Clark 
were elected county superintendents of the poor. There were two newspa- 
pers published in the county, and the board resolved to print the oflicial can- 
vass in each. The bounty on wolves was placed at $10, a resolution having 
been offered to fix it at |20 and lost. The judges' seats in the court house 
having become worn it was resolved that $20 be raised for the purchase of 
five chairs for the judges, and that the judges be a committee to secure the 
same. $50 was voted for stoves and pipes and fixing fire-places in the 
county poor house. A bridge having been commenced at Burrville (Canea- 
dea) and more funds needed $200 was voted to complete it, and $78.05 appro- 
priated to purchase a set of weights and measures for the county. It was 
considered that $25 would pay for necessary repairs to the court house, and 
$20 was voted to build a fence around the back yard of the court house. 
Only $55 were paid in wolf bounties, this was for three old and five young 
ones. Alexander S. Diven presented a bill as district attorney for $301.30 
and George Miles, for same service, $279.02. Seth H. Pratt, of Hume and 
Samuel RusseU of Alfred were elected to the assembly. 

1838. The first religious services in Alma were held by Rev. Reuben 
Kent. First public house in Fillmore opened on the hill west of the route of 
the canal, by Abner Leet. The First Baptist Church of Whitesville organ- 
ized with 11 members by Rev. John B. Chase. A Presbyterian Church 
organized by Revs. Lemuel Hull, Phineas Smith and A. S. Allen. Work on 
the Genesee Valley Canal was being prosecuted, and the construction of the 
Erie Railroad commenced, which stimulated the hopes and lightened the 
labors of our people. Both lines were to pass through the county. July 
26th occurred one of the most fearful wind storms that ever visited the 
county. Its tract covered a width of three-fourths of a mile. Scarce a 
tree was left standing in. its course. Houses, barns, wagons, all things in 
its way were hurled to the ground, and in some instances moved quite a dis- 
tance. Wm. V. Ayers was living in the track, though not in the midst of its 
worst effects, with his wife and child he escaped injury by seeking the shelter 
of the milk-house. Stephen Wilson had a horse killed. The water in the 
river was swooped up leaving the channel for a few minutes dry. The mud 



Fourth Decade.— 1831-1840. 97 

and water were scattered over everything in reach, and, near the Transit, 
the soil from a lield was swept completely off plow-deej^. The storm came 
from the west and passed in a southeast direction, crossing- the Genesee a 
little below the Transit bridge. Its effects were seen for years. But one 
evidence of this storm remains, a pine stub lying in the stumj) fence north 
of the Transit school-house. The board of supervisors, 28 members, organ- 
ized by choosing Wm. Welch chairman, and Thos. J. T. Dryer clerk. James 
Matthews, Jason Hunt and J. B. Welch were appointed a committee to 
obtain board, etc. The board in joint action with the judges appointed Ezra 
Smith and Chauncey F. Clark, county superintendents of the poor, and 
could agree upon no others so they dissolved the joint meeting. Nine wolves 
and 16 whelps were paid for, bounty allowed, $170. A. S. Diven was dis- 
trict attorney, his bill for services was $482.78. Considerable dissatisfac- 
tion being felt in regard to the non-assessment of personal property, this 
preamble and resolution was passed: "Whereas it is evident that the 
assessors in many of the towns have neglected to make a correct assessment 
of personal property in their several towns, which neglect operates unjustly 
on those towns which do assess the same, therefore, Resolved by this board 
that any assessor who shall hereafter neglect to ascertain and assess the 
personal property of his town according to the best information he can 
obtain, shall be presented to the Grand Jury, for indictment." " Resolved 
that a copy of the foregoing preamble and resolution, be taken by each 
supervisor, and read at the next town meeting in his town." Seth H. Pratt, 
of Hume and William Welch of De Witts Valley were this year elected to the 
Legislatvire. Granger was April 18th formed from Grove as West Grove. 
Wirt was erected from Friendship and Bolivar. 

1839. Asgil S. Dudley ox:)ened the first store in Fillmore, and Zebina 
Dickinson and Olivier Ackerman settled in Willing. March 6th the name of 
the town of West Grove was changed to Granger. Work on the Genesee 
Valley Canal had been put under contract, and work was being actively pros- 
ecuted, furnishing opportunities for many to w^ork with teams and other- 
wise, thus earning money to help them over the hard places. A great in- 
flux of foreigners, mostly Irish, occurred about this time, the inducement 
being the "public works." The First M. E. Church of Andover organized 
with 11 members by Rev. Samuel Nichols. Benjamin Burlingame was 
chairman of the board of supervisors, Isaac G. Freeman clerk, Elias HuU, 
Ithamar Smith, Reuben Weed, Samuel C. Wilson and Abner Adams county 
superintendents of the poor. A motion to remove the county treasurer, A. 
C. Hull, was carried by one majority. Ransom Lloyd was then appointed 
county treasurer and his bail fixed at $40,000. The stock of the county in 
the New York and Erie Turnpike was sold to Hon. P. Church, for $200. 
A panther bounty of $2.50 and on 9 wolves at $5 were paid for. First compli- 
mentary resolution to chairman on record was x^assed by the board. 

1840. This decade closes with increasing prosj^erity. Work had been 
commenced on the Erie Railroad and the Genesee VaUey Canal. Mills were 



98 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

being erected, and lumber manufactured in large quantities, which sought 
markets by way of Olean* and the Allegany river, Hornellsville and the 
Cohocton, and Mt. Morris and the Genesee Valley and Erie canals. A better 
class of buildings of all kinds was observable, and people were becoming 
contented and happy. This year was distinguished by the great presidential 
campaign, in which ' ' Tippecanoe and Tyler too ' ' and many other songs were 
sung and which actually wafted Gen. William Henry Harrison into the presi- 
dential chair on a tidal wave of campaign melody, over Martin Van Buren 
the Democratic candidate. This tabulated statement from the records of 
the board of supervisors, shows the valuation of the real and personal prop- 
erty of the several towns: Angelica, personal $12,866, real and personal 
$204,866; Almond, $5,325, $200,325; Allen, $300, $114,300; Alfred, $9,374, 
$179,374; Andover, $205, $116,205; Amity, $3,034, $221,034; Belfast, $720, 

$140,720; Birdsall, , $90,000; Bolivar, $1,813, $81,813; Burns, $11,230, 

$119,230; Caneadea, $2,330, $169,330; Centerville, $11,440, $171,440; 
Clarksville, $276, $72,276; Cuba, $2,235. $172,235; Eagle, $1,700, $131,700; 
Friendship, $6,910, $146,910; Genesee, $650, $82,650; Grove, $180, $88,180; 
Granger, $2,525, $134,525; Hume, $6,450, $251,450; Independence, $1,900, 
$166,900; New Hudson, $1,000, $128,000; Nunda, $33,134, $383,134; Ossian, 
$6,033, $126,033; Portage, $13,500, $383,500; Pike, $23,140, $345,140; 
Rushford, $19,784, $219,784; Scio, $389, $250,389; West Almond, $4,376, 
$101,376; Wirt, $3,175, $118,175. There were 30 towns represented on the 
board of supervisors. W. Hicks was elected chairman and Wm. P. Angel 
was chosen clerk. Alexander S. Diven's bill as District Attorney was 
$371.72. Reuben Weed, Abner Adams, Jonathan Smith, Sam'l C. Wilson and 
Henry Stevens were elected county superintendents of the poor. H. W. 
Bullock attended the board and furnished fuel and lights for 119. The com- 
mittee to visit the poorhouse reported 57 inmates, number received during 
the year 84, and the average number of inmates 42. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

FIFTH DECADE. — 1841-1850. 



T1[HEN this decade opened the county presented a lively and prosperous 
VV spectacle. Work on the Genesee Valley canal and the Erie railroad 
was being pushed rapidly forward, the great number of common laborers, 
workmen and artisans employed made a good home-market for the surplus 
products of the farms, and, besides, many farmers availed themselves of the 
opportunity to employ their teams upon the public works, for which they 
received a fair renumeration, thus helping them out in their payments upon 



Fifth Decade— 1841-1850. 99 

their places. Money was reasonably plenty, and it was a time of quite 
general prosperity. 

1841. Thirty towns were represented ujion the board of supervisors 
this year. Samuel Russell was chosen chairman, and Samuel Van Wickle 
clerk. A change was made in the administration of the affairs of the com- 
mon schools. The old office of town inspector of common schools was abol- 
ished and deputy superintendents of common schools were elected, one for 
the northern and one for the southern district. Wm. C. Kenyon was chosen 
for the southern, and Abraham Burgess for the northern district. The 
superintendents of the poor elected this year were Joshua Vincent, Tarbell 
Gordon. John Powers, Nathaniel Olney, and Alvin Burr. The whole amount 
of taxes spread upon the county this year was |110,623.07. Lorenzo Dana 
and Horace Hunt were elected to the assembly. Alexander S. Diven was 
elected district attorney. The account of Wilkes Angel, the retiring district 
attorney, was audited at ^316.63. 

On the 6th of October, 1841, a meeting was held at the court house at 
Angelica, at which the Allegany County Agricultural Society was organized 
with the following officers : President, Wm. G. Angel; vice-presidents, John 
Ayers, George Lockhart. Orra Stillman, James Wilson, Jr., Andrew Baker, 
Wm. Van Campen, Stephen Wilson, Jr., John Boles, Martin Butts, Stephen 
Mundy. Rodman Freeborn. Wm. A. Stacy, Edward H. Johnson, Peter Leroy, 
David T. Hamilton, Josiah Utter, Isaac Van Nostrand, John White, Jabez 
Burdick. Luther Couch, Samuel C. Clark, John Seaver, Asa K. Allen, Jacob 
Clendening, John Jones. James Perlnns, James McCall, Abraham Middaugh, 
Jesse R. Gibbs, and Jonah French; recording secretary, A. S. Diven; corre- 
sponding secretary. Ransom Lloyd; treasurer, Alvin Burr; board of mana- 
gers. Vial Thomas, Stephen Woodruff, Charles Maxson, Brice Carr, Hiram 
Harmon, John Simons, William Brown, James Matthews, Eli Lasure, Noah 
Smith, Elias Smith, Levi Latham, Wm. Duncan, Moses Parsons, Stephen 
Wing. Hollis Scott, Samuel Jones. Reuben Weed, Hiram Wilson, Oliver M. 
Russel, Samuel S. White, Calvin B. Lawrence, Isaac Andrews, Joshua 
Rathbun. Moses Smith, A. P. Messenger, Abram J. Lyon, William Knight, 
John Lockhart, and Daniel Willard. The society thus formed still exists. 
It has had its seasons of prosperity and adversity, as with all such institu- 
tions, has grounds well adapted for its purposes, and holds a fair every 
year at Angelica. 

1842. Work on the Genesee Valley canal and Erie railroad was sus- 
pended this year; on the former owing to a change in the state administra- 
tion, and policy regarding the prosecution of public works; and on the latter 
on account of "hard times" to obtain money for its prosecution. This 
made our people feel sad, and though their hopes were not entirely blasted 
their hearts were made sick. Thirty towns were this year represented 
upon the board of supervisors; Wm. Hicks was made chairman, and Lewis 
D. Simons clerk. Abraham Burgess was allowed $327.50 for services as 
deputy superintendent of common schools, Wm. C. Kenyon $106, and L. H. 



100 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Maxson |72; the two latter for the southern district. The whole amount of 
taxes levied in the county this year was $15,317.98. The propagation of silk 
worms and the jDroduction of silk it would seem was receiving some atten- 
tion at this time, judging from this quotation from the proceedings of the 
board of supervisors: "The certificate of Jonathan E. Parmalee and Ephraim 
Smith having been presented to the board by which it appears that Otis 
Ward has raised 9 15-16 pounds silk cocoons, and Arad French 25i pounds; 
on motion, resolved that the amount specified in said certificate be allowed, 
and that the treasurer of the county of Allegany pay to the bearer thereof 
15 cents for each pound of cocoons above mentioned." Samuel C. Wilson 
was elected county treasurer, and Hiram Wilson and Ralph C. Spencer were 
elected deputy superintendents of common schools. Bids for the county 
printing were received, that of E. C. Palmer for $25 and that of Purdy 
& Horton for $24.75, the latter was awarded the work. Number of 
paupers in the county poorhouse, 47; smallest number at any time during 
the year 33. 

The proceedings of the board of supervisors for 1843 are missing. 
Samuel C. Wilson was appointed first judge this year. 

1844. The number of towns was still 30, and Robert Flint was made 
chairman and Samuel Van Wickle clerk of the board of supervisors; Andrews 
A. Norton, Ephraim Smith, John Powers, Norman Howes and Ithamar 
Smith were elected superintendents of the poor. District attorneys Wilkes 
Angel and M. B. Champlain were allowed claims, the former $105.41, the 
latter $195.75. Alfred Lockhart was elected treasurer, Ralph C. Spencer 
and J. J. Rockafellow deputy superintendents of common schools, the former 
being allowed $483, and the latter $308, for services the past year. The 
number of paupers in the county poorhouse at time of visitation was 34. 
David Brown's bill for wood, lights and attendance, during session of the 
board was $15. Dennis B. Chapin from the southern and Samuel Blodgett 
from the northern district were chosen pupils to attend the state normal 
school at Albany, the first in the county. Martin Grover of Angelica, then 
known to many as the " ragged lawyer," was elected to Congress, the dis- 
trict comprising the counties of Allegany and Steuben. Nathaniel Coe of 
Nunda and John G. Collins of Angelica were elected to the assembly. Sam- 
uel C. Wilson was appointed surrogate. 

1845. In 1845 Horace Hunt was chosen chairman of the board of super- 
visors, and Samuel Van Wickle clerk. A claim for bounty on ten pounds of 
silk cocoons at $1.50 was allowed, the last appearance upon the records of 
that industry. Candles and sperm oil were still used for illuminating pur- 
poses, and Sheriff Brown was directed to purchase "four pairs of snuffers, 
and shovel and tongs for use in the court house." Postage was still very 
high; in an account of A. Lockhart, an item "Postage on letter from Utica, 
19 cents " appears. A bounty of $30 was allowed for two wolves killed, the 
state also paying $10. This is the last mention of wolves in the proceedings 
of the board of supervisors. It is perhaps proper and is certainly interest- 



Fifth Decade.— 1841-1850. 101 

ing to note that in the 27 years of which we have the data, 1.255 wolves and 
panthers were reported and " certilied to " as having been killed; for which 
bounties aggregating >pl9,496 were paid by the county and state, not includ- 
ing town bounties. From the organization of the county, or rather from 
1808, the time of the first possible meeting of the board of supervisors, there 
are 10 years for which no data can be found. Now, if the ten years for which 
the accounts are missing, were up to the average of those accounted for, 
there must have been as many as 1,746 wolves and panthers killed, from 
1808 to 1845 inclusive, at a cost to state and county of $26,679.70. The records 
reveal nothing as to bounties on bears, but panthers were included in and 
rated the same as wolves, oi^y 3 however were reported. This of course 
indicates that panthers were not frequently found, and that bears, if some- 
what numerous, were not aggressive or troublesome. Nathaniel Coe and 
John G. Collins were re-elected to the assembly. Marshall B. Champlain 
was appointed district attorney. 

1846. At the general state election, Nov. 4, 1845, a convention was 
ordered for the purpose of framing a new Constitution. The vote stood 
"For a convention," 213,257; "No convention," 33,860. Accordingly the 
Legislature passed an act calling the convention to meet at Albany, June 1, 
1846, when the convention met and performed its labor so as to adjourn 
on the 9th of October, submitting the new constitution to the people at the 
general election held Nov, 3, 1846, when it was adopted by the folio wing vote: 
Amended constitution, "Yes," 221,525; amended constitution, "No," 92,436. 
Allegany county was represented in the convention by William G. Angel 
and Calvin T. Chamberlain. Mr. Angel was a leading and influential mem- 
ber, delivering a speech on " the qualifications and duties of the executive " 
which was not excelled by any speech made on that subject in the conven- 
tion. To quote L. B. Proctor in his "Lives of Eminent Lawyers of New 
York: " " His speeches on the apportionment, on the election and tenure of 
office of the Legislature — on the judiciary articles — on the canals and finan- 
ces, and on the rights of married women, were fertile with practical, use- 
ful and liberal suggestions, and furnished the convention with a fund of 
valuable information, which greatly aided the members in their delibera- 
tions." Grover Leavins and Samuel Russell were elected to the assembly. 
Martin Butts was elected county clerk, and Joshua Rathbun sheriff. This 
year the towns of Eagle, Pike, Portage and Nunda were, against the strong 
remonstrance of the rest of the county, set off to Wyoming and Livingston 
counties. Early this year war with Mexico commenced, owing to the 
annexation of Texas by the United States. Volunteers were called for and 
all troops necessary for its prosecution were obtained by voluntary enlist- 
ment. A number went from Allegany, enlisting at Buffalo, the nearest 
recruiting station, but no company was organized here. The effect of the 
war, which lasted some two years, was hardly perceptible in this section. 

1847. Ever since the abandonment of the public works in 1842 the peo- 
ple had been unceasing in their efforts to effect a resumption. Timber which 



102 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

had been gotten out for the structures, and in many cases the half finished 
bridges, waste- weirs, etc., were decaying, and along the line of the canal 
damages were paid to contractors, enough it was declared in some instan- 
ces to have completed the work; but in 1847 people began to think that work 
would soon be resumed; the conviction had good effect, and even the despair- 
ing indulged hope. Only 26 towns were represented on the board of super- 
visors. Anson Congdon of Clarksville was chosen chairman, and A. B. Hull 
clerk. At the first session on the second day Hull was removed and Joseph 
W. Stewart elected; a very strange procedure to say the least! John 
Wheeler of Granger and William Cobb of Independence were elected to the 
assembly. William G. Angel was elected county judge, and Lucien P. Weth- 
erby district attorney. 

1848. Work was resumed upon the Genesee Valley canal and about the 
same time upon the Erie railroad, and a general revival in all business lines 
soon followed. Orville Boardman of Rushford and Erastus H. Willard of 
Friendship were sent to the Legislature. 

1849. Anthony T. Wood of Ossian and Joseph Corey were elected to the 
assembly, John J. Rockafellow county clerk, Joab B. Hughes sheriff. 

1850. The population of the county was 37,808, some 3,000 less than 
that of 1840, but when the before mentioned loss of four towns is taken into 
account an actual gain in the 26 towns remaining is found. Emery E. Nor- 
ton and Anson Congdon were elected to the assembly, and Augustus L. 
Davidson elected district attorney. The decade closed with lively prosecu- 
tion of public works, and good prospects for the early completion of both 
canal and railroad. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

SIXTH DECADE. — 1851-1860. 



IN 1851 two events of great importance to AUegany occurred: the 
opening for navigation of the Genesee VaUey canal to Oramel, and the 
completion of the Erie railroad. Enterprises of all kinds were greatly stim- 
ulated, lumbering especially, and the woods rang as never before with the 
sound of the woodman's axe and the rallying cries of the noisy teamsters. 
Great numbers of sawmills were built, many of them driven by steam power. 
The forests disappeared rapidly, and were remarkably soon succeeded by 
cleared fields and comfortable homes. Industry in whatever channel di- 
rected was reasonably rewarded, cattle were raised quite extensively, sheep 
in large numbers covered our hills and the people were happy and contented. 
John Wheeler of Granger and John R. Hartshorn of Alfred were elected to 



Fifth Decade.— 1841-1850, 



103 



A L Leg A NY, 



I N 
1%S0. 



Cou Nry 



V^YO h/1 1 NtJ C. O U NTY 1-/V I N q STg/V 



SS'A N. 




o 



104 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

the Assembly. Lucien P. Wetherby was elected county judge. Robert 
Norton from Connecticut began the manufacture of pine-apple cheese at 
Rushford, April 1, 1851, the first made in the state. 

1852. In the autumn of this year, Asahel N. Cole started a newspaper 
at Belfast, the Genesee Valley Free Press, its original purpose and design being 
to supply the Free Soil Democrats with an organ, turning out, however, to 
be the first Republican paper in the county, if not indeed of the state and 
nation. Its fearless and pronounced position in politics, its boldness in the proc- 
lamation of its doctrines, together with the fact of Mr. Cole's connection 
with, and being a ruling spirit in, the first Republican Convention ever 
held, which convened in the old court house at Angelica, October 17, 1854, 
gave to Mr. Cole the rightful claim in the minds of many to the paternity of 
the Republican party, and so the old court house is looked upon by ardent 
partisans as the veritable birthplace of their party. 1852 was the last year 
in which the Whigs presented a candidate for the Presidency, Gen. Winfield 
Scott being their standard bearer, and Gen. Franklin Pierce of New Hamp- 
shire, the candidate of the Democrats. General Scott was badly beaten. 
It may be safely stated that 1852 marked the advent of the mowing machine, 
that wonderful invention which has wrought such a revolution in farmwork 
during "haying time." Marshall B. Champlain and Emulous Townsend 
were elected to the Legislature. 

About 1853 was inaugurated a crusade against the pine stumi3s covering 
a large area of the newly cleared land, making the cultivation of such lands, 
which are nearly always rich and productive, very difficult and laborious, 
not to say provoking. Stump-pulling machines were largly employed, and 
miles and miles of stump fences (in their day considered very desirable, 
though now they are considered a nuisance) were made. 

The year 1854 was perhaps more distinguished in a political way than 
in any other, as it was the year in which the Republican party first placed a 
state and county ticket in the field. Lucien B. Johnson and Lucius S. May 
were elected to the Assembly. 

1855. As early as 1855 the project of removing the county seat to some 
point on the line of the Erie railroad began to be talked of. The dilapidated 
condition of the old buildings, and the great change in routes and modes of 
travel, brought about by the railroad, were the reasons assigned by those 
who advocated the change. Dairying as an industry was receiving consider- 
able attention. Rushford, Centerville, Almond, Alfred and Independence 
were foremost in the manufacture of butter and cheese, which found a ready 
market, and were now shipped by rail and canal, instead of being hauled by 
teams to Rochester and Buffalo. Quite a variety as to quality was offered 
and some particular makes became famous and were eagerly sought for. 
Woolen factories at Rushford, Almond, Angelica, and Friendship turned out 
large quantities of cloth and yarn. "Shoddy" was as yet unknown, and 
the memory of those " sheep's grays " and finer finished fabrics and flannels 
is still cherished by the older ones. Flax, which years before and for a long 



Sixth Decade.— 1851-1860. 105 

time had been raised by almost every farmer, had become neglected and 
but little produced. Isaac Hampton of Ossian and Alexander H. Main were 
sent to the Assembly. Wm. B. Alley was elected county clerk. John G. 
Collins county judge, Samuel C. Cotton sheriff. 

A state census was taken this year, and, as it occurred so nearly a half 
century after the county was organized and active settlement began, we 
will draw quite freely from its figures and statements, and so enable the 
reader to institute comparisons, and study the growth and the decline of 
the various industries. In 1855 the six largest towns in the county, in order 
of population, were Scio 3,184, Amity 2,655, Caneadea 2.400, Belfast 2,130, 
Cuba 2,116, and Hume 2,094. There were 181 colored people in the county. 
The classification of the inhabitants by occupations showed 9 agents, 1 agri- 
cultural imx:)lement maker, 9 apothecaries and druggists. 1 artificial-tiower 
maker, 1 axe-maker. 2 bakers, 4 bankers, 7 barbers, 2 basket-makers, 242 
blacksmiths, 1 boarding-house keeper, 5 boat-builders, 27 boatmen and 
watermen, 4 boiler-makers, 1 brewer and distiller, 16 butchers, 59 cabinet- 
makers, 377 carpenters, 2 book-sellers and stationers, 1 drayman, 1 caulker, 
4 civil engineers, 107 clerks, copyists and accountants, 80 clergymen, 1 clock- 
maker and repairer, 18 clothiers, 93 coach and wagon makers, 3 collectors^ 
12 contractors, 6 cooks, 52 coopers, 7,364 farmers, 1 fireman, 2 forwarders, 
4 f urnacemen, 1 gambler, 8 gardeners and florists, 5 gate-keepers, 49 grocers, 
9 gunsmiths, 4 hardware dealers, 7 hat and cap makers, 66 hotel and inn 
keepers, 5 inspectors, 5 jewelers, 88 joiners, 892 laborers, 52 lawyers, 1 
lecturer, 1 lime-burner, 9 livery-stable keepers, 326 lumbermen and dealers, 
82 masons, plasterers and brick-layers, 28 machinists, 15 manufacturers, 184 
merchants, 59 millers, 64 milliners, 47 millwrights, 6 moulders, 21 musi. 
cians, 9 music teachers, 1 nurseryman, 7 ostlers, 2 overseers and superin. 
tendents, 39 painters, glaziers and varnishers, 2 paper-makers, 3 pattern- 
makers, 19 peddlers, 4 photographers, 85 physicians, 1 pilot, 2 post-masters, 
23 printers, 4 produce dealers, 1 professor, 3" sailors and mariners, 2 sale- 
ratus-makers, 176 sawyers, 1 sculptor, 1 sexton, 22 shingle-makers, 3 specu- 
lators, 1 spinner, 2 stage proprietors, 11 stone and marble cutters, 61 stu- 
dents, 1 surveyor, 156 tailors, 74 tanners, curriers and leather dealers, 171 
teachers, 43 teamsters, 4 telegraph operators, 20 tinsmiths, 24 weavers, 12 
wheelwrights, 1 woodcutter and 1 wooldealer. 20 insane people were re- 
ported, 13 stone dwellings, 29 brick, 6,287 framed and 966 log houses, 806 of 
all other kinds of houses. 

Of improved lands there were 280,863 acres, and 304, 209^ acres of un- 
improved lands. Cash value of farms $12,352,363, and stock was valued at 
$2,081,738; tools and farming implements $575,936. The acreage of some of 
the leading crops was returned as follows: 71,276 acres of meadow, 6,594^ 
acres of spring wheat, 6,964^ acres of winter wheat, and 82,929 bushels 
harvested. Of oats there were 34.845 acres, 665,490 bushels. 6,800i acres 
of corn were planted and 189,5884^ bushels harvested; potatoes 3,057:^ acres 
yielding 206,258 bushels. Of maple sugar 332,260 pounds were made and 



106 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

3,490 gallons of maple syrup, 103 gallons of wine; 68,998 pounds of honey 
and 3,321i pounds of beeswax, one bushel of clover seed was raised valued 
at $7, neat cattle, not including oxen and cows, 24,931. There were 3,392 
working oxen, and 19.009 cows were milked; while 2,550 cattle were killed 
for beef, and 1,700,775 pounds of butter and 1,044,978 pounds of cheese were 
made, and 10,803 gallons of milk sold. There were 11,223 horses, 36 mules, 
13,148 swine. Of sheep there were 104,799. 80,416 fleeces were shorn and 
272,622i pounds of wool sold. The value of poultry sold was $7,819, and of 
eggs sold $11,218. 3,095i yards of fullcloth was made, and 14,476 yards of 
flannel, 4,053^ yards of linen cloth, and 9.337f yards of " cotton-and-mixed " 
cloth. Two pairs of gloves were reported valued at $1; 322 jDairs of mittens 
valued at $174; 211 hats $61, and 2,746 pairs socks were made, worth $936. 

A rake factory was then in operation in Rushford, two asheries were re- 
ported, both in Centerville. Rushford also had a bakery, reporting an 
output of $24,000 in value. Matches were made at Belmont, the number of 
employees being 20, and saleratus was made in New Hudson. Angelica, Bel- 
fast and Rushford manufactured sash, doors and blinds. 23 gristmills 
were reported. The only planing-mills reported were at Scio and Amity. 
There were 183 sawmills, of which 19 were in Amity, 20 in Ossian, 24 in Scio 
and 8 in Genesee. 29 shingle factories, 23 boot and shoe manufactories, 
four of them in Hume, employing 13 men. 17 tanneries were reported, and 
a clothing manufactory at Almond employing 132 men. There were 21 
churches with a total average attendance of 2,060. Schoolhouses were re- 
ported, 246 framed, 10 log, 1 plank and 1 stone, " very poor "33, " very good " 
4. Six newspapers were reported, one at Almond, two at Angelica, one at 
Oramel, one at Cuba and one at Wellsville. 

1856. Save only the spirited presidential contest of this year, in which 
the Republicans placed their tirst national ticket in the field, no event of un- 
usual importance occurred. The town of Ward was this year erected from 
portions of Alfred and Amity, since then no new town has been formed. 
The board of supervisors organized by electing Martin Butts chairman and 
Charles Horton clerk. The assessed valuation of real estate was $8,951,669, 
of personal property $804,067. The total amount of taxes spread was $51, - 
114.34. Wm. M. Smith and James T. Cameron were elected to the as" 
sembly. Hamilton Ward was chosen district attorney. 

1857. The subject of the removal of the county seat was revived with 
increased and increasing interest, and the grand jury presented a condem- 
nation of the public buildings. A monetary panic during the later months 
of the year caused a general depression in business and Allegany suffered 
with the rest of the country. The board of supervisors again made choice 
of Martin Butts for chairman, and Charles Horton for clerk. The assessed 
valuation of real estate was $8,518,085, of personal property $861,869. Total 
amount of taxes $62,245.97. John M. Hammond of Hume and Wm. F. Jones 
of Wellsville were elected to the assembly. 

1858. The fight on the removal of the county seat was now on in dead 



Sixth Decade.— 1851-1860. 107 

earnest, being precipitated and intensified, by the alleged action of what was 
called the " Angelica Regency " in exacting of a certain aspirant for senato- 
rial honors certain promises or pledges which he deemetl inconsistent with 
his sense of honor and propriety. His refusal to comply with their wishes, 
made political enemies of the so-called "regency" (in these days, "ring'' 
or "organization "' w^ould be the word.) who declared that he should never 
go to the senate and his nomination was defeated, but it aroused a feeling 
with his friends, which added to the desire from purely legitimate business 
reasons of those situated along the line of the Erie railroad, succeeded in 
securing the passage of an act appointing three commissoners to designate 
some place on the line of the Erie railroad to which the county seat should 
be removed. In May. 1858, in accordance with the provisions of this act, 
the commissioners located the county seat at Belmont, and immediately the 
necessary proceedings were taken to secure the early erection of the new 
county buildings. The board of supervisors this year made choice of John 
M. Hammond for chairman and Asahel N. Cole clerk. The assessed valu- 
ation of real and personal property was $9,005,907, but the records do not 
reveal the amount of the taxes. Alfred Lockhart of Angelica and William 
Cobb of Spring Mills were elected to the legislature. John W. Eldridge was 
elected county clerk, and Henry Brown sheriff. 

1859. This year was a busy one in Belmont. The new county build- 
ings were erected by Mr. C. S. Whitney and the contract required them to 
be ready for occupation, the court house at least, by the time of the annual 
meeting of the board of supervisors. .$20,000 was appropriated for the 
buildings, and the money loaned on the credit of the county. As the annual 
election approached, it became apparent that Angelica was not going to give 
up the light altogether, notwithstanding the new county buildings, and Dr. 
Wm. M. Smith and Darwin E. Maxson were elected to the assembly. Early 
in June occurred a very severe frost, and just one week later another. These 
were extremely disastrous to grass and grain, and the forests put on the 
appearance of autumn, many trees being killed. The board of supervisors 
again made choice of John Hammond for chairman and A. N. Cole for clerk. 
The total valuation of real and personal property as returned by the asses- 
sors was $8,583,045, and the amount of taxes raised in the county was $44,- 
355.05. This was the first session in the new court house, and Chairman 
Hammond made an appropriate speech on the subject and occasion which 
was printed in the proceedings. 

1860. Soon after the organization of the Legislature of 1860, Wm. M. 
Smith, the member from the northern district, ottered a bill entitled "An 
act to divide the county of Allegany into two jury districts, and provide for 
holding court in and for said county alternately in each of said districts," 
and, much to the surprise of large numbers of our people, it passed the 
assembly in due season. This was made the occasion for calling an extra 
session of the board of supervisors, which convened at Belmont on the 27th 
of March. On the eighth ballot John M. Hammond was again chosen chair- 



108 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

man and on the fifth ballot J. F. Olney was chosen clerk. The board passed 
a preamble and several resolutions (vote 21 to 8) expressing surprise at the 
passage of the bill through the assembly (which it declared must have been 
deceived) and esjDecially requested the senator from this district (Hon. 
David H. Abell) to oppose to the extent of his ability its passage through the 
senate. The bill however passed that body and became a law. This involved 
the repair and reconstruction of the old court house at Angelica, and the 
new jail at Belmont was in some way declared to be unsafe for the detention 
of prisoners, which made more repairs necessary for the old jail at Angelica, 
which was fitted up in such a way as to serve the purpose very well until 
Jan. 1, 1895, when the new jail at Belmont was occupied. In conformity to 
the provisions of the law, the courts were held alternately at Belmont and 
Angelica until 1892. 

By law the courts are now held at Belmont; the old court house and jail 
at Angelica have been sold, a new jail at Belmont constructed, and, now, 
notwithstanding a case is in the courts to test the legality of late proceed- 
ings, it is quite generally conceded that the county-seat question is relegated 
to the rubbish pile of the past. It is hoped that it may be so. While it was 
unsettled it engendered discord, created ill-feeling, and, in various ways, 
contributed to a condition of unrest, apprehension and alarm. The old court 
house and jail at Angelica were sold, Jan. 5, 1895, for $855 to a syndicate who 
will hold the property untifcthe town of Angelica purchases it. 

The year 1860 was also made ever memorable by the great historic 
presidential campaign which resulted in the election of Abraham Lincoln 
to the Presidency. Great excitement prevailed, and Allegany was no excep- 
tion, for it was stirred to its remotest borders and shook, as never before, to 
its very center. The board of supervisors at their annual meeting continued 
the ofiices of the chairman, J. M. Hammond, and clerk, J. P. Olney, elected 
at the special session the previous March. The amount of taxes laid upon 
the county this year was ifl56,603.38, and the total amount of real and per- 
sonal property, as returned by the assessors, was $8,421,078. Wilkes Angel 
and Lucius S. May were elected to the Legislature. In territorial extent 
and division into towns Allegany is the same now as at the close of this dec- 
ade, so the map which accompanies these pages, is the last in the series used 
to illustrate the growth of the county. 

Immediately after the election, the people of the Southern states 
began to take steps towards putting into execution the threats of seces- 
sion which they had been making throughout the campaign, and, on 
the 20th of December, the Convention of South Carolina, called for the pur- 
pose, without a dissenting vote (Yeas 169) passed an "Ordinance of Seces- 
sion." Other states soon followed its example. The die was cast and anap- 
to arms was the inevitable result. The curtain of this decade is rung down 
amid the gloomiest of forebodings, those of " grim-visaged war." 



Sixth Decade— 1851-1860. 



109 



A L L E Q A N Y , 

I N 

J.% 60 . 

A 1^ O AS AT P Fi, £L "S £. rsl T. 



\A/ Y M \ N q COUNTY LI V I N q 5 -no /y 



O u /VT-y. 




110 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



CHAPTER XX. 

SEVENTH DECADE. — 1861-1870. 

" Ah ! then and there was hurrying to and fro. 
And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress, 
********* 
And there was mounting in hot haste, the steed, 
The mustering squadron, and the clattering car, 
Went pouring forward with impetuous speed, 
And swiftly forming in the ranks of war." 

I'^HIS decade was ushered in with most intense excitement amidst the 
gloomiest of prospects. South Carolina had seceded on the 20th of 
December, 1860. Prom January 10th to 18th Plorida, Alabama and Georgia 
passed ordinances of secession in rapid succession, some unanimously, 
others with but slight opposition. On the 4th of March Abraham Lincoln 
was inaugurated President of the United States, not, however without great 
apprehension for his safety. Events important, historic and exciting in the 
extreme, hurried on apace, and at 4.20 in the morning of April 12th fire was 
opened upon Port Sumter in Charleston harbor, occupied by Major Ander- 
son and a small detachment of Pederal troops. With the rapidity of light- 
ning the news was flashed to the remotest borders of the land. Impromptu 
meetings were held, orators with impassioned eloquence appealed to the 
multitudes, the poet attuned his lyre to the new conditions, and the clergy 
gave expression of loyal sympathy for the cause of the Union. On Monday 
morning, April 15th, the public journals displayed, conspicuously, the proc- 
lamation of the President in which he called forth the militia of the several 
states to the number of 75,000, "in order to suppress said combinations, 
and cause the laws to be duly exercised." An extra session of Congress was 
called by the same proclamation. 

New York was one of the first of the states to answer to the call of the 
President, and Allegany was one of the foremost of its counties in sending 
on men. Capt. C. C. Gardiner, of Angelica, was first to respond with Com- 
pany I of the 27th Regiment. The men were so impatient to be mustered 
into the service, that a special messenger was sent to Albany to get the 
company accepted for two years under the state auspices. In all there were 
two maximum regiments of men from Allegany who entered the army, and 
the state, answering to the several calls, before the war closed sent 464,156 
men to the front. A good account is given in the history of Allegany county 
published in 1879 of the men sent from the county, of the regiments they 
formed and helped to form, and the part they bore in the field, but that 
account omitted entirely to speak of occurrences and events at home, of the 
part the "stay-at-homes" bore during those tragic years. It is well per- 



Seventh Decade. — 1861-1870. Ill 

haps, to devote some space in these pages to that interesting subject, and, 
incidentally, to show something of the great contribution of money which 
the jieople at home laid upon the altar of their country, of the aid and com- 
fort they afforded to the soldiers in the field, and of the various sacrifices in 
many ways made for the preservation of the Union. 

The scene which our county presented after the breaking out of the 
Rebellion defies description. Middle-aged men ''left plow" in furrow," 
young men their classes in college, seminary and academy, and, enrolling 
themselves, hastened quickly to the place of rendezvous, while mothers, 
wives and sisters busied themselves, tearfully and loyally, in making hurried 
preparations for their departure. Later, in every town and almost every 
hamlet, the ladies would gather to scrape lint, make bandages and in various 
ways arrange means for alleviating the sufferings of the sick and wounded, 
and contribute to their comfort in field and hospital. War meetings were 
held, patriotic and inflammatory speeches made, and under the excitement 
which they wrought many enlistments were made; in some cases all the 
able-bodied male members of a family of sufficient age being accepted. 

At first enlistments were made from purely patriotic motives and 
Impulses, as nothing above regular soldiers" pay was offered, and that was 
too meagre and insignificant to furnish any inducement for going into the 
ranks. After the bullet-riddled, mangled forms of dear ones were sent 
home in boxes after the battle of Bull Run and other early actions, or 
reported buried on the battle field, taken prisoner or missing, the awful 
and stern reality of war was made painfully obvious. The glamour, the 
poetry of war had vanished. Men paused and staggered under the almost 
bewildering conditions, and it became necessary, as call succeeded call, to 
offer " bounties " in order to stimulate enlistments and fill the quotas of the 
several towns. And so it came to pass that a strife arose between the towns 
as to which should offer the largest bounty. The avarice of the people was 
appealed to, and men as a rule enlisted for the largest bounties they could 
obtain, while those at home held themselves in readiness to raise the neces- 
sary money, temporarily advancing it, in many instances, and waiting for 
the towns to re-emburse them. To meet the exigency, the Government 
issued money, which, from the color of the paper used, was called " Green- 
backs." Currency was plenty and prices of all kinds of products, of farms 
and manufactories, rose to marvelous figures. Merchandise advanced so 
rapidly that it was said to take most of the time of the merchants to mark 
up their goods to keep pace with prices at the wholesaling stores, and during 
the years from 1861 to 1864 the more reckless a merchant was in buying the 
more money he would make. Gold went up to .^2.97, wiieat touched about $3 
per bushel and wool reached one dollar per pound. 

Many were the trips fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters made "to 
the front " to care for the sick and wounded, and many were the boxes of 
provisions, clothing and supplies of various kinds, and, especiallj^ during 
the days of Christmas time, sent to the "boys in blue" in field, camp and 



112 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

hospital. It detracts not one iota from the glory of those who did service in 
the army, to concede that the " stay-at-homes " had a part to play also, and 
that they played it well in the great drama being enacted, wherein the stage 
was the United States, the auditorium the world, the auditors all mankind. 
It is safe to say, and to the glory of Allegany be it said, that no county in the 
state sent more men in proportion to population, and no state was repre- 
sented by better soldiers in the field, or braver ones in action. It would 
require pages to indite the names of those who were distinguished for heroic 
deeds and actions, and the list could then only be closed with invidious dis- 
tinctions, so many did nobly and so few did not. 

The war record of Allegany is one to which her people can well " point 
with pride. ' ' The Twenty-Third regiment, organized at Elmira, May 16, 
1861, contained in Company B, recruited at Cuba by Capt. M. M. Loyden, 
the first instaUment of Allegany's contribution to the army. Other parts of 
the regiment were three companies from Steuben, two each from Tioga and 
Chemung, and one each from Cortland and Schuyler counties. This regi- 
ment had an honorable career and was in many distinguished engagements, 
among them Rappahannock Station, Sulphur Springs, Gainesville, Manassas 
Plains, Second Bull Run, Chantilly, South Mountain, Antietam, and Fred- 
ericksburg. 

The Twenty- Seventh regiment was organized at Elmira, May 21, 1864, 
and made up mainly from companies recruited in Westchester, Wayne, 
Broome, Monroe, Livingston, Wyoming and Orleans counties. A company 
of about 75 men under Capt. Curtis C. Gardiner was recruited in this county 
and taken into this regiment, which did good service, and had an honorable 
record. 

The Ninety-Third regiment. Company E of this regiment was recruited 
mainly in Amity, Scio, Belfast, Caneadea, Wellsville and Independence, the 
recruiting being principally in charge of A. J. McNett, Esq., of Belmont, in 
September, 1861. McNett was soon after appointed captain. He proved a 
most gallant and patriotic officer, was severely wounded in service and was 
brevetted colonel before being mustered out. 

Allegany was represented in the Fifth New York Cavalry by 60 men in 
Company E and 16 men in Company F. The regiment was also known as 
the ' ' First Ira Harris Guard. ' ' This organization was in many engagements, 
and was noted for bravery in action. 

The Eighty-Fifth regiment was more than half made up by Alleganians 
the rest coming from Cattaraugus, Seneca, and Ontario counties. Among 
the many memorable battles in which this regiment took part were Fair 
Oaks, Mechanicsville, Gaine's Mills, Malvern Hill, Goldsborough and Ply- 
mouth. 

The Eighty-Sixth regiment, N. Y. Volunteers, had about 40 men from 
Allegany in Companies H, B and D, while the Sixth-Fourth regiment, organ- 
ized in Cattaraugus county, contained two companies from Allegany, Com- 



Seventh Decade.— 1861-1870. 113 

pany D, with 83 men, under Capt. Philip Lake, and Company G under Capt. 
J. S. Pittinger, also with 83 men. 

The Sixth Cavalry, or Second Ira Harris Guard, contained 35 men from 
Allegany, forming part of Company I. 

A few men from Allegany were in the Twelfth Cavalry or Third Ira 
Harris Guard, and a contingent of Alleganians (from 30 to 40 men) found a 
place in the Second Mounted Rifles. In the First Veteran Cavalry, were 
found a few Alleganians; in the Fifth Artillery 27 men, and 81 men was its, 
contribution to the Thirteenth Artillery. 

The One Hundred and Thirtieth regiment, better known as the First 
N. Y. Dragoons, whose record was exceptionally brilliant, was enlisted 
largely from Allegany. All of Companies C, E, F, G, H, and I, and stiU 
others in Companies A, D, and K were from this county. 

The One Hundred Thirty-sixth regiment. The war record of this organ- 
ization is one to be proud of. The regiment was with Sherman in his 
" March to the Sea; " with Howard at Gettysburg, where it formed a part of 
the heroic host that held the stone wall at the crest of Cemetery Hill when 
Pickett made his tremendous onslaught through the wheatfield; it was among 
the intrepid and daring forces that stormed Lookout Mountain and fought 
the battle "Above the Clouds " and planted the Stars and Stripes above the 
mists, where the army in the valley below saw and cheered the flag; it was. 
also at Atlanta, and it marched to the relief of Burnside at the siege of Knox- 
ville, many of the men walking in their bare feet over frozen ground. At 
the battle of Peach-tree Creek the regiment three times recaptured a battle- 
flag after fighting of the most desperate character. This flag is now among 
the war trophies at the Military Museum in Albany. 

Two companies from Allegany found places in the 189th, and Company 
C and E of the 194th were also composed of Alleganians, while Allegany con- 
tributed fragments of the 179th, 184th, 160th, 104th, 188th, 78th, 81st. 154th, 
and 161st regiments of N. Y. Infantry; 16th Pa. Cavalry, 67th Pa. Infantry, 
12th and 13th Wisconsin regiments. 

The glorious part that Allegany took in the great War for the Union, 
was treated so exhaustively in the "History of Allegany County " published 
in 1879, that we deem it best in this work to go but briefly over the ground 
so familiar to (or at least which should be so familiar to) all Alleganians. 

1861. Wilkes Angel was chosen chairman and David R. Stillman clerk 
of the board of supervisors. The real estate in the county was assessed at 
$7,330,750, and the jjersonal property at $754,257. The amount of taxes 
spread upon the county was $50,835.72. Alvah E. Cruttenden and Edward 
D. Loveridge were elected to the assembly, Geo, W. Green was elected 
county clerk, and Edward S. Bruce sherifl'. Gov. Morgan appointed Hon. 
Martin Grover, Wilkes Angel and Marshall B. Champlain " WarCommittee " 
for Allegany county. 

1862. S. L. Davidson was made chairman and D. R. StiUman clerk of 
the board of supervisors. The record of the annual session alludes to an 



114 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

extra session on the 27th of August, but no account of the proceedings 
appear. It is strongly probable that it was called to provide means to pay 
for recruits. At this session there was a committee on the "volunteer 
bounty fund," which made a report showing that bounty orders to the 
amount of $26,823.27 had been issued. Real estate in the county was asses- 
sed at 17,217,741, and personal property at |832,881. The amount of taxes 
this year was $61,521.48, Edward D. Loveridge and Alvah E. Cruttenden 
were elected to the Legislature, and Hamilton Ward was elected district 
attorney. 

1863. S. L. Davidson was chosen chairman, and Wm. T. Barnes clerk 
of the board of supervisors. The county judge and surrogate's salary was 
advanced to $1,250. The real estate was assessed at 17,174,942, and i3ersonal 
property at $705,183; whole amount of taxes $71,387.58. Every town in the 
county had its "war committee, " to which was entrusted the business of 
making arrangement or provision for bounties, and the board of supervisors 
had a " Committee on the Volunteer Bounty Fund," which made a report, 
showing that the towns had taken bounty orders in amounts as follows: 
Alfred $450, Allen $750, Almond $1,400, Amity $950, Angehca $1,250, Alma 
$100, Andover $600, Belfast $1,250, Birdsall $50, Burns $2,500, Caneadea 
$2,700, Centerville $1,150, Clarksville $320, Cuba $884.50, Friendship $100 
Granger $700, Grove $675, Hume $2,900, Independence $300, Rushford $1,350, 
Scio $300, Ward 1175, Wellsville $2,720, Willing $600, and Wirt $1,475. Boh- 
var, Genesee, New Hudson and West Almond had not as yet used a bounty 
order. Interest had occurred on these orders to the amount of $873.73, 
making the total so far to be raised, $26,823.27. 

1864. In July or August, Robert Morrow, Charles Benjamin and H. K. 
Stebbins, having completed the necessary building and equipments, put in 
operation the first cheese factory in Allegany county, selling out on the 4th 
of the next November to Charles J. Elmer, who still conducts the business 
in the old factory. The board of supervisors organized by again choosing 
S. L. Davidson chairman and Wm. T. Barnes clerk. The county treasurer 
was required to give bonds in the sum of $100,000. The board appointed 
Dr. John Norton a committee to investigate the condition of the county poor- 
house. He made a report showing a bad condition of things existing there. 
Amount of real estate this year was $7,389,066, and personal property $764,- 
210. Charles M. Crandall of Belfast and Albon H. Lewis of Bolivar were 
elected to the assembly, and John T. Wright was elected sheriff. From a 
report of the " Committee on Military Bounty," it is learned that there was 
to be collected in that year, $46,763.73 applicable to the payment of bounty 
orders, and that the " whole amount to be collected, due March 1, 1864," was 
$307,750.30. 

1865. This year Silas Richardson was made chairman of the board of 
supervisors, and Wm. T. Barnes v/as again chosen clerk. The pay of the 
clerk and his assistant was raised to $225, and $175 added for making out 
bounty orders. It appeared from the report of the . county treasurer that 



Seventh Decade— 1861-1870. 115 

the sum of $264,159.57 had been paid on bounty orders. Value of real estate 
this year was $7,485,809, and of personal jDroperty, $824,379. The amount of 
county and state tax was $71,156.66 and the amount to be spread upon the 
towns for bounty purposes was $170,251.88. Though these sums were enor- 
mous, the people probably never paid a tax with less difficulty, owing to the 
inflated price for everything which the farmer or manufacturer had for sale. 
Wm. "Wilson and Albon H. Lewis were sent to the Legislature, and James S. 
Green was elected district attorney. 

1866. Wm. E Hammond was made chairman of the board of supervis- 
ors and David R. Stillman clerk. The assessed valuation of real estate was 
$7,480,330 and of personal property $840,126. Allegany, by a new appor- 
tionment, was reduced to one member of assembly, and Charles M. Cran- 
dall of Belfast was returned. The amount received for bounty purposes, 
as appears by the report of the committee to settle with the county treas- 
urer, was $197,841.36, and the amount paid out was $201,558.30. The total 
amount of taxes to be raised was $68,982.36. Further than appears in the 
report of the committee to settle with the county treasurer, no mention 
is made in the proceedings of any matters concerning war expenses. 

1867. The board of supervisors organized by electing C. W. Woodworth 
chairman, David R. Stillman clerk. This was the first year in which an 
•'exhibit," showing the supervisors, assessed and equalized valuations, 
number of acres, value per acre, ratio, tax, etc., of each town, was printed 
on separate sheets for distribution, and posting in public places. The 
assessed valuation of real estate was $7,507,914, and of personal property 
$930,559. The amount of tax spread was $88,665.99. Silas Richardson of 
Belmont was elected to the assembly and Wm. H. H. Russell chosen county 
clerk. 

1868. Messrs. Woodworth and Stillman were again elected to the sev- 
eral positions of chairman and clerk of the board. Real estate in the county 
was assessed at $7,590,384, and personal $926,868, and the total tax was $114,- 
341.38. Silas Richardson was re-elected to the assembly and Rufus Scott 
district attorney. 

1869. Washington Moses of Granger was made chairman of the board 
of supervisors, and David R. Stillman clerk, with Geo. A. Green assistant 
clerk. The value of real estate was $7,677,912, and of personal property, 
$860,121. The amount of taxes raised in the county was $102,790.40. Charles 
N. Flenagin was elected to the assembly. 

1870. The board of sui^ervisors made choice of A. J. Wellmanfor chair- 
man, and D. R. Stillman was again chosen clerk. The salary of the district 
attorney was advanced to $800, that of county judge and surrogate to $1,750. 
The amount of the assessed valuation of real estate was $7,719,894, that of 
personal, $839,673, and the amount of taxes spread upon the several rolls, 
was $131,001.49. Charles N. Flenagin was reelected to the Legislature. 
April 9th the " Rochester, Nunda and Pennsylvania Railroad Company " was 



116 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

organized for the construction of a railway from Mt. Morris to Amity. In 
support of the project the town of Birdsall bonded for $20,000, and Angelica, 
for $60,000. The population of the county was 40,814. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

LATER DEVELOPMENTS, PROGRESS, ETC. 

HAVING, it is hoped, with a reasonable degree of minuteness of detail^ 
consecutively traced the history of Allegany from the time of its first 
settlement in 1795 to a period clearly within the memory of people of middle 
age, interest in a further relation in detail is materially lessened from the 
fact of the familiarity of our people with the events and incidents of so recent 
occurrence; and so, with a brief glance only at the leading events and occur- 
rences of the last twenty-five years, we will precede the sjDecial chapters by 
a tabulated statement, giving in a nutshell the progress of that material 
prosperity which has distinguished the county during the closing period 
of the first hundred years of its existence. 

Early in the seventies the prosecution of railroad projects, which had 
just commenced when our last chapter closed, was continued. The Belmont 
and Buffalo, with a projected route from Belmont, following down on the 
west side of the Genesee river through the towns of Angelica, Belfast, Can- 
eadea, Hume and Pike, and connecting with the Erie at or near Silver Springs, 
being among the first to be projected. Some of the towns along the route 
of this proposed road have reason to remember it, from having bonded in 
aid of the enterprise. It has never been completed, although some work 
was done along the line. A narrow-gauge road from Angelica through 
Friendship, Wirt, Bolivar, Genesee, and on to Olean, was built, and run for 
a while, but at present for the most part of the way it has been abandoned. 
Angelica made a noble fight for a road and is now the southern terminus of 
the C. N. Y. & W. road, doing a moderate business, with connections with 
the Erie and other roads at Hornellsville. Rushford for a short time had 
the benefit of a narrow gauge road, which ran from Cuba to Attica, but this 
had to succumb to adverse conditions and lack of sufficient patronage. The 
Western New York and Philadelj)hia railway, constructed in 1882, along the 
abandoned Genesee Valley canal, is still running and doing a fair business, 
and is a great convenience to the people along and near its route. A road 
from Angelica to the last named road, at a point about one mile south of 
Belfast, was constructed and ran for a while during the eighties, but has. 
been abandoned. The river towns from Wellsville down are expectant of 
an early continuation of the Buffalo and Susquehanna system from Wells- 



Later Developments, Progress, Etc. 117 



ville to connect the W. N. Y. & P. railway with the last named road at or 

near Belfast. 

The development of oil territory in Allegany has been accomplished 

during the last twenty-five years, adding largely to the business, wealth and 

population of the southwestern part of the county. Towns have arisen like 

magic and gone down as quickly; but during 1895 a revival of that industry 

is noticeable, owing to the advance in the price of oil. Even with the falling 

off of labor in the oil field, the population of the county has shown a steady 

increase. The census of 1880 showing 41,810 and that of 1890 43,240. 

Aside from the oil industry the dairy business and the raising of hay 
are the two leading industries of Allegany. The Cuba cheese market ranks 
third in the state of New York, and third in the United States. Early in the 
seventies iron bridges began to make their appearance, the first one put up 
being at Mills Mills, in Hume. So fast have they supplanted the wooden 
structures, that now they are in a decided majority. In a few years, proba- 
bly by 1900, not a wooden bridge of any pretension as to size will be found 
in the county. Nearly twenty good bridges now span the Genesee river, 
niore than half of them being of iron. 

The old county poorhouse buildings, were at the commencement 
of the period now under consideration in need of constant and extensive 
repairs and alterations to meet the requirements of proper classification and 
care of the inmates, and which were at the best illy planned to meet the 
demands of intelligent administration, or to comply with the exactions of 
this progressive age in treatment of the poor, so it was determined to re- 
place the old structures with new buildings, and in 1883 they were con- 
structed. The new structures are built after plans approved by the state 
board of charities, and especially by Hon. Wm. P. Letchworth, the distin- 
guished philanthropist, whose interest in and labors for the improvement of 
the condition of the unfortunate wards of the state and nation have given 
him a world wide fame, at that time president of the board. They are tasty, 
commodious, and comfortable. Heated by steam as they are, the tempera- 
ture is easily kept uniform, and at any desired degree. The grounds im- 
mediately about the buildings are pleasant and very tidily kept. The insti- 
tution is now one of which Allegany may justly feel proud, as it ranks 
second to none among counties of its population and class in the state.. 

In numerous instances several small farms are merged in one large one, 
this being the case in all of the toAvns. The old structures put up in the 
days of early settlement are few and growing less in number. Occasionally 
in riding over the country one will observe the feature so impressed upon 
the mind of Mr. E. M. Wilson, of Belfast, when he so gracefully and truth- 
fully wrote: 

" Hard by some aged apple tree, 

Or where the live-forever grows, 
A mound of earth and stones we see, 
Where once the settler's cabin rose." 

But a few more years will pass and these, too, the last visible evidences, 
save the cleared fields, of early occupation, will have disappeared. 



118 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

The log school-houses years ago disappeared, and have been replaced 
with the neat and tasty framed structures, now so common all over our 
county, and so, also, of the old log houses of the pioneer period, not more 
than half-a-dozen of them all told are left in the county and tenanted. 



Among the many Alleganians who have become distinguished, may 
with propriety be mentioned the following: Jonathan Allen, D. D., Ph. D.> 
for many years president of Alfred University, and Prof. Wm. C. Kenyon, 
who preceded Dr. Allen as the head of that pioneer academic and collegiate 
institution, both teachers of a very high order of excellence. Hon. Martin 
Grover, the gifted lawyer, judge, and statesman, who served one term in 
Congress, was promoted to the supreme court bench, and made a member 
of the Court of Appeals of New York. Marshall B. Champlain, the eloquent 
advocate, state legislator, and attorney general. Prof. Wm. H. Pitt, the 
profound scholar and distinguished scientist, for many years connected 
with the public schools of Biiifalo. Prof. James Baxter, the founder of the 
"Baxter Institute of Music" started in 1853, the pioneer of its class of 
schools in the United States; Dr. H. R. Palmer, the eminent musical director, 
composer and publisher; Senator Henry M. Teller of Colorado, who has 
also been U. S. Secretary of the Interior, and his brother Willard, a distin- 
guished lawyer and successful business man of Denver; Philip H. Welch, 
of Angelica, who became greatly distinguished in the world of letters as a 
briUiant humorist and master of sarcasm. Wm. G. Angel, the county's first 
elected judge, an able jurist and statesman, as noted for being the head of a 
family of lawyers, as was Dr. ' Lyman Beecher for furnishing so many 
pulpits with masterful briUiant preachers. Madame Alberti, a native of 
Alfred, and a daughter of President Allen, the celebrated elocutionist, now 
of New York City, who is almost peerless in her art. Dr. Daniel Lewis of 
New York, chairman of the state board of health; Dr. T. H. Norton of the 
Cincinnati University, a Rushford boy, upon whom the University of Heidel- 
berg conferred the degree of Ph. D. '' snmma cum IcmcW (a "Doctor of 
Philosophy with highest praise"), the highest degree in the gift of the great 
universities of the world. But a short time since his aJma mater, Hamilton 
College, bestowed upon him the degree of Sc. D. (Doctor of Science), the 
second time it had conferred the degree in its existence of eighty-three 
years. It is said that one of the nations of Europe having confidentially 
asked our cabinet at Washington to name the best man to become the head 
of the scientific department of a new government university, the late Secre- 
tary Gresham sent the name of Dr. T. H. Norton. Norvin Green and Wm. 
Orton, presidents of the Western Union Telegraph Company, must also be 
mentioned. As athletics is receiving more and more attention in our col- 
leges and universities, it may not be out of place to refer to William Muldoon 
of Belfast, in certain styles the champion wrestler of the world, and Ed. 
Atherton, his pupil, a probably successful aspirant for the middle-weight 



Later Developments, Progress, Etc. 



119 



wrestling- championship of tho world. In pioneer days the names of Judge 
Philip Church, Clark Crandall and Major Moses Van Cami^en. stand for the 
high qualities demanded in those times. Many more might with equal 
propriety be named, and then some equally worthy would be left unnoticed. 

Allegany may " point with pride "' to such a list. Her representatives 
are in every state, and in foreign countries. Her sons adorn the bench, 
grace the pulpit, are successful in business, achieve distinction in scientific 
pursuits and ornament all the learned professions, as well as grace the 
humbler walks of life, and her daughters are found to be worthy, womanly 
sisters of such noble brothers, acquitting themselves with credit in the do- 
mesticity of the home, in the business office, on the lecture platform, in the 
pulpit and in the world of letters, and they are known and honored in many 
climes. 

Statement showing the assessed valuation of Real and Personal estate in Allegany county 
from 1 87 1 to 1894 inclusive, also the amount of taxes collected in the coun-y for the same time^ 
exclusive of school, road and municipal taxts. 



YEARS. 


REAL ESTATE. 


PERSONAL I'ROPERTY. 


TAXES. 


■ 


1871 


$7733,874 


$ 795,001 


$127,863.03 




1872 


7,836,234 


821,683 


161,113.31 




1873 


8.117,931 


796,638 


144,860. 10 




1874 


8,132,119 


750.961 


i4i,cx)2 72 




1875 


9,90^,690 


751,367 


148.071. 17 




1876 


15,179,862 


1,439,626 


113,616.50 




1877 


14,151,749 


1,273.958 


121.97945 




1878 


13,217,589 


1,286,574 


109,488.28 




1879 


12,515,556 


1,167, ' 12 


115.865.14 




1880 


12,409,403 


1,043,408 


118,012.64 




1881 


12,643,734 


1,068,912 


107,742.85 




1882 


14,093. 7513 


i,4-?9,876 


I2b,ii3.97 




1883 


14,891,442 


1,417.546 


154,288.76 




1884 


15,024 361 


1,421,621 


145,645-52 




i88s 


14,476,295 


1. 3 19.953 


163,572.55 




1886 


15,026,643 


1,176,662 


168,909.33 




1887 


14,180,456 


1,204,628 


155,425-59 




1888 


14,270,167 


1,165,275 


149,867.60 




1889 


14,167,363 


1,211,393 


187,979-52 




1890 


14,045,521 


1,264,593 


179,200.71 




1891 


13,884,692 


1,227,981 


141,692.36 




1892 


13,719,918 


1,286,074 


152.537-39 




1893 


13,432,175 


1,482,667 


149,355-65 




1894 


13,258,398 


1,414,272 


169.573-42 





Making the handsome showing of $3,453,867.56 

A glance at the tax column of this statement, may serve to impress 
upon our people an idea of their importance, financially considered, and the 
total amount of taxes paid, may prove indeed a surx3rise to many of the 
readers of this chapter, as much so, perhaps, as it was to the writer wh en 
he tabulated and footed them. 

Banks and Banking. Perhaps no other department of business is so 
much in touch with the financial condition of a section of country as that of 
banking, and here Allegany's record is shown to be an eminently favorable 
one. Beyond a doubt the first bank in the county was a branch of the Erie 
County Bank of Buffalo which must have been established in the thirties. 
It was not long in existence, possibly the panic times of 1837 had something 
to do with the closing of its doors. For a long x)eriod from 1832, when it was 
founded, the lumbermen of Allegany had to rely on the Steuben County 



120 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Bank, of Bath, of which Gen. John Magee was the controlHng spirit, for the 
necessary funds to carry on their operations until the annual rafting and 
sale of their products was consummated in the Ohio and Mississipj^i valleys. 
The influence and assistance of this great monetary institution was felt not 
only in Steuben and Allegany, but largely in Cattaraugus and Chautauqua 
counties. Fifty years ago there was not a banking institution of any conse- 
quence in the county. D'Autremont's private bank at Angelica, with 
Green's private bank at Cuba, and possibly one or two others, were all Alle- 
gany apparently needed at even a later day. The financial progress will be 
perhaps shown better by the banks now doing business than in any other 
way and we consequently give a list of them. The First National Bank of 
Friendship was the first to organize under the National Banking Law, on 
February 1, 1864. The National Banks as given by the Bankers^ Register of 
July, 1894, are: Cuba National Bank, $100,000 capital, $50,000 surplus, $5,700 
undivided profits, $160,000 average deposits; First National Bank, Cuba, 
$50,000 capital, $50,000 surplus, $5,000 undivided profits, $100,000 deposits; 
Pirst National Bank, Friendship, $75,000 capital, $50,000 surplus, $3,000 
undivided profits, $170,000 deposits; Citizen's National Bank, 'Friendship, 
$50,000 capital, $10,000 surplus, $9,000 undivided profits, $90,000 deposits; 
First National Bank, Wellsville, $100,000 capital, $30,000 surplus, $15,000 
undivided profits, $280,000 deposits; Citizen's National Bank, Wellsville, 
just organizing. The State Banks are: The University Bank, Alfred, $25,000 
capital; Andover State Bank, $25,000 ca^Dital; Bank of Angelica, $25,000 
capital, $4,000 surplus, $1,000 undivided profits, $50,000 deposits; State Bank 
of Belmont, $25,000 capital, $5,000 surplus, $3,200 undivided profits, $75,000 
deposits; State Bank of Bohvar, $30,000 capital, $1,200 surplus, $66,000 
deposits; State Bank of Fillmore, $25,000 capital, $8,000 surplus, $2,000 
undivided profits, $100,000 deposits. Private banks as follows: A. M. Bur- 
rows, Andover; Bank of Belfast, $15,000 capital, $8,000 surplus, $1,900 
undivided profits, $85,000 deposits; C. G. Anderson & Son, Belmont; Can- 
aseraga Banking Co., $15,000 capital, $2,000 surplus, $1,623 undivided profits, 
$40,000 deposits; M. C. Mulkin, Friendship; Wells Bros., Hume; Stacy & 
Kendall, Rushford; Elias Harris, Scio. 

In politics Allegany was, previous to the formation of the Republican 
party, one of the strongholds of the Whigs. Since 1854 it has been one of 
the strongest Republican counties in the state, rolling up such majorities 
for the candidates of that party, as led either Horace Greeley or A. N. Cole 
to name it " Grand Old Allegany, " a title which it has for a long time 
borne; and now claims as eminently applicable in other and broader senses. 
, The centennial county officers are. S. McArthur Norton, County Judge; 
Geo. H. Swift, Sheriff; Jas. R. Hodnett, Under Sheriff; George A. Green, 
Clerk; T. S. .Tefft, Deputy Clerk; Charles H. Brown, District Attorney; 
Charles Ricker, Treasurer; F. H. Bluestone, school commissioner 1st dis- 
trict; Stephen Pollard, school commissioner 2d district; Hon. Fred. A. Rob- 
bins, Member of Assembly. 



Travel and Transportation. 121 



CHAPTER XXII. 

TRAVEL AND TRANSPORTATION. 

" Behold that clumsy careless craft, 
Upon this narrow highland stream, 
Fettered with rocks, and fallen trees 
That in its channel lie, 
And zigzag as the lightning's track 
Athwart the midnight sky. 
With poles and ropes and dauntless hearts, 
From morn till evening gray. 

They force their tiny ship along its winding way, 
See I now she's fast upon some rift or tree ! 
Hark ! hear the captain's ' Altogether now, heo he! ' 
And she rises as by magic power. 
And hastens on the long expected hour." 

" Allegany's pioneers were men of push and pluck 
Who came to win, but not by chance or luck ; 
And when they sought but found no way. 
They carved out one without delay." 

OUR pioneers as they pressed their way into the primitive forests of Alle- 
gany found " a hard road to travel," if indeed they found any road at 
all. Following the course in some instances of the larger streams, poling 
and pushing flatboats loaded with their effects, while the oxen and horses 
(if any) and perhaps a cow and a jjig or two. were in some way driven along 
the banks, they made very slow progress; and when they came to the later- 
al stream up which they were to make their way the progress was still 
slower. Plunging through the stream here, stopping there to widen out 
the almost complete road which for a short distance bordered the creek on 
one side, while the other presented perhaps a perpendicular wall of rock; 
now resorting to the axe and oxen to clear the way. (which permits no de- 
viation there,) of the huge trunk of some prostrate tree, then again pausing 
their march to corduroy some brief distance of unavoidable swale, crossing 
again the stream, or following for a distance its stony bed, halting to pre- 
pare the midday meal of the plainest description, partaken of, however, with 
a relish sharpened by their toilsome march; then, when the day's march is 
done, i^reparing the rude camp in the depths of the wilderness, the night 
made hideous perhaps by prowling wolves, who had scented, and were fol- 
lowing their tracks to disturb their slumbers by their howling chorusses. 

This is no exaggeration, only the story, only the experience of many of 
the early settlers in Allegany. And when the work of felling a few trees 
and preparing a rude cabin was accomplished, and they stopped for a 
moment to survey the situation, and consider the full scope of its meaning, 
of its possibilities, of the years of toil and hardship which lay before them, 



122 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

they were confronted with a problem of immense importance, and which 
imperatively demanded a solution, and which, the sooner it was solved the 
better itwouldbe for them. Looking behind them there was thelongand tedious 
journey just accomplished, with hardships innumerable, and here they were 
so far from their old home and friends, with only a scanty invoice of the bare 
necessities of life; while around and about them the illimitable forest, 
covered with a wonderful growth of timber, must needs be felled and 
cleared away, and the ground prepared for crops. This process must con- 
sume long years, and involve a great amount of hard labor. 

It was a forecast well calculated to tax to their utmost the bravery and 
enterprise of the most resolute. No wonder that our pioneers should ad- 
dress themselves to the solution of the problem of transportation with 
energy and zeal. ''Necessity is the mother of invention " and " where there 
is a will there is a way." These adages were most beautifully illustrated 
in the efforts to open communications with the older settlements, and markets 
of the seaboard. Wagon roads were first thought of, and stages the most 
aristocratic conveyance the most sanguine allowed themselves to dream of. 
One of the first roads constructed was the one from Hornellsville to Olean 
described in another chapter. The most penetrating minds could see no 
other outlet to the seacoast and it was set forth in the advertisement wiiich 
Capt. Church published when he placed his tract upon the market. This 
says : 

"This Tract of Land contains 100,000 acres, and is situated on the Genesee River, 22 
miles south of Williamsbur.s^h, 100 east of Presque Isle, 8 north of the Pennsylvania line, and 
16 west of the navigable waters of the Susquehannah. * * * The proposed State Road 
from Catskill to Presque Isle and New Connecticut is now opened as far as this tract, upon 
which a settlement was made in October, 1802 (Angelica), since when a store has been estab- 
lished, " etc. 

As early as 1803 some settlements had been made in Caneadea, and a 
road opened down the river from where the road before spoken of struck 
the river, to the settlements. It was from this road that the first road 
leading over to Friendship from the river to the Tucker place was made in 
1806. At what we now call the Transit bridge a road was opened from this 
river road to Franklinville in 1805, pursuing a very direct course to the 
Ischua, crossing White and Black and Oil creeks. It was known as the 
" Ischua road," and has long since been abandoned. The Holland Land 
Company early o^jened a road from Leicester to Olean Point, which came to 
be called the "Allegany road." This entered the county at the northeast 
corner of Centerville, passed through that town to Rushford, thence on the 
valley road to Oil creek and Olean. A branch left this road at the center of Cen- 
terville passing out of the county at Fairview. A road of the rudest possible 
character passed up the river from the extreme northern limits of the 
county substantially following the Indian trail to Caneadea. As early as 
1809 a road of the simplest and roughest kind was opened from Angelica to 
Olean, but it was almost impassable except in winter. In 1819 a commis- 



Travel and Transportation. 123 

sion consisting- of Moses Van Campen, Joseph Ellicott, Robert Trouj), Charles 
Carroll. Philip Church, Dugald Cameron, Seymour Bouton, Sylvanus Rus- 
sell and William Higgins was appointed to lay out a road from Angelica by 
way of Van Campen's Creek to Hamilton (Olean). The '-Bath and Olean 
Turnpike "' was soon after constructed substantially covering the road 
already referred to. and, with a small state appropriation, was speedily com- 
pleted and opened as a toll-road. Over this road passed a great amount of 
travel from the east and southeast to Olean. 

While these enterprises were being prosecuted, there were other forces 
at work destined to work a revolution in transportation. In 1807 Jesse 
Hawley discussed in the Ontario Messeufjer over the signature of Hercules, 
the feasibility, propriety and practical importance of a canal to connect Lake 
Erie with the Hudson. Public attention was drawn to the project, and meet- 
ings were held along the route of the proposed " commercial artery." The 
legislature was bes'eiged wibh petitions asking state aid for the enterprise; 
surveys were authorized, the work was put under contract, and in 1826 the 
completion of the Erie canal was celebrated with imposing ceremonies. This 
canal turned the tide of travel from Philadelphia and Baltimore to Roches- 
ter and York Landing, bringing the settlers of Allegany considerably nearer 
to the base of supplies, and affording a nearer and more stable market for 
their products. If a country so remote from the Erie canal could be bene- 
fited so much as Allegany seemed to be, the reasoning was conclusive that 
a canal through her territory, emptying into her lai? the stores and supplies 
her people so much needed, and bearing upon its bosom to the seaboard her 
tall pines and sturdy oaks, would greatly enhance the value of her forests 
and promote the material interests of her people. And so the matter was 
talked up, and after a while meetings were held to discuss the possibility, 
feasibility, practicability and commercial and financial importance of a canal 
connecting the Erie canal and the waters of the Allegany. It is claimed 
that the first meeting where the project was publicly discussed was held at 
Cuba; that John Griftin, Daniel Raymond, Simeon C. Moore, Calvin T. Cham- 
berlain and Samuel Morgan, and others from Allegany and Cattaraugus 
counties attended. At what date the meeting was held I have been unable 
to ascertain. Judge Church doubtless was present, for he was one of the 
earliest promoters of the enterprise, although it should be mentioned that 
he favored the construction of a railroad instead of a canal. In this he was 
overruled, but the sequel proves his sagacity and wonderful foresight. 

As early as 1827 Governor Clinton recommended a survey of the Gene- 
see Valley to ascertain the difference of elevation, the structures necessary 
to build, and obstacles to be overcome in constructing a canal. In 1828 a 
survey was made under the direction of Judge Geddes, whose rej^ort demon- 
strated the feasibility of the scheme; but the public did not seem ready to 
embark the state in the enterprise. Revolutions do not go backward, neither 
do projects for internal improvements. What had already been done had 
enlisted public attention. Enterprising and speculative men were encour- 



124 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

aged thereby to visit the region which the proposed canal was to traverse, 
and to view the prodigious growth of the vast forests on either side of the 
upper Genesee, survey the rich flats along its course, and form opinions as 
to the importance of the canal to this region. And so, at last, after some 
had even despaired of success ever crowning their efforts, the work of 
years of toil in bringing the matter before the public brought forth good 
fruit in 1834 when an act was passed authorizing a more complete survey of 
the proposed route, which was made under the direction of J. C. Mills, and, 
in May, 1836, an act was passed authorizing the construction of the Genesee 
Vahey canal. The work was at once put under contract, and in 1837 active 
operations commenced. Such scenes of activity as were soon presented 
along the line of the proposed canal, were never before witnessed in Alle- 
gany. Contractors, sub-contractors, foremen, bosses, engineers, put in 
their appearance. Hundreds of Irishmen fresh from the "old sod," Ger- 
mans from "faderland," and brawny laddies from the land of Burns and 
Ossian, were all seen along the line in quest of work. Shanties went n-p, 
blacksmith shops, public houses (generally of quite rude construction); 
quarries were opened to procure stone for aqueducts, locks and bridge 
abutments. Everywhere was life and activity, money was plenty, and a 
good market right at our doors was opened for all the farmer had to spare, 
making better times than have perhaps ever been experienced here before 
or since. Fifty-two miles were completed as early as 1840. bringing Dans- 
ville and Mt. Morris into close connection with Rochester and the Erie 
canal. 

In 1842, owing to a change in the state administration, work was sus- 
pended, and for a few years dull times followed. The half -completed bridges, 
locks and aqueducts, the partially-excavated ditches and lock-pits, and here 
and there a section substantially finished, caused the line of the abandoned 
works to present a strange appearance, and covered the faces of many of 
our people with dismay and apprehension. In 1847 or 8 however, work was 
resumed, after paying large amounts in damages to contractors, in some 
cases (it has been estimated) enough to have completed the work, and in 
1851 the canal was finished to Oramel. The work was finished to Belfast in 
1853. to Rockville in 1854, and to Olean in 1856. It passed through Hume, 
Caneadea. Belfast, New Hudson and Cuba, and was mainly used for the 
transportation of lumber and shingles from Allegany and Cattaraugus coun- 
ties. Soon after its opening to Oramel a packet-boat, the •' Frances," made 
regular trips from Mt. Morris and return; but it did not prove a joaying 
investment, and was soon abandoned. Too much time had to be spent in 
passing the locks, and so the stages soon had it all their own way again. 
This canal was not a paying investment of itself, yet it contributed to largely 
swell the receipts of the Erie canal, and aidfed in converting the pine forests 
of Allegany into improved farms, and enriched its people. Considering the 
fact that the people of Allegany had been taxed for years for the construc- 
tion and support of the Erie canal, while the benefits received were in com- 



Travel and Transportation. 125 

parison quite trilling, it was perhaps only evening up things to tax other 
portions of the state for the construction and maintenance of this lateral 
canal, which was, in the fall of 1878, abandoned to give way to the Buffalo, 
New York and Philadelphia railroad. 

New York and Erie Railroad. About the time the practicability of 
railroads became an established fact, and even before, the visions of water 
communication with Baltimore, began to vanish like the cloud phantoms of 
a dream, the outlet to which the settlers of southern and central Allegany 
had looked for their surplus products began to close, for when compared 
with the great artificial waterway, " Clinton's Ditch," as the Erie canal was 
called by some, it was soon relegated to the rear. The Erie canal had been 
completed, and put into successful operation. Its effect was soon felt and 
seen in the thriving villages and cities, which, magic-like, sprang into exist- 
ence along its line, in the beautifully improved farms, which spread for 
miles in either direction, the great impetus which was given to agricultural 
pursuits and industries, the building up of new enterprises and a generally 
improved condition of things social as well as material. Then came the con- 
struction of railways in the valleys of the Mohawk and Hudson, pushing on 
toward Buffalo, increasing the facilities and lessening the tedium of travel, 
infusing more ardor, more life and animation to the people. During all 
these long years the people of the southern tier of counties, taxed for the 
construction and maintenance of the Erie canal, from which they received 
no apparent benefit, were groaning under what they considered unjust bur- 
dens, a real load of oppression, and the illusions of former years, in the way 
of schemes for "down river navigation," having been dissipated, had be- 
come restive and discouraged. Their immense pine forests were still 
standing, deer were still roaming its vast solitudes, and bears and wolves 
were yet undisturbed except by the enterprising hunter. Their eyes were 
strained with eagerness to discern some way of solving this great question 
which laid so near and affected so directly their material interests. It was 
a time for men of genius, of sagacity, of discernment and enterprise to come 
to the front. Nor did they long have to wait. Among the first in this part 
of the state to appreciate the importance of a railroad were Judge Philip 
Church, of Belvidere, and F. S. Martin, of Olean. It was at the suggestion 
of Judge Church that the call for the first public meeting for the promotion 
of the enterprise was held. This met at the courthouse in Angelica on the 
25th day of October, 1831. 

Judge Church presided at this meeting, and Asa Allen and Daniel Mc- 
Henry were the secretaries. Resolations strongly favoring the enterprise 
were adopted, and a committee consisting of Hon. Philip Church, Gen. S. S. 
Haight, J. B. Cooley, Ransom Lloyd and John Collins was appointed, and 
instructed to enter into communication with the people of the other coun- 
ties interested, and a delegation was appointed to attend a railroad conven- 
tion, to be held at Owego in December. A committee of three from each 
town was appointed to confer with the committee on correspondence, circu- 



126 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

late petitions, and do any other acts considered important to the furtherance 
of the enterprise. The town committees were: Angelica, Andrews A. Nor- 
ton, Charles Davenport, Ithamar Smith; Almond, Stephen Major, Jesse 
Angel, Hiram Palmer; Alfred, John B. Collins, Samuel Russell, Joseph Good- 
rich; Andover, Sidney Frisbee, Sheldon Brewster, Elijah Hunt; Amity, A. E. 
Parker, B. G-. Crandall, John Simons; Allen, James Wilson. J. W. Stewart, 
Chester Roach; Burns, William Welch, H. Halliday, J. H. Boy land; Birdsall, 
J. B. Welch, J. Whitman, A. C. Hull; Belfast, S. Wilson, E. Reynolds. R. 
Renwick; Bolivar, L. Leonard, T. Richardson, L. Evans; Cuba. John Griffin, 
John Bell, H. Brasted; Centerville, O. Pell. B. Bryan, William Freeman; 
Caneadea, A. Burr, E. Burbank, James Caldwell; Eagle, J. Grover, J. Wart, 
J. Wing; Friendship, S. King, William Colwell, E. Griswold; Grove, J. S. 
Wright, E. Smith, J. Van Ostrand; Genesee, J. S. Crandall. B. Maxson, 
Hiram Wilson; Hmne, S. H. Pratt, C. G. Ingham, C. Mather; Haight, T. Mc- 
Elhney, William Andrews, J. Westfall; Independence, Q. S. White. Samuel 
Maxwell, S. Leonard; RusTford, M. McCall, A. J. Lyon. Lyon J. Young; Scio, 
J. Middaugh, B. Palmer, Asa Parks. 

Quite a number of meetings were held at the larger places along the 
line of the proposed railroad, and public feeling in the southern counties 
was wrought up to a high pitch of excitement. The legislature v/as flooded 
with petitions from the people in the Southern Tier, and every inducement 
which could be brought to bear upon the members of both houses was 
resorted to, which resulted in the passage of an act of incorporation April 
24, 1832 which was amended April 19, 1833. 

On the 9th of August. 1833, a board of directors was elected. A pre- 
liminary survey had been made in 1832 by DeWitt Clinton, Jr., under direc- 
tion of the state authorities. In 1834, by direction of the Governor, Benja- 
min Wright, assisted by James Seymour-and Charles EUiott, surveyed the 
route, beginning the work May 22d, and finishing it late in the fall. A re- 
organization of the company was effected in 1835, and the forty miles west 
from Piermont, N. J., opposite New York city, was placed under contract. 
The state was appealed to for aid, and in 1836 the comptroller was directed 
to issue i^3, 000,000 of state stock and take a lien on the road to that amount. 
It was indeed an immense undertaking. The difficulties encountered in its 
construction seemed at times almost insurmountable. The faint hearted 
despaired, the brave and determined summoned more courage, and put forth 
still greater efforts. The commercial revulsions and financial disturbances 
of 1837 had a depressing effect in retarding the prosecution of the work, if 
not entirely arresting it. 

A renewal however, of popular meetings or conventions along the line 
was inaugurated, at which the propriety and justice of the state assuming 
control and paying the expense of building the road was urged with no little 
show of reason and plausibility. One of the most notable of these was held 
at Cuba, Feb. 1, 1839. It was composed of delegates from Allegany, Living- 
ston and Cattaraugus counties. The late General Micah Brooks of Living- 



Travel and Transportation. 127 



ston county, ever awake to the social and material improvements of the age, 
was early in his enlistment in the cause of the people of the Southern 
Tier, attended the Cuba convention and was called to preside. Judge Alson 
Leavenworth of Cattaraugus, Hon. John Griffin and Gen. C. T. Chamber- 
lain of Allegany, were vice-presidents, and John G. Collins of Allegany and 
F. S. Martin of Cattaraugus were secretaries, 105 delegates took seats in 
the convention. In addition to the remarks of General Brooks upon assum- 
ing the chair the convention was addressed by Hon. J. Griffin, C. T. Cham- 
berlain, F. S. Martin, D. C. Woodcock, S. M. Russell, A.Leavenworth, J. G. 
Collins, L. Brooks and D. C. Bryan. Of the entire number whose names 
occur in the printed proceedings of this important meeting, it is safe to say, 
after careful inquiry, that only one survives, Hon. S. M. Russell of Cuba. 
The proceedings of this convention were published by the Olcan Times of 
Feb. 9, 1839, and General Brooks' address appeared in an "extra" of the 
Livingston county EeinMican of February 28th. 

For the purpose of conveying to the reader a correct impression of the 
condition of carrying trade at that time we give a few extracts from this 
address of Gen. Brooks. 

The growing demand for increased facilities for transportation is attracting attention 
The Erie canal, the pride of the state, is not sufficient to supply the margin of the upper lakes, 
and any attempt to increase its dimensions cannot satisfy the demands of the west. As evi- 
dence of this fact, I will call your attention to an extract from the Detroit Free Press of May 
9, 1837. " If the merchants of Baltimore and Philadelphia do not see the importance of mak- 
ing energetic efforts to establish a railroad communication between their own cities and Cleve- 
land, they must be blind and dull indeed to their own interests." Thus we see the people of 
Michigan calling to the cities and states of the south to extend their railroads to the shores of 
the lakes, while we also see a rapid transit of goods and merchandise by way of Philadelphia 
and Pittsburgh to Cleveland, from the nth of February, 1837, to the 27th of May, near three 
months before any departure from the Erie canal by way of Buffalo. * * * The amount of 
goods shipped from Philadelphia by Pittsburgh to Cleveland may be estimated in S( me degree 
by the tonnage of Cleveland in the navigation of the lakes being greater than that of Buffalo. 
The indifference of the state of New York to any other channel of communication seems to 
have attracted the notice of other states. The Baltimore Res^/ster in 1836, uses this language: 
" The state of New York seems not to have profited by her own experience, and has made no 
effort to secure to herself the commerce of the valley of the Ohio, and when Baltimore and 
Philadelphia shall have extended their works to Pittsburgh, New York can never regain the 
trade of the western states." Has the city of New York no interest in an easy access to the 
forests of this state ? Has the southern tier of counties no claim upon the distribution of justice 
of the state in extending to them the facilities of an intercourse with the city of New York, 
while our northern brethren are so highly favored } To perfect our system of internal improve- 
ments, and to place the state of New York in that commanding attitude which she has the 
power to assume, it will be necessary to improve the Allegany river, which, connected with the 
Genesee Valley Canal and the New York and Erie Railroad, will open to us the boundless val- 
leys of the western states. Here we see the Allegany, a branch of the Western waters, far 
extended into the interior of our state, as a stretched-out arm, inviting the eastern states to its 
downward current, through the center of that extensive region which will soon hold the balance 
of power in the Union, and which the census of 1850 may transfer the seat of government 
from Washington to Cincinnati. Look at the valley of the Ohio, and what do we behold } See 



128 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Pittsburgh with her 50,000 inhabitants, building in one year and navigating on the Ohio forty- 
six steamboats, a number greater than floats upon the upper lakes, while Cincinnati, in one 
one year built thirty- eight. The whole number built on the Ohio being eighty-five in one year, 
and in all other parts of the United States only forty-nine. The daily arrival of steamboats at 
Cincinnati being about ten in number during the most part of the summer. When we look at 
the merchandise of Cincinnati, we see her made a depository of the manufacturers of the east- 
ern states. Carriages, harness, shoes and fabrics of every description being sent from Boston 
and New York by way of the Atlantic, Florida Cape and the up-stream navigation of the Mis- 
sissippi, to the Ohio valley, while by this channel of the Allegany may be had more easy and 
safe access, with half the expense. Cotton may be obtained at Pittsburgh cheaper than at New 
York, and here may a greater reward be given to the laborer than can be given in the New 
England states, and when we have the assurance of the war department thai the Allegany may 
be so improved for half a million of dollars, as to render it navigable to Olean for steamboats 
of 100 tons, have we no inducement to ask from Congress that appropriation.? When the dis- 
tributive justice of the state shall be fully extended to us, then, placed as you are at the source 
of the principal streams, through their gentle current may descend to every part of the Union 
the products of your industry. Then will the depressed condition of this section be changed, 
and this territory become elevated to an equality with the most favored portions of the state, 
and never, until these objects can be affected, shall the duties we owe to ourselves and to pos- 
terity be fully discharged. 

In 1842, yielding to adverse circumstances and conditions, work was 
suspended, as was the case with most projects for internal improvements. 
In 1849 active operations were resumed with a maturity of judgment and 
engineering skiU, and pushed with remarkable energy all along the line to 
its completion in 1851. New routes were in some places adopted, even after 
a large outlay of work, as in Almond, in the interest of better grades and 
easier and better operation. In the prosecution of the work a large quantity 
of rails were transported by wagons from Mt. Morris to Cuba and other 
points, a thing which in the light of modern railroad construction would not 
be entertained for a moment. As the completion of the great work drew 
near the excitement along the route was intense. The public mind was 
wrought up to such a degree that nothing short of a celebration commensu- 
rate to the importance of the event could be thought of. 

Most elaborate preparations were made. An excursion train left Pier- 
mont to make the entire length of the road. Among the invited guests were 
President Fillmore, Daniel Webster, John J. Crittenden and other national 
celebrities. The coaches were profusely decorated, and nearly every place, 
however obscure, or hamlet-like in its pretensions, was approached amid 
the roar of cannon, with flags flying and banners streaming, while bands of 
music gave expression to the people's joy. Music and dancing, banquets 
and speeches, were the order of the day. And who can feel to blame them? 
They were really celebrating their liberation from a long bondage. That 
triumphal excursion train was the " proclamation of emancipation" which 
conferred the freedom of the world upon the people of the Southern Tier, 
and well might they rejoice ! 

When the train arrived at Belvidere it was hailed with rapture by an 
immense throng. Judge Phihp Church presented a large flag upon which 



Travel and Transportation. 129 



was represented on engine drawing a large cannon and sheaves of wheat in 
an open car; an Indian in ambush, with a look of surprise upon his features 
and his bow and arrows apparently falling from his grasp; also a startled 
deer running away. Beneath was this inscription: 

BELVIDERE STATION. 

ENERGY AND SKILL. 

Where the fierce redman trod his pathless way, 

In search precarious, daily food to slay ; 

Or hid in ambush, sprung upon his foe, 

Striking unseen the unexpected blow ; 

Now Steam, resistless, spreads his fiery wings ; 

Where want depresses, wished for plenty springs ; 

Or ponderous weapons to our border draws ; 

Or writes on ocean waves Columbia's laws. 

Boast not, proud white man, in arts of peace and war, 

Look up to Heaven, and see how small you are ! " 

At Cuba a great crowd cheered the train as it slowed up at the station. 
President Fillmore, after the applause had somewhat subsided, said. " Much 
has lately been said about the annexation of Cuba. I should think from the 
great crowd of ladies and children present that Cuba had already been an- 
nexed." John J. Crittenden then spoke a few words and the signal was 
given for starting, whereupon a number of railroad men, among whom I 
understand was David Kirkpatrick, threw a lot of ties across the track, thus 
protesting most emi:)hatically against any further progress of the train un- 
til the great and only Daniel Webster had been heard from. Mr. Webster 
appeared and amid vociferous cheering "assured the jieople of Cuba that 
this was peaceable invasion." The embargo was then removed and the 
train again started on its triumphal march. (It has been claimed that Mr. 
Webster upon that occasion was in a certain sense almost "too full for 
utterance.") 

During the building of the road great trouble was experienced from 
riotous demonstrations, especially in the vicinity of Cuba. A steam ex- 
cavator was put in operation. This excited the ire of the shovelers as it 
did the work of many men. Its destruction was threatened, and to save it 
from the mob a guard was placed over it. On one occasion the military were 
called out. and a cannon was loaded and placed to command the entire main 
street of the village, and by such means the disturbance was quelled. 

Buffalo could not rest satisfied without tapping this great western 
thoroughfare, and had for years been scheming for that purpose by encourag- 
ing the organization of the ^ Attica and Hornellsville Railroad Company, 
which was incorporated May 14, 1845, with a capital of 1750,000. April 11, 
1849, it procured an extension of time for completion and an act was passed 
April 19, 1851, allowing other roads to take stock. The capital was increased, 
and the corporation was allowed to purchase the Buffalo and Rochester 
railroad from Attica to Buffalo, and to change its name to Buifalo and New 
York City railroad. The construction of this road involved a large outlay 



130 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

in spanning the chasm of the Genesee at Portage, which was done by con- 
structing a wooden bridge 800 feet long and nearly 250 feet high.* This 
road, which forms a part of the Buffalo division of the Erie railway system, 
enters our county in Grove, and passing southeasterly leaves our borders 
a little south of the middle of the east line of Burns. 

In 1878 the Genesee Valley canal was abandoned by the state, and soon 
after a company was formed which purchased from the state authorities the 
banks, prism and structures of the canal. Work was commenced on a rail- 
road along its course and prosecuted with such dispatch as to enable the 
road to be soon opened for business. It has proved of great benefit to the 
people and places along its route, and is now a part of the Western New 
York and Pennsylvania system. 

Various other railroad projects have been started with as various suc- 
cesses, and surveys almost beyond number have been made to demonstrate 
the practicability of different routes. The Rochester, Nunda and Pennsyl- 
vania Railroad Company was organized April 9, 1870, the termini of the road 
designed to be constructed being Mt. Morris and Belmont, with connections 
which would reach the oil and coal fields of Pennsylvania. The towns along 
its proposed route were appealed to for help, and Birdsall bonded for $20,- 
000 and Angelica for $65,000. In 1872 a corporation was organized to con- 
struct a road from the southern terminus of this road to a point upon the 
southern line of the state near Mill Grove in Cattaraugus county, and, two 
days later, another company, which took the name of ' ' the Northern Ex- 
tension of the Rochester, Nunda and Pennsylvania Railroad Company," was 
organized, with the object of constructing and operating a road from Mt. 
Morris to Rochester. OnMarch 12, 1872, these corporations were merged in one 
company under the corporate name of " Rochester. Nunda and Pennsylvania 
Railroad Company." In Pennsylvania " The Northern Navigation and Rail- 
road Company was organized to build a road from Reynolds ville to Mill Grove. 
On the 6th of June, 1872, this company was absorbed by the Rochester, Nunda 
and Pennsylvania Railroad Company, and the road was to be continued 
southerly to form one continuous road through Monroe, Livingston, Alle- 
gany and Cattaraugus counties, and McKean, Elk, Cameron, Jefferson and 
Clearfield counties in Pennsylvania to Brookville. This company, January 1, 
1873, executed bonds bearing seven per cent interest to the amount of $4,- 
050,000, and to secure the payments of the bonds and interest gave a mort- 
gage. The company had previously to this secured stock subscriptions to the 
amount of $1,085,000, $645,000 of which were town and city subscriptions, 
and $525,000 had been collected. Work had been commenced, and with 
material furnished had cost about $1,000,000, and payments to the amount 
of $925,000 had been made, $525,000 in cash from subscriptions and $400,000 
in stock of the company taken at par by contractors for work done and ma- 
terial furnished. Owing to a depressed condition of business and finance 

* This was the largest structure of the kind in the world. It has since been burned and replaced by a 
gigantic iron bridge. 



Travel and Transportatk^n. 131 

the bonds did not meet with ready sale, and the company in order to insure 
traffic for the road, by Alfred Lockhart its president, on the 25th of Decem- 
ber, 1873, purchased about 5,000 acres of coal and timber land in Pennsylva- 
nia. The grading of the road from Mt. Morris to Belvidere had been mostly 
finished, when, under a decree of foreclosure of the mortgage held by the 
Union Trust Company on so much of the road as was located in this state, 
it was sold at Nunda, May 7, 1877, to Frank D. Lake of Nunda for |5,000. 
Since that time several re-organizations have been effected, and its history 
has been one of alternate prosperity and adversity, and to-day, as a result, 
a line of railroad is running from Angelica to Hornellsville, known as the 
Central New York and Western. For a while a connecting link from the 
line of this road at Angelica to the W. N. Y. & P. railway about a mile south 
of Belfast station, was operated, and a narrow-gauge road from Angelica, 
crossing the Genesee a little way above the Transit bridge, to Friendship, 
Nile, Bolivar, and on through Genesee to Olean. a part of this route being 
the same as was later covered by the Bolivar, Eldred and Cuba narrow- 
gauge railroad which was chartered. May 11, 1881, to run from Cuba to Lit- 
tle Genesee, and built its chief division from Wellsville, through Alma and 
Bolivar to Ceres, 24 miles. This company had 58.25 miles of track, and the 
road did good work for a few years, but trade languishing with the decline 
of oil, it was abandoned in 1893. 

The Wellsville, Coudersport and Pine Creek railroad, chartered Nov. 14, 
1881, was capitalized at .^100.000, and built about twelve miles of road south- 
easterly from Wellsville into Pennsylvania. It was sold for $110,000 in 
September, 1895, to F. H. and C. W. Goodyear, the great lumber operators, 
to form a link of their Buffalo and Susquehanna railroad system (see Wells- 
viUe). 

The New York and Pennsylvania railroad chartered in 1895, is an east- 
ern extension of the Olean, Oswayo and Coudersport railroad, and crosses 
the southeastern corner of the county, from Genesee, Pa., through Cryder 
creek valley to Whitesville and Steuben county. 

The Tonawanda Valley and Cuba railroad, from Attica, through Arcade, 
Sandusky and Rushford to Cuba, was begun in May, 1881, and an excursion 
train was run. July 1, 1882, from Rushford to Cuba. The road was in oper- 
ation only a few years, and the portion traversing this county is entirely 
abandoned (see Rushford). 

Some other railroads are proposed and their construction seriously con- 
templated. One from Belmont to Belfast, following the route of the Bel- 
mont and Buffalo railroad which was graded for a part of the way through 
the towns of Amity, Angelica, Belfast, Caneadea and Hume, by a company 
which was organized in the winter of 1871, the work being suspended, and 
portions of the road sold to satisfy judgments. Several towns have reason 
to remember the B. & B. railroad company — having bonded to aid in its 
construction. 

At the present time Allegany is well supplied with railroad facilities, 



132 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

and her public highways are being rapidly improved. The grand old town 
of Alfred, the seat of the first academic institution of the county, as well as 
its only University, has this year put in a macadamized road from the vil- 
lage to the station, a distance of nearly two miles. This is the first road of 
the kind in the county. " Good roads '' is now the watchword, and they are 
imperatively demanded not only by people who ride in fine carriages, or 
astride the bicycle visit with the speed of winged messengers every part of 
our county, but by the farmer as well, in order to facilitate the hauling of 
large and paying loads of produce to the nearest railroad station. Public 
attention is aroused and points to better roads, and the best minds of the 
age are at work on vehicles with electric or other motors; and possibly be- 
fore this book is delivered to its subscribers an enterprising Allegany car- 
riage maker will introduce one of the horseless carriages upon our roads. 
And so it goes ! The one continuous mud hole of the pioneers' day has dried 
up and disappeared; 1795 has given way to 1895, the modern " Conklin " or 
" Milburn " wagon has succeeded the drag; the stylish coupe the heavy old 
linchpin style of lumber wagon; the Portland cutter the oxsled, and the end 
is not yet ! 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

GEOLOGY AND PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY.* 

BY CHARLES BUTTS, ESQ. 

HOW were the hills and valleys of our county formed ? Whence came the 
stones filled with casts of the animals and plants which lived in the 
ocean waters or along those ancient shores? How came they in their pres- 
ent places? These are questions of the inquiring mind to which the geolo- 
gist seeks the answer. The rocks are written over with the fascinating tales 
of other days which tell the wonderful story of the earth and its inhabitants. 
Many, many ages ago, a vast thickness of rocks was formed. The most 
ancient rocks known are crystalline, like granite. They are found over large 
areas in Canada, but in smaller areas in other parts of the world, and are 
supposed to underlie the sedimentary rocks. From the Canadian area an- 
other large area once extended southwestward parallel to the Appalachian 
mountains and east of them. These rocks are known as the Archaean sys- 
tem and the time during which they were formed, as the Archsean era. 

Partially enclosed by the two areas of Archaean rocks mentioned and 

♦The writer would hereby express his thanks to that eminent geologist, Prof. W. H. Pitts, for his careful 
revision of this chapter. 



Geology and Physical Geography. 133 

extending indefinitely southward and westward lay the great interior paleo- 
zoic sea. The filling up of this sea by sediment brought down by the rivers 
of the Archsean land now began. Living beings for the first time appear 
in abundance and with their appearance the Paleozoic era of geological time 
began. For an immensely long time during which the shoreline was pushed 
far out into the interior sea, only invertebrates, the lowest division of the 
animal kingdom, existed. Brachiopods, trilobites, gigantic molluscs, and 
delicate corals swarmed in the waters. This time is known as the Silurian 
Age, or Age of Invertebrates and in it most of the rocks of the northern 
part of our state were deposited. With the appearance of fishes, belonging 
to the vertebrates, to which man also belongs, the Silurian Age ends and the 
Devonian Age begins. During this age, the ancient shorehne was pushed 
still farther south and west, and the rocks of our county were formed. 
Gigantic fishes reigned in the waters, and land plants, allied to the pines and 
other conifers, first appeared. The Carboniferous Age succeeded the Devo- 
nian. It was in this age that the coal of the eastern states was formed. The 
first land animals also appeared. This age with the Paleozoic era was ended 
lay a great revolution in which the Appalachian mountains were thrown up 
and the eastern part of the United States raised into dry land. The Paleo- 
zoic Era was now followed by the Mesozoic Era, the era of middle life. It 
comprises one age, the Age of Reptiles. The largest animals that^ ever ex- 
isted upon the earth lived in this age. Huge reptiles, 100 feet long and 20 
feet high, lived upon the land and strange lizard-like monsters inhabited the 
waters. The bones of many of these strange creatures have been found in 
the rocks of Wyoming and Colorado and are now in the museum of Yale 
College. Birds and marsupials appeared, also modern land-plants. Many 
of the genera and even a few of the species of our common forest-trees are 
found. With the appearance of an entirely new class of animals, the mam- 
mal, the Mesozoic Era ends and theCenezoicEra, with its one age, the Age of 
Mammals, was introduced. All*the genera of our familiar animals made 
their appearance, and many gigantic forms, now extinct, existed. Many of 
these left their bones in the morasses and lake mud, which, hardening into 
rock, preserved them for the investigator of the i3resent day. In the Qua- 
ternary period of this age great glaciers, streams and sheets of flowing ice 
came creeping down from the Canadian highlands and covered a large part 
of the northern United States. With the close of the glacial epoch, man 
appears and the history of the earth is nearly complete. 

The sketch of historical geology has been given to show the age of the 
rock formations of our county and their place in the general scheme of classi- 
fication of the formation of the earth's crust. They belong mainly to the 
latter part of the Devonian Age but along the southern margin of the county 
some carboniferous rocks are found. The materials of which they are com- 
posed came, possibly, from the more ancient land to the north and east, 
being carried into the sea by rivers and gradually accumulating as sediment 
on the gently- sloping bottom. These subsequently hardened into rock, and, 



134 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

by a series of movements which culminated in the great upheaval at the end 
of the Paleozoic Era, by which the Appalachian mountains were formed, 
were elevated to their present position. By this elevation the divides which 
traverse the county were formed, and the direction of the drainage, form- 
erly south and west, w^as completely reversed, being now mainly north and 
east. No sooner did the rocks appear above the waters than frosts and 
chemical forces of decomposition attacked the surface, disintegrating it 
into soil; the rains descended and the waters, laden with the finer elements 
of the soil, gathered into streams, which now hold their ancient courses, and 
have eroded their valleys out of the rocks, left the hills between, and borne 
away the eroded material. As the result of the combined action of these 
forces during the enormous lapse of time since this region became dry land, 
probably thousands of feet of solid rock have been removed from above our 
highest hill tops. 

The waters of the sea at the time of the depositing of our rocks, swarmed 
with life. Brachiopods were especially abundant. As these died their 
shells accumulated upon the bottom in immense numbers, were mixed with 
the sediment and the mass was afterward consolidated into a very 
hard impure sandstone. Many beds of this exist from a few inches to two 
or three feet thick and are composed almost entirely of the shells of spirifera 
disjuncta, a world-wide species, being found in England, France, and in the 
distant Himalaya mountains. This characteristic rock may be seen at almost 
any outcropping of strata in the county, and is the source of the shell rock so 
abundant on the surface. Thus for ages before the surface of Allegany 
county appeared as now, the work of erosion went on undisturbed, then, in 
comparative recent times, came the glacial epoch with its cold and ice. A 
vast sheet of ice descended from the north, and sweeping over this state 
gradually overspread large areas. Streams of ice first filled the valleys of 
this county and by their grinding action cut down the summits of the divide 
between the north and south flowing streams, thus forming the passes 
between Alfred and Andover, Friendship and Cuba, Cuba and Black Creek, 
the east and west notches near Richburg, etc. There is strong evidence 
that these passes were thus formed. 

Slowly the ice rose until it covered all but the highest hilltops in the 
southern part of the county. By its action the hills were smoothed and 
rounded off, the surface rocks were ground into clay, mud, sand and large 
fragments and the whole intermixed composed the tenacious, impervious 
"hard-pan," which extends widely over the county except where it has 
been covered by later deposits. In many places the few inches of soil over- 
lying the hard-jjan were formed by atmospheric agencies and by vegetation. 
The ice also brought from the far north immense quantities of sand, gravel, 
boulders of limestone, granite, gneiss, quartzite and other rocks. These, 
rounded and polished in their transportation, are often found in the county, 
but most of the material or "drift " was deposited along the melting mar- 
gin of the ice-sheet. The mounds and conical hills at Alfred Station and 



Geology and Physical Geography. 135 

northvv^ard to Almond and westward throug-h West Almond to Pkilips Creek 
are notable examples of glaciation. Smaller deposits exist at other locali- 
ties in the county, and probably all gravel and rounded boulder deposits at 
any considerable height above the streams are of glacial origin. Before the 
glacial epoch, the valleys were probably deeper and narrower than now. 
During that epoch and subsequently they were filled to their present high 
terrace levels by glacial detritus and material washed from the adjacent hills 
Thus were formed the broad valley fiats which surpass in fertility the in- 
clined uplands and summits of the hills. Some of the valleys whose streams 
flow northward are partially filled by deep deposits of clay. T'he terra-cotta 
clay at Alfred, the clay in the valley of Knight's Creek, and that said to 
exist in the valley of Van Campen's Creek below Friendship, are examples. 
These clays were doubtless deposited in still waters, probably by lakes 
formed by ice-dams across the valleys. As the streams again began to flow 
after the ice disappeared from these valleys, they were in many places 
turned from their ancient courses and compelled to cut new channels out of 
solid rock. This is well shown by the Genesee at Portage. Its old channel 
was completely filled in the glacial epoch, and it has since cut out of the rock 
a new one several miles long and 300 feet deep. The same thing is shown on a 
smaller scale at Belmont where the river has cut a gorge of considerable 
depth and is still cutting it deeper in the rock. Vandermark's Creek near 
Scio, Van Campen's Creek near Belvidere, and Caneadea Creek near Rush- 
ford are other examples of such displacement. 

The strata of the county dip slightly toward the south and southwest, so 
that each formation overlaps the one below it as shingles overlap on a roof. 
The angle of dip averages hardly one degree. On the northern margin of 
the county is the Portage sandstone, so called because it is well shown in 
the gorge at Portage. The upper layers of these strata are also exposed at 
the falls of the Canaseraga in Burns, and the line of their northern out-crop 
is marked by other cascades and by escarpments. Near the southern limits 
of Centerville, Hume, Grove, and Burns, the Portage sandstone passes 
beneath the rocks of the Chemung group and underlies them throughout 
the rest of the county. It is probably in this rock that the oil sands of the 
county are found. 

The rest of the county, except the hilltops in the southern part, lies in 
the Chemung formation. This name is given to these rocks because they 
are extensively exposed along the Chemung river. Increasing in thickness 
from north to south with the dip they reach a thickness of 1,500 feet in 
southern Allegany. They consist mostly of thin-bedded sandstones, many 
of them highly argillaceous, alternating with layers of clay shale and are- 
naceous shale of all thicknesses, from less than an inch up to 30 or 40 feet. 
Two strata of sandstone from 10 to 20 feet thick-are pierced in drilhngfor oil. 
A thick stratum of very pure clay shale is exposed at Alfred Station. The 
shales are generally green but change to brown on exposure. The sand- 
stones contain mica also iron pyrites and oxide of manganese by which they 



136 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

are often ^jscolored. The general character of the Chemung rocks may be 
seen at any of the many exposures in the county. Perhaps one of the best 
is in Caneadea Creek in Rushford and Caneadea. Others are at Rockville 
on Black Creek and on White Creek in Belfast, at Angelica, at Belmont, on 
Vandermark's Creek near Scio, at "the ledges " in Almond, and at several 
points in Alfred and in Independence. 

Except in the southern j)art of the county the rocks of this group are 
highly fossiliferous. Besides spirifera disjuncfa, there are many species of 
brachiopods, many species of lamelli branchs, a few species of orthoceratites 
and some sea-weeds. Some of the rocks contain scattered joints and frag- 
ments of crinoid stems with their radiating structure. But the rarest and 
most beautiful fossils found are the several species of dictyophyton, a genus 
of reticulated fossil sponges allied to the glass sponges of the present day, 
of which the beautiful euplectella is an example. These are found only in 
the Chemung rocks, and are perhaps in greater abundance in Allegany 
county than elsewhere. They have been found in Alfred, Almond. Wellsville, 
Genesee, Clarksville, Friendship, Wirt, and probably in most other towns. 
It was largely through the discoveries and efforts of the late President 
Allen, of Professor Larkin, and of E. B. Hall, of WeUsville, that these 
fossils were brought to the attention of the scientific world. 

The high hill-tops in southern Allegany are capped with a red soil, 
which entirely disappears lower down the side. The rocks from which this 
red soil is derived belong to a different formation from the Chemung rocks 
which underlie them. They belong to the Catskill Group, a name given 
because of their great development in the region of the Catskill mountains 
where they are 3,000 feet thick. They thin out westward and are not men- 
tioned as occurring west of this county. It is thought they are the equiva- 
lent in America of the Old Red Sandstone of England and Scotland. The 
northern limit of the red soil seems to be near a line drawn from the north- 
ern border of Cuba to the south of Andover village. Probably none of the 
rock now remains in situ as far north as this, its former extension being 
indicated by the red soil into which it has been disintegrated. The exact 
limits of the formation have not been determined. It is said that the rock 
may be seen in places at Spring Mills in Independence and near Wellsville 
on the Genesee. The Portage, Chemung and Catskill formations belong to 
the Devonian Age. 

At several points in the county are immense masses of coarse conglom- 
erate. These exist in great numbers and of large size at Rock City on the 
top of a high hill in Genesee, about three miles from the state line There 
is also a group near Petrolia in Scio. Many of those at Genesee are from 
25 to 30 feet high, and their bases cover several square rods. Smaller 
fragments are found at other points. These interesting rocks are mainly 
composed of white quartzite pebbles (from the size of a goose-egg down to 
that of a pea) imbedded in a ground mass of coarse sand of the same mate- 
rial, the whole cemented together by iron or other cementing substance and 



Geology and Physical Geography. 137 

by pressure. A few black pebbles also occur. The rock was used for mill- 
stones in the early days of settlement. The formation to which these iso- 
lated masses belong, and of which they are fragments that have escaped de- 
struction in the general course of denudation, is probably of the Carbonifer- 
ous Age and is the last formed rock of the county. It outcrops, south of 
Olean as Olean Rock City, and this, as a solid stratum, once extended north- 
wardly over our county. Another outcropping is at Panama in Chautauqua 
county, where it is called the Panama Conglomerate. It extends south to 
West Virginia, west to the Mississippi, and underlies the coal fields of Penn- 
sylvania. It is known to the drillers of the southern Pennsylvania oil 
regions as the " second mountain sand pebblerock " and Sharon conglome- 
rate; to the drillers of the northern field as the Olean conglomerate. A 
similar rock underlies the coal fields of England and Scotland where it is 
called " pudding stone "or " millstone grit." The material of this very ex- 
tensive formation was derived from an ancient stratum of quartzite of vast 
extent situated somewhere in the Archean area to the north or east. Into 
the swift-fiowing rivers of that remote age fragments of the ancient rock 
were borne by the mountain streams, then rolled onward by their currents 
for all the many miles of their course, rounded into pebbles and ground into 
sand, and, at last, deposited along the shores of the vast sea that for untold 
ages rolled over the great central plain. So the geological and topographical 
features of Allegany county have been produced by the same slow-acting 
forces of nature that we may see in operation daily. ^ 

Of the mineral wealth of the county little need be said. The production 
of oil and natural gas is a leading industry in the southwestern part, and an 
extensive field is being developed in Andover and Indei^endence. The 
laminated sandstone makes a good quality of flagging where it can be found 
of sufficient uniformity of thickness, and is quarried to some extent at Scio, 
Friendship, and in Centerville. Building stones suitable for coarse mason- 
ry are plentiful, but their coarseness and liability to be stained by oxids of 
iron and manganese makes them unfit for ornamental use. The argillaceous 
sand stone, on account of its hardness, would make a good material for road- 
making. The clays already mentioned furnish abundant material for brick 
and tile. This has been used to some extent for roofing tile and ornamental 
terra-cotta by the Celadon Terra Cotta Works at Alfred, but its use has been 
abandoned for that of shale. The extensive deposits of aluminous shale are 
excej^t the oil rock, probably the most valuable source of mineral wealth in 
the county on account of the superior quality of bi'ick and tile made from 
them. The Celadon Terra Cotta Works are using shale entirely for their 
roofing tile, and these are pronounced by competent judges to be supe- 
rior in appearance and equal in quality to any American or imported 
make. It seems probable that the shale of other parts of the county may 
prove equally valuable and become a basis of extensive industries. 

Physical Geography. Allegany lies upon the backs of the dividing 
ridges between the St. Lawrence drainage basin on the north and that of the 



138 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Mississippi on the southwest and that of the Susquehanna on the east. 
These ridges are really northwestern outliers of the Appalachian mountains, 
and form a plateau, from 2,200 to 2,500 feet above the sea, deeply furrowed 
by the streams which traverse it. The surface is beautifully diversified by 
hill and valley, field and forest. Any of the higher hilltops commands a 
magnificent landscape; the wooded crests roll away in the distance like bil- 
lows of a mighty sea. Many a picturesque and charming vale nestles among 
the hills, a constant source of pleasure to the lover of landscape beauty. The 
highest points reach an altitude of 2,500 feet, the general level of the table 
land is about 2,200 feet. The altitude of the valleys is well shown by the 
height of the railroad stations as follows: Erie Railway: Almond 1,421 feet, 
Alfred 1,637, Tiptop Summit 1,783, Andover 1,653, Wellsville 1,511, Scio 
1,462, Belmont 1,399, Belvidere 1,344, Friendship 1,539, Cuba Summit 1,699, 
Cuba 1,541. W. N. Y. & P. R. R.: Cuba 1,490, Black Creek 1,490, Rockville 
1,421, Belfast 1,312.6, Oramel 1,264.5, Caneadea 1,238, Houghton 1,209, Fill- 
more 1,192, Rossburg 1,154.5. 

The eastern divide enters the southeastern part of Alfred, and, passing 
northeast, leaves the county in Burns; the western divide enters the county 
in Alma and. following a northwestern direction, passes out of Allegany in 
New Hudson. So all of Genesee and part of Cuba, Clarksville, Bolivar. 
Alma, New Hudson and Wirt are drained by the Allegany; Grove, Almond, 
and parts of Alfred, Allen, West Almond and Burns are drained by the 
Canisteo, and the rest of the county by the Genesee, which, rising in the 
northern part of Pennsylvania, near the source of the Allegany, fiows 
northerly across the county through a broad and fertile valley which it has 
cut at about 1,000 feet below the crests of the divides. It collects the waters 
of the greater part of the county and carries them northward over its beau- 
tiful falls to turn the mill-wheels of Rochester and discharges them into 
lake Ontario at Charlotte. It is an anomaly among the rivers of this region 
in flowing northward while the others heading near it flow easterly and 
southwesterly. It drains a wedge-shaped area of the St. Lawrence basin which 
is thrust deeply in between those of the Mississippi and Susquehanna. The 
Genesee is now cutting into the detritus that fills its old channel, as is shown 
by the gorge and terraces at Belmont, the terraces marking a former higher 
level. The preceding list of altitudes indicates that the fall from Wellsville 
to Rossburg is 356 feet, hence the river has a torrential current. Along its 
course once passed the Genesee Valley canal, fed by the waters of Allegany 
from the reservoir at Cuba. The Rochester Chamber of Commerce has 
made strenuous efforts to obtain legislation to control the Cuba reservoir in 
the interests of their city so that the flow of the water northward may be at 
their command, so important to the business interests of Rochester are 
regarded the waters of " Old Allegany's " hills. 

Another noticeable feature in the topography is the general parallelism 
of the secondary streams. A glance at a county map will show this. It is 
particularly the case with those flowing into the Genesee. Their general 



Geology and Physical Geography. 139 

courses are invariably northeast and southwest. This fact is due to the 
relations of the streams to the divides, the streams assuming a direction at 
right angles to the directions of their crests. 

The passes through the divides become striking features when com- 
pared with the high summits that sei:)arate the headwaters of streams 
adjacent to those that rise in the passes. The way that they are cut down is 
shown by the remarkable fact that in times of freshets fish can pass from 
one drainage basin to another through the streams that head in some of them. 
Thus trout can pass back and forth between the headwaters of Oil and Can- 
eadea creeks in New Hudson, and so pass to and from the Mississippi and 
St. Lawrence basins. The same is true of Vandermark and McHenry 
Valley creeks at Five Corners summit in Alfred, between the St. Lawrence 
and Susquehanna basins. These passes are of the utmost utility in the 
construction of railroads, saving them hundreds of feet of rise and a very 
high grade. 

The county is abundantly watered by rains and snows that supply co- 
pious springs that issue from the hills along the outcropping of some imper- 
vious stratum of rock or clay that prevents the further descent of the water 
into the earth. The springs contain a considerable amount of mineral matter 
in solution. Carbonate of lime, dissolved from the shells in the rocks and 
giving the water its hardness, is almost universally present. Sulphur 
springs are found in Alfred, Almond and Angelica. Other springs and wells 
at Alfred show the presence of sulphates of iron and magnesium. The 
celebrated oil spring at Cuba has been known to whites since 1629. 

As in the study of human society the past is the key to the joresent so it 
is in the study of physical geography. The dominant physical features of 
the earth have originated in movements that occurred in distant periods of 
the past, and the minor features have been carved out by the unceasing- 
action of Nature's forces throughout unnumbered ages. And these silent, 
unobserved, yet resistless forces are still at work. The continents are being 
carried, particle by particle, into the seas. Nothing terrestrial is perma- 
nent; all is transitory, and the physical geography of the present will not be 
the i^hysical geography of the future. 

" Since first the sunlight spread itself o'er earth, 
Since chaos gave a thousand systems birth, 
Since first the morning stars together sung, 
Since first this globe was on its axis swung, 
Untiling change, with ever moving hand, 
Has waved o'er earth its more than magic wand." 



140 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

CHAPTEE XXIV. 

NATURAL HISTORY.* 

BY PROF. F. S. PLACE, A. B., B. D. 

TOPOGRAPHY. The topographical features of the county are varied. 
The valley flats, deep valleys, and, in many parts, the broad level 
uplands, all unite to form a diversified and pleasing landscape. The i^rinci- 
pal topographical feature of the county is the divide between the St. Law- 
rence, Atlantic and Mississippi river-systems. The northeastern part 
belongs to the Atlantic system, the southwesfern part to the Mississippi, 
and the central to the St. Lawrence system. The highest summit on the 
Erie railroad, at Tiptop in Alfred is 1,783 feet above tide water, and the gen- 
eral level of the divide is 800 feet higher. The county thus lies in the line of 
greatest elevation between the Appalachian mountains and the Mississippi 
river. This fact probably accounts for the large precipitation of moisture 
which it enjoys, and which makes it so well adapted to grazing and dairying. 
To this fact is also due in great measure the copious and abundant springs 
with which the county is blessed. Another interesting feature connected 
with the divide is the deep notches, or passes, through it in various places. 
Among the notable ones are those on the line of the Erie railroad at Tiptop 
in Alfred, and the summit between Friendship and Cuba. Others are the 
East and West notches near Richburg, the summit between Oil and Black 
Creeks, and the notch through the local divide between Haskell Creek and 
the branch of Oil Creek flowing north. 

Climate. The annual rain-fall, including melted snow, as observed at 
Alfred was in 1890, 46.26 inches; 1891, 33.13; 1892, 34.73; 1893, 43.37; 1894, 
42.76. The average yearly temperature was at Alfred in 1890, 44.5 degrees; 
1891, 45.5; 1892, 43.0; 1893. 42.6; 1894, 46.0. At Angelica the average of the 
annual mean temperatures for eleven years was 44.2 degrees and the average 
annual precipitation for seven years 38.21 inches. This yearly average is 
obtained in this manner: The temperature at 7 a. m., 2 p. m., and twice the 
temperature at 9 p. m. are added; this sum divided by four gives the daily 
average; the sum of the daily averages for the month divided by the number 
of days in the month gives the monthly average; the sum of the monthly 
averages divided by twelve gives the yearly average, which, it will be 
observed, is nearly the same from year to year. 

The opening of spring as indicated by the arrival of the bluebird, cliff 
swallow (eaves swallow) and Baltimore oriole was at Alfred as follows: 
Bluebird, 1885, Mar. 30; 1886, Mar. 15; 1887, Mar. 14; 1889, Mar. 14; 1891, 
Mar. 12; 1892, Feb. 25; 1893, Mar. 14; 1894, Mar. 5; Cliff Swallow, 1885, May 

*Many thanks are due to friends throughout the county for assistance and information. 



Natural History. 141 



28; 1886, May 13; 1889, May 5; 1891, May 14; 1892, May 5; 1893, May 8; 1894, 
May 1; Baltimore Oriole, 1885, May 5; 1886, Apr. 28; 1887, May 2; 1889, 
May 6; 1891, May 3; 1892, May 3; 1893, May 2. 

Ani)nal'^. No authentic list of the mammals of the county has ever been 
made, so far as can be ascertained; neither of the rei^tiles, fishes nor insects. 
The large game animals were killed or driven out many years ago. Accord- 
ing to the best information which could be obtained the following are the 
dates on which some of them were last seen in the county: panther, 1850, 
reported from Granger; wolf, 1856, in the south part of the county; bear, 
1885, killed on Knight's Creek, Scio, by David Allen; deer, 1881, Independ- 
ence; wildcat, 1894, in Willing. 

Foxes have held their own remarkably well through all the settling and 
clearing up of the country; most sportsmen think them as abundant now as 
ever. The hare or white rabbit has nearly disappeared, a few still remain- 
ing in various parts of the county, while the gray rabbit, which came in from 
the west or south about 1875 or 1880, has become plentiful, often appearing 
about the farmhouses and in village gardens. In the winter of 1892-93 a 
Virginia opossum was caught in Elm Valley; it was brought to Alfred and 
after a few months' confinement escaped. There are still a few otter in the 
southern part of the county. 

Ravens which were once common here are now rarely seen, the last 
reported was from Elm Valley in 1893. Another bird familiar to our fathers 
was the pileated woodpecker, or as it was frequently caUed logcock or wood- 
cock, the largest of the woodpecker family excepting only the ivory bill of 
Florida. It is now rare even in the more heavily-timbered sections. Quail 
have almost disappeared. Ruffed grouse, better known as partridge, still 
breed freely wherever timber and underbrush are found. Wild pigeons 
(passenger pigeon) which in the early history of the country were said to 
darken the sky with their flight, and were shot and netted by dozens and 
scores as late as the early seventies, are now found occasionally, usually a 
few pairs together. Most observers believe that our common birds are 
decreasing in numbers while crows are on the increase. This is not a coin- 
cidence. Crows are well known to be most cunning and persistent in rob- 
bing birds' nests of both eggs and young. This bad habit, together with 
the mischief which they do to crops, especially corn, and to flocks of young 
turkeys and chickens, brings wpon the black rascals the just condemnation 
of every lover of our feathered songsters. Our hawks and owls, though 
preying occasionally upon poultry and game, undoubtedly do more good than 
harm, for they destroy mice, moles, and insects in large numbers. Even 
our largest hawks feed extensively on beetles and grasshopj^ers. The 
sharpshinned hawk however is an exception, preferring small birds, such 
as warblers and sparrows, which it captures with much adroitness. The 
English sparrow appeared in the county in 1874, and, though in some parts 
of the United States it does much damage to grain and small fruits, it does 



142 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

little harm here, acting rather as a scavenger, picking up the waste grain 
and crumbs about the streets. 

The following is a list of our birds observed, with few exceptions, in the 
vicinity of Alfred. The numbers preceding the names correspond to the 
American Ornithologists' Union's Check-list of North American Birds, 
revised (1895). The names of birds know^n to nest in the county are followed 
by the letter n. 

3 Horned Grebe, 6 Pied-billed Grebe, y Loon, 6o Bonaparte's Gull, 131 Hooded Mergan- 
ser, 133 Black Duck, 135 Gad wall, 143 Pintail, 144 Wood Duck, 153 Buffi e-head, 154 Old-squaw, 
190 American Bittern, 194 Great Blue Heron, 200 Little Blue Heron, 201 Green Heron, 202 
Black-crowned Night Heron, 206 Sandhill Crane, 212 Virginia Rail, 219 Florida Gallinule, 221 
American Coot, 228 American Woodcock ;/, 230 Wilson's Snipe, 256 Solitary Sandpiper, 263 Spot- 
ted Sandpiper «,27i Golden Plover. 273 Killdeer, 289 Bob-white, 300 Ruffed Grouse ;/, 315 Passen- 
ger Pigeon, 316 Mourning Dove, 331 Marsh Hawk, 332 Sharp-shinned Hawk n, 333 Cooper's 
Hawk n, 337 Red-tailed Hawk «,339 Red-shouldered Hawk ^,347 American Rough-legged Hawk, 
352 Bald Eagle, 357 Pigeon Hawk, 360 American Sparrow Hawk n, 364 American Osprey, 366 
American Long-eared Owl, 367 Short-eared Owl, 368 Barred Owl n, 375 Saw-whet Owl, 373 
Screech Owl ;/, 375 Great Horned Owl n, 376 Snowy Owl, 387 Yellow-billed Cuckoo ;/, 388 
Black-billed Cuckoo ;/, 390 Belted Kingfisher fi, 393 Hairy Woodpecker ;/, 394 Downy Wood- 
pecker ;/, 402 Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, 405 Pileated Woodpecker, 406 Red-headed Wood- 
pecker ;?, 409 Red-bellied Woodpecker, 412 Flicker;/, 417 Whip-poor-will, 420 Night Hawk, 
423 Chimney Swift n, 428 Ruby-throated Hummingbird /;, 444 Kingbird n, 452 Crested Fly- 
catcher ;/, 456 Phebe n, 461 Woodpewee «. 463 Yellow-bellied Flycatcher, 467 Least Flycatcher 
;/, 474 Horned Lark n, 477 Blue Jay, 486 American Raven, 488 American Crow ;/, 494 Bobo- 
link n, 495 Cowbird fi, 498 Red -winged Blackbird n, 501 Meadow Lark ;/, 507 Baltimore Oriole 
n, 511 Purple Grackle n. 515 Pine Grosbeak, 517 Purple Finch n, 521 American Crossbill, 529 
American Goldfinch n, 534 Snowflake, 540 Vesper Sparrow n, 542a Savanna Sparrow n, 554 
White-crowned Sparrow, 558 White-throated Sparrow, 559 Tree Sparrow, 560 Chipping Spar- 
row n, 563 Field Sparrow n, 567 Slate-colored Junco n, 573 Black-throated Sparrow, 581 Song 
Sparrow n, 583 Lincoln's Sparrow, 584 Swamp Sparrow, 585 Fox Sparrow, 587 Towhee ;/, 593 
Cardinal, 595 Rose-breasted Grosbeak n, 598 Indigo Bunting n, 608 Scarlet Tanager ;/, 612 
Cliff Swallow n, 613 Barn Swallow n, 616 Bank Swallow «, 617 Rough -winged Swallow, 619 
Cedar Waxwing n, 621 Northern Shrike, 624 Red-eyed Vireo n, 626 Philadelphia Vireo, 627 
Warbling Vireo, 628 Yellow-throated Vireo, 629 Blue-headed Vireo, 636 Black and White Warb- 
ler ;/, 645 Nashville Warbler, 648 Parula Warbler, 652 Yellow Warbler n, 654 Black-throated 
Blue Warbler, 655 Myrtle Warbler, 657 Magnolia Warbler, 659 Chestnut-sided Warbler n, 660 
Bay-breasted Warbler, 661 Black-poll Warbler, 667 Black-throated Green Warbler n, 671 
Pine Warbler, 672 Palm Warbler, 674 Oven-bird ;/, 675 Water Thrush, 679 Mourning Warbler. 
681 Maryland Yellowthroat n, 686 Canadian Warbler, 687 American Redstart n, 704 Catbird n, 
705 Brown Thrasher n, 721 House Wren n, 722 Winter Wren, 726 Brown Creeper, 727 White- 
breasted Nuthatch n, 728 Red-breasted Nuthatch, 735 Chickadee n, 748 Golden-crowned 
Kinglet, 749 Ruby-crowned Kinglet, 755 Wood Thrush, 756 Wilson's Thrush n, 758a Olive- 
backed Thrush, 759b Hermit Thrush n, 761 American Robin //, 766 Bluebird n, English 

Sparrow n. 

Brook-trout in small numbers are still found in most of the streams 
which do not dry up during the summer; but all our brooks have failed very 
much in twenty years. No fish will be found equal to the speckled beauty, 
either for sport or in flavor, though such a fish as the carp is easily bred and 



Natural History. 143 



furnishes more food with little care. The carp were introduced into Ando- 
ver pond a few years ago and appear to have done very well there. 

The rattlesnakes, of which our grandmothers used to tell us, have 
practically disappeared; the only place from which any are reported is the 
town of Grove. The Colorado potato-beetle, which filled our hearts with 
dismay on its arrival in 1871, though promptly met with fatal doses of Paris 
green, steadily increased for many years. There is good evidence that it 
has reached a maximum and begun to decline. One of its natural enemies, 
the lady-bug, which in both adult and larval stages feeds on potato-beetles' 
eggs, was unusually abundant in the potato fields during the summer of 
1894. Our fields are commonly infested with five species of grasshopper, 
three of crickets, and, in sandy, or gravelly localities, two species of locusts. 
These grass-eating insects rarely become so numerous as to do much dam- 
age; but in the summer of 1894 the reverse was true. The summer of 1893 
was dry and the following winter warm; this, together with the early drouth 
of 1894, furnished favorable conditions for grasshopper development. Past- 
ures were much injured; many fields of oats were cut before fruiting to 
save them for fodder; the border rows in the potato fields were reduced to 
bare stalks; and many gardens were stripped of cabbages, turnips, beans, 
and other vegetables. Turkeys and other poultry were no match for the 
rustling hordes that rose in clouds before them; and, being soon gorged 
with their favorite food, were of little service in checking the insects. 

The diversity of our topography is the source of a varied plant life. 
More than 500 species of native plants have been classified at Alfred, and 
the same locality furnishes many more. The list could be largely increased 
by a study of other parts of the county, especially the river flats. Since the 
introduction of white daisies no plant so hurtful to agricultural interests has 
appeared as the orange hawkweed (Hieracium aurantiacum) also called 
"paint-brush." It is said to have been first planted as a garden flower in 
Independence in 1861. It has now completely overspread many fields in 
that town, and most of the farmers, after a constant and tiresome fight with 
salt, hoes and other means, have given up the struggle. It ran wild from a 
flower garden in Alfred at a somewhat later date and has a firm foothold in 
some parts of the town. It is said to have first appeared in Scio in 1893. 
Ragweed, (Ambrosia artemisiaefolia) whicli appeared only a few years ago. 
will probably give no particular trouble, since it is confined mostly to waste 
ground and unseeded stubble, and is, moreover, of much smaller growth 
here than elsewhere in the United States. 

In closing this brief and hurried review of our natural history permit 
the statement that, incomplete as it is, considerable care has been taken to 
make it reliable as far as it goes. Would it not be well for all lovers of the 
natural sciences to co-operate in collecting and recording present knowledge 
which shall be the history of the future? 



144 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

CHAPTER XXV. 

OIL AND GAS IN ALLEGANY COUNTY. 

BY LEWIS H. THORNTON. 

The writer is indebted for valuable information used in this chapter to "The Mineral 
Resources of the United States," " Report on New York State Mining Exhibit at the 
Colunnbian Exposition, Chicago, 1892," the files of the Oil City Derrick, The Petroleum Age, 
and The Wellsville Reporter, to an exhaustive paper, " Petroleum in New York State," read by 
Prof. Charles A. Ashburner before the American Institute of Mining Engineers in 1887, to Mr. 
W. F. Thomas of Bolivar, Mr. Riley Allen of AUentown, Col. Rufus Scott of Wellsville, and 
other authorities. To Prof. James G. Hall, State Geologist, especial acknowledgement is due. 

THE oil-bearing rock beneath the surface of this county has produced 
^30,000,000 worth of petroleum since the completion of the famous Trian- 
gle Well No. 1 in June, 1879. It is not probable that the sum total of all Alle- 
gany's other productions during the past 15 years more than equal in value 
this one remarkable mineral resource. Its discovery within our borders 
has been the cause of the circulation of a fabulous amount of wealth and the 
realization of an immense profit. The industry has added also to the fame of 
the county, for the Allegany oil field has the distinction of being the richest, 
and, with one exception, the only one in the great Empire State. The palmy 
and exciting days of the field's history have now long since passed away. 
The wells, however, have such a remarkable longevity, that, although the 
amount of new production is small, the pool pours out 2.000 barrels daily, 
worth now $1,000,000 a year, and will produce in paying quantities for a 
decade or more to come. 

Up to Dec. 1, 1895, there have been 5,500 wells drilled, 3,500 of which 
are now producing a daily average of 55-100 barrels each. Old Triangle No. 
1, the first good well struck in the field, now sixteen years old, is doing a 
good one-third of a barrel. It is owned by Macken & Breckenridge. New 
wells in the Waugh and Porter and Alma pools are proving to be from 3 to 8 
barrel producers. In 1882 there were many weUs doing a hundred barrels 
daily. In July of that year the field's daily average pipe line runs were 
24,000 barrels and the year's daily average was 17,000 barrels. In 1883 the 
average daily production fell to about 13,000 barrels; in 1884 to about 9,500, 
in 1885 to 7,000, in 1886 to 5,600, and so on in decreasing ratio until the pres- 
ent average of 2,000 barrels was reached. This wiU undoubtedly be main- 
tained for some time for the recent advance in the market price of petroleu m 
to $1.25 and over has stimulated drilling, and led to an increased production 
from old wells, which are being overhauled and more carefully handled. 
Producers who have made a careful study of the decline in production fr,om 
old wells maintain that on the average it is hardly over 1-16 yearly. There 



Oil and Gas. 145 



are many wells in the field that have each produced 10,000 barrels of oil, and 
are still valuable property. Though the richest parts of the field, lying in 
the towns of Bohvar, Wirt, Alma, Scio, Clarksville and Genesee, has been 
more or less thoroughly developed, there remains much valuable undrilled 
territory in South Alma, South Bolivar and other sections. 

It is worthy to note in connection with the history of the Allegany oil 
field that the first discovery of petroleum in America was that of the Seneca 
oil spring, at Cuba in this county, by Roche-d 'Allien, a French Jesuit, July 
18, 1627. The location of the spring was noted on a map published fifty 
years later, being designated by the words Fontaine de hitume. Vanuxem, 
in his Report of 1837 refers to this spring, and Dr. Beck, in his " Report on 
the Mineralogy of New York," published in 1842, describes it. 

Geology and Geography of the Field. — The richest oil rocks have 
always been found in the Devonian strata, which produces our Allegany oil. 
Whenever rocks have been found to contain oil in commercial quantity, they 
are more or less porous, and lie in a comparatively horizontal position, 
seldom having a large dip. Ample facts have been gathered to prove that 
petroleum is a product of a slov/ destructive distillation of organic remains, 
both animal and vegetable, which were buried in the sediment at the time 
that the rock-making materials were deposited in water basins. The sand 
and limestone beds in which the oil is now found, contained some of the 
organic remains from which the oil has been formed, but probably the bulk 
of the oilhascome from the organic remains buried in associated strata, and the 
porous beds in which the oil is found act merely as reservoirs to hold the 
oil. These porous beds are found to exist in restricted areas; this fact 
gave rise to the areas in which oil is found being designated as pools. In 
some districts these pools are very small and numerous. This field might 
be described as consisting of five minor, and one large dumbbell-shaped x^ool 
which extends northeast and southwest a distance of 10 miles, and varies in 
width from 3 to 5 miles. In this pool the sand differs more or less, and some 
large and some small wells are obtained. About the borders of this 
pool proper, and extending in some directions a considerable distance, the 
producing district has been quite peculiarly developed. The field may be 
divided into: 1. Large pool; 2. Alma; 3. Alma P. O.; 4. Clarksville and 
Nile; 5. Andover; 6. Waugh and Porter in South Bolivar. 

1. Large Pool. — This oldest and richest portion of the field lies in 
Bohvar, Richburg, Wirt, Alma, Allentown, Scio, Genesee, and Clarksville. 
The first successful drilling in the county was done on lot 4 Scio, and on 
the adjoining lots in Alma in the far northeastern edge of this district. 
The wells between Richburg and Bohvar lie in the center, and those at 
Rock City in Genesee at the southwest edge of the pool. The depth of 
drilling ranges from 1,200 to 1,800 feet with from 25 to 60 feet of oil rock. 

2. Alma. — Turning northeast and southwest, this pool covers perhaps 30 
lots in Alma. It is directly connected by light territory to the large pool 
No. 1. It is known to producers as the 106 or South Alma district, though 



146 History of Allegany County, N. Y. - 

this lot lies in its northern edge. The drilling varies in depth from 1,100 to 
1,300 feet. From 15 to 30 feet of sand are found. It has been estimated 
that the pool now produces about 150 barrels of oil daily. Good gas territory 
has been developed to the southwest. 

3. Alma Post Office. — The few small wells in this district are separated 
by a dry streak from the Alma pool proper. Only from 10 to 20 feet of sand 
is found at a depth of from 800 to 1,500 feet. 

4. Clarksville and Nile. — These pools have been described by Mr. D. 
A. Van Ingen as follows: "Clarksville and Nile pools are only about one- 
half a mile apart and can almost be considered as one, in spite of the dry 
streak between. The former covers 15 lots in the towns of Clarksville and 
Wirt, and the latter 6 lots in the northern part of Wirt. Clarksville was 
first drilled in 1883, while Nile dates one year earlier. The wells are from 
1,000 to 1.500 feet deep, and yielded when first ' shot ' from 5 to 25 
barrels a day, but are now producing only about half a barrel. The oil sand 
is thicker in Clarksville than in Nile. Gas pressure is light." 

5. Andover. — The Mutual Gas Company of Andover, in its search for 
natural gas in 1889, discovered oil in paying quantities in this district, which 
lies in Greenwood, Steuben county, as well as in Andover. It is a better gas 
than oil field, though the pool is now producing 50 barrels of petroleum 
daily. The depth of wells varies from 800 to 1,300 feet. 

6. Waugh and Porter. — This district now covers seven lots in South 
Bolivar, and is particularly interesting because of the character of the oil 
and oil-bearing rock there found. The first well was the old Waugh and 
Porter, from which the pool and its characteristic sand is named. This was 
completed June 27, 1881, on lot 34. Gas was found from 1,300 to 1,318 feet 
deep; slate from 1,318 to 1,330; oil rock, mixed, 1,330 to 1.345; rich oil rock, 
1,350 to 1,375. The oil-bearing rock and the oil discovered were of an 
entirely different nature than the sand and oil found in all other parts of the 
field, and known as the " Richburg." The rock was also discovered below 
where the ' ' Richburg ' ' should have been. This gave rise to much inter 
esting discussion and to a hope (entertained to this day) of finding in other 
parts of the field a sand similar to the Waugh and Porter, beneath the Rich- 
burg. Scientific theorists, members of the U. S. Geological Survey, 
ardently combatted this conclusion, and proved to their own satisfaction 
that the "Waugh and Porter" w^as the same as the "Richburg" sand, 
which all agree is like the Bradford, Pa., sand. Practical experience, how- 
ever, has demonstrated dift'erently. In tlT.e Transit Oil Company's No. 7, as 
weU as in other wells on lot 26, two distinctly different oil sands have been 
found, averaging a distance of 185 feet apart. The u^^per one is the " Rich- 
burg " sand, producing the dark-green petroleum. The lower one is the 
Waugh and Porter, producing the characteristic amber oil, so transparent 
that print may be read through it. Colonel Ruf us Scott has kindly furnished 
the following record of the Transit Oil Co.'s last well on lot 26, South Bolivar: 
"Top of the Richburg sand 1,307 feet from surface; bottom of Richburg 



Oil and Gas. 147 



sand 1,318; gas from 1.426 to 1.475; top of Waiigh and Porter sand 1,475, 
bottom of tirst strata 1.485, slate to 1,493, mixed sand and shell to 1,520; 
lower strata Waugh and Porter rich oil sand 1,520 to 1.537; well finished at 
1,555. Completed Sept. 3, 1895, and produced naturally to Nov. 11, when 
it was torpedoed. '■ The Transit Company have " shot " several wells in both 
the Richburg and Waugh and Porter sands. The Waugh and Porter sand 
bears a striking resemblance to the Ormsby, Pa., oil-bearing rock, which is 
like that of the Kane, Pa., region. It may be that the South Bolivar pool is 
a northeasterly outcrop of the Ormsby rock. 

The hard, homogenous character of the Allegany, called also Richburg 
sand, gives rise to the remarkable longevity of production already noted. 
Thirty w^ells on the Reed farm in Bolivar have already produced $1,000,000 
w^orth of oil and will no doubt continue to produce for ten years to come. 
Riley Allen has 8 wells at Allentown. drilled 12 years ago, that produced 
2,000 barrels of oil last year. The old Waugh and Porter weU, 14 years old, 
now the property of the Transit Oil Co., is a valuable producing well to-day. 

A representative section of the rocks of the field is alforded by the fol- 
lowing accurate record of O. P. Taylor's Triangle Well, No. 1, lot 4, Scio: 



IOO= 



Well mouth above ocean in feet 

1. Clay, sand and gravel lOO to 

2. Dark gray shale 30 to 130== 

3. White sandstone and shale 40 to 170= 

4. Red shale and sandstone 15 to 185— 

5. Chocolate shale 5 to 190= 

6. Red sandstone and shale 16 to 206= 

7. Chocolate shale and sandstone 4 to 210= 

8. Gray sandstone containing water 8 to 218= 

9. Gray sandstone 12 to 230= 

10. Red sandstone 6 to 236= 

11. Gray slate 30 to 266= 

12. Gray shale 14 to 280= 

13. White shale and sandstone 3 to 283= 

14. Gray shale 4 to 287= 

15. Gray sandstone 4 to 291= 

16. Dark gray sandstone 7 to 298= 

1 7. Gray slate 30 to 328= 

18 Light gray shale 20 to 348= 

19. Gray slate containing sand shales 21 to 369= 

20. Light gray slate 79 to 448= 

21. Gray shale, containing fragments of fossils 4 to 452= 

22. Soft gray slate 31 to 483= 

23. Argillaceous sandstone 22 to 505= 

24. Gray shale 3° to 535°°" 

25. Gray shale containing fragments of fossils 4 to 539= 

26. Red shale i to 540= 

27. Gray slate 52 to 592= 

28. Gray shale containing fossil remains 4 to 596= 

29. Gray slate 21 to 617= 

30. Gray shale, containing fossil remains i to 6iS=i207 

31. Soft gray shale 47 to 665=1160 

32. Gray sandstone 40 to 705=1120 

33. Dark gray shale and slate 80 to 785=1040 

34. Gray slate, containing fragments of fossils 61 to 846= 979 

35. Gray sandy shale, containing fragments of fossils 9 to 855= 970 

36. Gray shale 120 to 975= 850 

37. Gray sandstone containing oil and salt vi'ater 20 to 995= 830 

38. Gray shale 114 to 1109= 716 

39. Soft gray sandstone, top of oil sand 17 to 1 126= 699 

40. Harder gray sandstone 17 to 1143= 682 

41. Soft gray sandstone, bottom of oil sand 10 to 1 153= 672 

42. Gray shale and slate 24 to 1 1 77= 648 

Total depth of well 1177 feet. 



825 
725 
695 
655 
640 

635 
619 

615 
607 

595 
589 
559 
545 
542 
538 
534 
527 
497 
477 
456 
377 
373 
342 
320 
290 
286 
285 

233 
229 

208 



148 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

The top of this well is 625 feet below the bottom of the Olean conglome- 
rate, making the distance between the top of the Allegany oil- sand in this 
well and the Olean conglomerate 1734 feet. The lower 525 feet of this inter- 
val of 625 feet is occupied by gray shale and slate and sandstone; above this 
occurs the sub-Olean conglomerate, which is the middle member of the 
Pocono sandstone, ranges from 30 to 40 feet thick, and occurs immediately 
below the gray shale representing the upper part of the Pocono sandstone, 
and the red shale representing the Mauch Chunk red shale. (An outcrop 
of the sub-Olean conglomerate may be seen facing the Genesee river a 
mile and a half north of WeUsville; and another outcrop, also facing the 
Genesee, exists 6 miles south of WeUsville). 

Refining Petroleum. — The preparation of refined products from 
petroleum may be thus briefly described: The crude oil as it comes from the 
wells is subjected first to a process of distillation in large iron stills. The 
most volatile products of the oil pass off first in the form of vapor, which 
condenses by passing through coils of iron pipe surrounded by cold water; 
from these pipes are collected the naptha, benzine and other products. 
After these lighter products come from the still, the burning oil or kerosene 
next passes off; this illuminating oil is subsequently followed by the heavier 
lubricating oils containing paraffine; there remains in the iron still, finally, a. 
small residuum composed principally of tar and coke. The special distillate 
known as kerosene, which is designed for illuminating oil, is then subjected 
to the action of sulphuric acid, which removes the odor and color which it 
possesses and also destroys the smell of the small amount of tar which it 
sometimes contains. The oil is then treated with caustic soda in order to 
neutralize the last traces of the acid; it is then frequently subjected to a 
higher temperature in order to expel a small percentage of benzine which it 
often contains, the removal of which makes the kerosene a safer illuminant. 
Thus prepared it is known as the kerosene oil of commerce. The details of 
the process of refining vary, not only on account of the composition of the 
crude oil which is treated, but also from the character of the special product 
which it is desired to manufacture. Although the ordinary kerosene oil of 
commerce is the principal product which is manufactured out of petroleum, 
yet the multitude of similar products which are used in the industrial arts 
require that the details of the general process of refining shall be modified 
to meet special wants of the consumer. 

Development of the Field. — No active search was made for oil until 
after Colonel Drake's discovery of it in paying quantites at Titusville, Pa., in 
1859. In 1862 a well was drilled at Bradford, Pa., but a few miles south of 
the state line. Subsequently several wells were drilled in this state north 
of Bradford. Explorations were then made in an unsystematic way in this 
county. The first well of which we have any record was drilled at Independ- 
ence in 1865 by a stock company, and a slight showing of oil and gas was 
obtained in a thin sandstone about 300 feet above what afterwards proved to 
be the Allegany oil rock. The next well was drilled a year or two later by 



Oil and Gas. 149 



Tadder & Co.. with similar results. In 1878 two other wells were put down 
in Independence. The discovery of oil in commercial quantities in the Brad- 
ford district in 1874, and its active development, which commenced in the 
latter part of 1875, stimulated drilling in the entire surrounding region. In 
September, 1877, the Honeoye or Alma well, on lot No. 26, South Alma town- 
ship, familiarly known as the " old wildcat, " because of the stuffed animal 
of that species that adorned the top of its derrick, was commenced by the 
WeUsville and Alma Oil Company. It was iinished in November by the 
pioneer contractor and driller Ben Thomas, to whose activity and faith in the 
eventual discovery of "paying" oil in Allegany is due much credit. This 
weU was drilled 1,800 feet deep, cost $4,000, and proved a failure. At a 
depth of 500 feet considerable gas was found, which ultimately took fire and 
burned the derrick. At 1,000 feet a small amount of oil was obtained. A 
^'shot" failed to increase the yield, and the weU was finally abandoned. 
This well demonstrated the existence of an oil-bearing rock, and encouraged 
the immediate drilling of another well, on lot 118, South Alma, known as 
"Pikeville No. 1," which was completed in November, 1878. This, like the 
Honeoye w^ell, was driUed by Ben Thomas. It was located by James Thorn- 
ton, A. A. Howard, T. F. Fisher, Ed. Gale, and George Howard, aU of WeUs- 
ville. James Thornton paid for building the derrick and contracted the drill- 
ing with Thomas. Before the weU was completed stock was sold in the 
venture by the organization of the "Bottom DoUar Oil Company." Mr. O. 
P. Taylor " bought in " at this time. The oil rock was struck at a depth of 
1,028 feet. It consisted of two beds 18 feet thick, separated by 7 feet of 
slate. By proper pumping the well would have been good for from 3 to 5 
barrels a day. This yield was not then considered enough to pay, and the 
well was abandoned. On three sides of this old location wells are now being 
pumped daily. 

In January, 1879, O. P. Taylor completed the Wycoff well, northeast of 
"Pikeville No. 1." It was situated on the north middle of lot 36, Alma. It 
had a showing of oil sand, but no oil, and was thought to demonstrate that 
oil would be found between the Honeoye and Pikeville w^eUs. The next ven- 
ture was Taylor's celebrated "Triangle No. 1," completed June 12, 1879, on 
the Crandall farm, lot No. 4, Scio. 27 feet of superior oil rock was found, 
and, after being shot, the well filled up in an hour with 700 feet of oil, and 
proved to be the first flowing weU struck in the county. TheElmira Gazette 
of June 21, 1879, published this news item from WeUsville: "There is no 
disguising the fact that oil has been found here and that in paying quantities. 
' Triangle Well ' is located four and a half miles southwest from WeUsville. 
It was jiut down and is owned by O. P. Taylor. The well was commenced 
April 17th. At 985 feet a small salt water vein was found. At 1,109 feet the 
oil-bearing sand was reached, and passed at 1,153 feet. The drill stopped at 
1,177. Thursday, June 12th, the well was ' torpedoed ' with a twenty-quart 
shot of glycerine, when the oil was sent from thirty to fifty feet over the 
derrick; later with an eight-quart shot, when the hole fiUed with 800 feet of 



150 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

oil. Saturday came the flow, since which time there has flowed between 
eight and ten barrels per day. The well is certainly a ' gusher, ' and as I 
stood in the derrick yesterday watching the flow it came with force enough 
to make things tremble. Sunday brought a crowd. The place was named 
' Triangle City. ' Four lager beer stands were started, and the population 
numbered several hundred. Of course Wellsville is excited, and every man 
sees a fortune ' staring him in the face. ' The town is filling up with 
strangers. Letters, telegrams and inquiries are pouring in. Look out for 
a great big city at Wellsville ! " An exhaustive and accurate record of the 
geologic strata through which this well was drilled may be found in this 
chapter under the heading " Geology of Petroleum." 

In the fall of 1879 the Longabaugh "dry hole " was completed, 400 rods 
north of "Triangle No. 1." The Brimmer Brook well, put down about the 
same time, by James Thornton, Hiram Coats, O. P. Taylor and A. S. Brown, 
was also a "duster." These failures stopped further drilling toward the 
north In the winter of 1879-80 Mr. Taylor completed a weU on the Williams 
lot 200 rods east of "Triangle No. 1." It was considered a failure. Early 
in 1880 the well known " Shoff " well south of Pikeville was completed by the 
veteran Ben. Thomas, and proved a good producer. Taylor's "Triangle No. 
2," on lot 4, Scio, was 800 feet south of No. 1. and 320 feet west of a line from 
Sholf to No. 1. It showed a good depth of oil rock and proved to be a ten- 
barrel well. Mr. Taylor, who up to this time had experienced the greatest 
of difticulty in obtaining financial aid, now easily obtained the funds neces- 
sary to drill "Triangle No. 3. " This he located 2,500 feet south of No. 1. It 
was finished July 4, 1880, and produced 301 barrels the first month. That 
Allegany had a rich field was now no longer doubted by the Bradford oil 
men, who had been making all sorts of fun of the bold "wildcatters." Oil 
scouts and producers literally jioured into Wellsville; which was then the 
oil country's base of supplies. 

The discovery, however, of the extension of the field to the south by the 
completion of the old " Richburg gusher " in 1881, made oil towns of Rich- 
burg and Bolivar. This well was drilled by Riley Allen, O. P. Taylor, 
Crandall Lester, A. B. Cottrell and several others. It was located on the 
Reading farm, lot 33, Wirt, and was completed April 28, 1881. At a depth 
of 1,280 feet 20 feet of sand was found, and the well produced 80 barrels the 
first day. It was the key to the field. In a few weeks Taylor became a 
rich man, but lost the most of his means in speculations on the market. 
Before his death however he had again amassed considerable property. 

In January, 1881, before the Richburg strike, the McBride well came in 
on lot 18, Alma. Sixty feet of superior sand was found, and surrounding 
property sold immediately for from $100 to |200 an acre. Leases were 
taken at one-quarter royalty. The Duke and Norton wells on lots 22 and 
23, Alma, completed about this time, were good producers. The develop- 
ment of the Campbell well on lot 16 and other wells in Bohvar was followed 
by the rapid drilling of hundreds of holes over Alma, Bohvar, Wirt and Scio. 



Oil and Gas. 151 



Many ventures were dry, but the heart of the field was soon found and a 
feverish excitement ensued. Thousands of dollars were made and lost in a 
day. A year before the Standard Oil Company had definitely decided it prof- 
itable to pipe-line the Allegany field, a careful estimate placed the crude oil 
already produecd at 10,000 barrels. Much of this had gone to waste, but at 
least 6,000 barrels was in storage in wooden tanks. At this time there was 
a decided vividness about the oil country life. The element of uncertainty 
attending the production of oil led to the keenest comx^etition imaginable. 
This gave rise to the occupation of " oil scouting," and in this vocation was 
the ceaseless energy, sharp competition, nervous haste, acute perception, 
and bold daring execution of the whole industry typified. During these 
palmy days of scouting, when every important well was made a mystery, there 
were many exciting adventures encountered by the scouts in their midnight 
work. Guards were sometimes lonely in the still watches of the night and 
amused themselves by firing their rifles, muskets or revolvers in a promiscu- 
ous manner, not calculated to encourage scouts j)rowling in the vicinity. 

In the summer of 1880 a settlement, near the then famous Triangle 
wells, began to rapidly build up and was named Triangle City. The Wells- 
ville Reporter of March 17, 1881, had the following relative to changing the 
name of this lively oil town: 

" Triangle City is no more, The soft greasy, good-natured name of Petrolia has been sub- 
stituted for the merry, jingling musical name of Triangle. ' Triangle City,' though yet young, 
was famous. It had already worn metropolitan airs and made positive record. The rousing 
cheer, the turkey raffles, the duel, the battle of the soiled doves, these and many other incidents, 
rich and rare, must be laid in one common grave. They formed the sharp points in the angles 
of 'Triangle ' history, and 'Triangle ' is dead. All this trouble comes of the necessity of a post 
office, and that there is already a ' Triangle ' in the state. Goodbye, ' Triangle;' Welcome 
Petrolia." 

Allentown, in Alma, built up more rapidly and substantially than Pe- 
trolia. For five years it was a typical oil town, rough and ready. Its natur- 
ally beautiful situation in a fine farming country, and the staying qualities 
of the oil production bringing wealth to its citizens, will leave a nice com- 
munity at Allentown after the oil is gone. 

Richburg typifies all the " ups and 'downs of oildom." Its rise and fall 
have been thus well described by an Allegany county journalist in The 
Buffalo Express : 

"On Apfil 26, 1881, Richburg was a quiet little viUage of perhaps 150 
I)eople, and was connected with the outside world by a stage line. Within a 
few months it was one of the liveliest oil towns in the country, and boasted of a 
population of nearly 8,000, recruited from the four points of the compass. 
Stores, hotels, machine shops, saloons, bagnios, dance-houses and gambling 
dens sprung up as if by magic. For several weeks after the tide set in, 
sleeping apartments indoors could not be secured at any price, and many 
a night several hundred of Richburg's floating population slept on benches 
under the maple trees in the village park, in many cases on the bare ground. 



152 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

One old oil man remembers paying a dollar for the privilege of sleeping on a 
billiard table over night, and another paid half as much for the privilege of 
sleeping in a bar-room chair. At this time Richburg boasted of two banks, 
and a morning and evening newspaper. The Oil Echo, a morning paper 
edited by P. C. Boyle, now editor of the Oil Gitu Derrick, was printed on a 
three-revolution Hoe press and possessed a valuable news franchise. The 
first month's freight receipts when the Allegany Central railroad was com- 
pleted as far as Richburg, amounted to $12,000, and a box-car served as a 
depot for some time. The Bradford, Eldred & Cuba railroad* built a spur 
from Bolivar up the valley to Richburg and ran trains both ways every half 
hour. For a long time the spur averaged 700 passengers daily. Rent for 
building lots quickly jumped up and $500 a year rent for a 20-foot front lot 
on Main street was not regarded as extortionate. In fact, the lot owner 
could name his own price. Everybody was ' oil crazy. ' Oil wells were 
drilled in village gardens and in door-yards. Even the church people became 
afflicted with the popular craze. One of the leading ministers speculated in 
oil on week days and preached powerful sermons on Sunday, and no one 
chided him. A well was finally drilled on a parsonage lot. and oil was struck, 
but the venture was not a profitable one and the trustees decided that it was 
not best to invest church funds in that kind of a gamble. Richburg had a 
fine system of water works, an electric fire-alarm system, an elegant brick 
church, a fine opera house, and at one time a street-car line was strongly 
talked of. Liquor was sold at 100 different places, and prostitutes occupied 
over 40 buildings. In one instance the village gristmill was purchased and 
converted into a bagnio. The finest attractions were nightly seen at the 
opera house and money flowed like water. But the boom was not to last 
forever. In May, 1882, the news of the big gusher at Cherry Grove carried 
the floating population away with a rush and few of them ever returned. 
This was the beginning of the end of Richburg's greatness. Bolivar, a little 
hamlet a mile further down the valley, began to boom in earnest early in 
1882, and gradually superseded Richburg as the metropolis of the Allegany 
field. Fires swept away some of Richburg's noted buildings, and many 
others were torn down and moved to adjacent villages. Pine buildings that 
cost thousands of dollars went for a mere song. To-day Richburg is deso- 
late and almost deserted, and in a few years it will appear very much as it 
did before the oil boom came. The population at present is^less than 400. 
An elegant church and a fine academy building are the only noted relics of 
its former greatness. The opera house in which operatic stars once shone 
so brightly is now used as a cheese factory, and the railroads have given 
way to a stage line. " 

In 1882 Bolivar was booming. It however had a more solid foundation 

*The Bradford, Eldred and Cuba railroad company built a narrow gauge system through the oil regions 
in 1882. The road extended from Wellsville, through Petrolia and Allentown to Bolivar and thence to 
Eldred where it connected with the Bradford, Bordell and Kinzua railroad. A branch connected Cuba with 
Bolivar. The road was used just ten years and in 1892 the iron was taken up. 



Oil and Gas. 153 



than Richburg", and is to-day a prosperous community. In the days of the 
"gushers "" 5,000 x>eople called Bolivar their temporary home. In January, . 
1882, it had no bank. Within four months an institution, established by 
Olean capitalists, had deposits exceeding $250,000. Like Richburg the town 
had its '• decidedly tough '" element. 

There are hundreds of weUs in this oil field whose name and fame were 
once on every tongue. It wiU be sufticient in this sketch to say that after 
the first dozen wells already mentioned were completed that the large pool 
was developed within a very short time. The Boyle well, struck in June, 
1881, in Bolivar, started off at 200 barrels a day. In 1882 the field produced 
6,519,000 barrels of petroleum. Two weUs on the Reed and Garthwait farms 
in Bolivar started off at 400 barrels each a day. These were the largest 
producers ever drilled in the field. They are both still being pumped. 
From the summer of 1882 the field's production steadily declined. Its 
first big ' ' set back ' ' was the striking of the Cherry Grove, Pa. , gusher in 
May, 1882, which dropped the market to 49 cents a barrel. Many Alleg'any 
producers "went to the wall." The Cherry Grove wells, however, lasted 
but a short time, and within a year the market went back to 81. The follow- 
ing tables of daily average pipe line runs, yearly runs and number of wells 
completed each year up to 1889 will be found decidedly interesting: 

DAILY AVERAGE RUNS ALLEGANY FIELD. 

1882. 1883. 18S4. 18S5. 18S6. 18S7. i888. 1889. 

January 7,222 14,106 11,018 7.44-2 6,235 4.920 2,620 3,254 

February 9,512 13. '54 12,025 7,696 6,361 4,949 3,413 2.830 

March 14.760 12,619 ii.777 7.342 6,545 4.9^4 3.214 3485 

April 17,622 13,742 12,261 7,738 6,895 5,055 3,306 3,294 

May 19.522 13.793 12,193 IA'^1 6,535 5,224 3.595 3.385 

June 22,765 13.499 ".672 7,680 6,981 5.034 3.703 3.520 

July 23,884 12,381 11,114 7,363 6,802 4,843 3,252 3,474 

August 20,814 12,743 10,384 7,102 6,333 4,629 3,360 3,525 

September 16,387 12,358 9,989 6,647 6,035 4,451 2,935 3,056 

October 19,964 12,757 8,802 7,081 5,885 4,494 2,688 3,171 

November 16,993 12,232 8,642 6,667 5,260 2,803 3,226 3,319 

December 14,020 11,752 8,193 6,738 5,072 3,305 3,329 3,309 

The estimated production of the Allegany field since its inception is 

shown in the apj)ended table. Tlie pipe line runs have been expanded to 

some extent to make allowances for oil that does not appear on the books of 

the pipe line companies. 

1880 5,000 

1881 600,000 

1882 6,450,000 

i8|83 4,800,000 

1884 4,000,000 

1885 2,800,000 

1886 2,300,000 

1887 1,700,000 

1888 1,200,000 

1889 1,250,000 

Total 25, 105,000 

The number of wells drilled in the Allegany field as shown by the pub- 
lished records has been as follows: 

Wells completed to clos» of i88o 8 

in 1881 618 

" " 1882 1,605 



154 



History of Allegany County, N Y. 



Wells completed in 1883 1,270 



1884. 
18S5. 
1886. 



1888. 
1889. 



501 
386 
299 
55 
41 
260 



Total 5,046 

The market price per 42-gallon barrel of crude oil has always varied 
considerable from month to month and from year to year. The following- 
table affords an interesting study: 

Monthly and yearly average prices 0/ pipe-line certificates 0/ crude petroleutn at ivells. 





Jan. 


Feb. 


Mar. 


Apr. 


May. 


June. 


July. 


Aug. 


Sept. 


Oct. 


Nov. 


Dec. 


Yearly. 


'60 


$19.25 


$18.00 


$12,623^ 


$11.00 


$10.00 


$9.50 


$8.6234 


$7.50 


$6.6234 


$5.50 


$3.75 


$2.75 


$9.59 


'bi 


1.00 


1. 00 


1. 00 


0.62X 


0.50 


0.50 


0.50 


0.25 


0.20 


O.IO 


O.IO 


O.IO 


0.49 


'02 


O.IO 


0.15 


0.22X 


0.50 


0.8s 


1. 00 


1-25 


1.25 


1.25 


1-75 


2.00 


2.25 


1.05 


;b3 


2.25 


2.50 


2.621^ 


2.87K 


2.873< 


3.00 


3-25 


3.37K 


3- 50 


3-75 


3.85 


3.95 


3.15 


't)4 


4.00 


4.37}^ 


5-50 


6.56 


6.871^ 


9 50 


12.123^ 


10.1234 


8.873^ 


7.75 


10.00 


11.00 


8.06 


't>s 


8.25 


7-50 


6.00 


6.00 


7.373^ 


5.6234 


5-1214 


4.62K 


6.75 


8.1234 


7.25 


6.50 


6.59 


'bb 


4-50 


4.40 


3-75 


3-95 


450 


3.873^ 


300 


3.75 


4.50 


3.39 


3.10 


2.123^ 


3-74 


'b7 


1.87K 


1.85 


1-75 


2.07K 


2-35 


t.90 


2. 62 14 


.3.15 


340 


3-55 


2.50 


1.8734 


2.41 


'b8 


1-95 


2.00 


2-55 


2821^ 


3-75 


4-50 


5-1234 


4.573^ 


4.00 


4.123^ 


3.7s 


4.35 


3.6234 


09 


5-75 


6.9s 


6.00 


5-70 


5-35 


495 


5.37^^ 


5-573^ 


5.50 


550 


5 -So 


5.1234 


5.63% 


70 


4-52^ 


4.52^ 


445 


4-223'^ 


4.40 


4.17M 


3-773^ 


3 15 


3.25 


3.273< 


3.223^ 


3.40 


386 


'71 


3-82^ 


438 


4-25 


4.01 


4.60 


3-853^ 


4-79 


4.66 


465 


4.8234 


425 


4.00 


4.34 


'72 


4.02!^ 


3-8o 


3-72K 


3-523^ 


380 


3-8s 


3-80 


3-583^ 


3.25 


3.15 


3.833^ 


3-323^ 


3.64 


73 


2.60 


2.20 


2. 12K 


2.30 


2.473^ 


2.223^ 


2.00 


1-42 34^ 


1-15 


I 20 


1.25 


1. 00 


1.83 


'74 


1.20 


1.40 


1.60 


1.90 


1.62>i 


1.323^ 


1.023^ 


095 


0.95 


0.85 


0.55 


06134 


1. 17 


75 


1.03 


'•52K 


1-75 


1-363^ 


1.40 


1.26X 


1.09 


1. 13 


1-33 


i-323i 


1.44 


1-55 


1-35 


;7b 


1.80 


2.60 


2.01 


2.023^ 


1.9034 


2.01% 


2.2434 


2.71M 


3-8r 


3-373^ 


3." 


3-73 


2.563^ 


'77 


3-53M' 


2.70 


2.67K 


2.58 


2.24 


I-94M 


2.0734' 


2.51 


2.38 


2.56% 


1.91 


1.80 


2.42 


1^ 


1-43 


1-651^ 


1-59 


1.373-^ 


1-353^ 


1. 14 


0.98% 


1. 01 


0.86% 


0.8234 


0.89% 


1.16 


1. 19 


'79 


1.03 


0.98 


o.86i^ 


0.783^ 


0.76 


0.68M 


0.69% 


o.67>i 


0.69K 


o.883< 


0.91% 


1.18K 


0.85K 


'80 


I.IO,^/ 


I-03K 


0.88M 


0.78 


0.80 


1. 00 


1.063^ 


0.91 


0.96 


0.96% 


0.91% 


0.943^ 


'81 


0-95M 


0.90% 


0.83M 


0.863^ 


0.81% 


o.8i3€ 


0.76K 


0.7834 


0.97K 


0.913^ 


0.853^ 


0.84% 


0.85K 


'82 


0.8311^ 


0.841^ 


0.81K 


0.78K 


0.713-^ 


o-54,% 


O.S7K 


0.58% 


0.72)4 


0.93% 


1. 14 


0.96 


o.78>^ 


^3, 


0.93:^ 


1. 01 


0.97M 


o-9\% 


i.oo><; 


1.16M 


1-053^ 


1.08 


1. 1234 


i.ii>^ 


i.i43i 


1.14% 


1.05% 


'84 


I. II 


1.04X 


o.98>^ 


0.94 


0.85M 


0.68M 


0.6334 


0.81% 


0.78 


0-713^ 


723? 


74K 


0.833^ 


.^5 


0-70% 


0.72K 


0.80X 


0.783^ 


0.79 


0.82 


0.923-2 


i.ooV 


I.OOS/^ 


1.05K 


I.04M 


0.89^ 


0.87K 


,8b 


0.88M 


o-79% 


0.773^ 


0.74X 


0.70 


0.663^ 


0.66 


0.62K 


o.63«4 


0.65X 


0.71^ 


0.70M 


0.713^ 


.»7 


0.70 


0.64% 


0.63^ 


o.64T< 


0.641^ 


0.62% 


o-S93^ 


0.60K 


C.67 


0.70% 


0.73K 


0.80% 


0.66% 


,88 


0.913^ 


0.91% 


0.98M 


0.82% 


0.86% 


0.75% 


0.80-54 


0.90K 


0.93M 


0.90M 


0.S5K 


891^ 


0.87M 


,89 


0.86M 


0.89}^ 


0.90% 


0.88 


0-83K 


o.83^< 


o.QsVs 


0.9914 


0.991^ 


I.OI^ 


1.08}-^ 


I 043^ 


o.94>^ 


,90 


1.05% 


i-osJ^ 


90 


o.&'2% 


o88T< 


08914" 


0.893^ 


0.893^ 


081% 


0.8034 


0.72^ 


o.673< 


0.86^ 


,91 


0.743^ 


0.78M 


o-T\H 


0.71 IX 


0.69% 


o.68>^ 


0.6614 


0.64 


0.5834 


0.6Q14 


0.58^ 


0.59M 


0.67 


.92 


.0.62K 


o.6oi^ 


0.57X 


0.57'^ 


0.57K 


0.543^ 


0.523^ 


55 


o545< 


0.51M 


0.52 


0.533^ 


0.55M 


.93 


053X 


0.57K 


0.653^ 


0.68% 


0.58M 


o.6o3< 


0.57M 


0-58% 


oM% 


0.70% 


0.73% 


o.783€ 


0.64 



It will be noted that the average price of petroleum in 1893 was in excess 
of the average price of 1892, which, with the exception of 1861, was the low- 
est in the history of the trade. The nearest approaches, with the exception 
noted, to the price in 1891, were in 1892, when the average price was 67 cents 
a barrel, and in 1887. when the average price was 66f cents a barrel. The 
low average in 1893 was due to the low price of the early part of the year 
and the prices from May to September. The last three months of the year 
shov/ a material increase in prices, the average for December being 78^ cents 
a barrel. This increase continued in 1894, the average for the year being 
about 85 cents. Early in 1895 the market began to boom, reaching in the 
spring the highest point touched in over 20 years. The price at $2.60 a bar- 
rel was not long maintained, however, and by summer time the Standard 



Oil and Gas. 155 



bought at $1.25 which remahied the quotation for six months. In Novem- 
ber however, the price went up again to $1.33 and over. 

Early in 1895 the Standard Oil Company made a revolutionary change 
in its method of buying oil at the speculative prices of the exchanges. There 
are now two markets for our oil, the price which the Standard offers j^ro- 
ducers. and the quotations on the floors of the speculative exchanges. These 
markets do not differ a great deal, for the speculators dare not go far in ad- 
vance of the Standard's price. This trust has such a monopoly of the oil 
business that it absolutely controls the price irrespective of the law of sup- 
ply and demand which would send oil booming to $3 a barrel at least. At 
present (November, 1895,) the Standard offers $1.33 and the exchanges $1.42 
a barrel. 

Among the representative producers of oil in this field have been: Asher 
W. Miner. George V. Porman, McCalmont Oil Company, Hazelwood Oil Com- 
pany, Willett's Oil Company, Duke and Norton Company, Sawyer Bros, of 
AUentown. who own the only refinery in the county; Schofield Company, 
Anchor Oil Company. Hochsteter and Shirley, Scott and PuUer. Macken and 
Breckenridge of the East End Company, Thornton and Brown. Johnson and 
Pittenger. William McBride, John Haymaker, Charles Conroy, Pranchot 
Company, Duke and Raydure. Anderson Bros., L. S. Anderson and others. 
At present E. C. and J. B. Bradley, the officers of the Empire Gas and Puel 
Company, are the largest producers in the field. The East End Company, 
the Norton Company, Hochsteter and Shirley and Riley Allen are also large 
producers. Mrs. O. P. Taylor and Wm. O. and Charles, sons of the pioneer, 
possess valuable oil properties. To the indefatigable efforts of O. P. Taylor, 
a biographical sketch of whom appears elsewhere, was due the discovery of 
oil in AUegany in commercial quantities. He was, in the early days, a large 
producer. 

Leasing.- — The owners of the soil possess the oil right as well as the 
surface of their lands. Producers have two methods of dealing with these 
owners. One is to buy the property outright, surface and all. Sometimes, 
however, owners are loth to part with their land, and the producer leases the 
privilege of operating for oil by contracting to give the owner a certain per- 
centage of the production. This royalty runs from 1-16 to i of the produc- 
tion. There are original owners, now in the field, who have amassed fortunes 
from their royalties. 

Methods of Production. — Petroleum has been produced in America 
exclusively by artesian wells. In Japan the practice, even up to the present 
time, has been to dig vertical shafts from four to six feet wide to depths as 
great as 1,000 feet. The operation of drilling was once very expensive; now 
a well can be drilled at one-tenth the cost and in one-tenth the time that was 
required in the early days at Titusville. 

Drilling. — The present process of drilling in this field may be thus 
briefly described: Over the point where the well is to be drilled a derrick or 
rig 72 feet high is erected, forming a square at the base, 20 feet on the sides, 



156 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

and verging toward the top to a square, having an inside dimension along the 
sides of 2 feet 10 inches. On the top of the derrick is placed a crown pulley, 
over which the cable or drill rope plays. The end of the rope inside the 
derrick is attached to a string of tools which measure about 55 feet in length 
and which weigh about 1,900 pounds. The other end of the rope is attached 
to a horizontal shaft, upon which it is wound and unwound at will. The 
power is supplied by a 15 to 25 H. P. engine and a 20 H. P. boiler through a 
rubber belt which passes over the large "bull wheel," which is itself 
attached to the end of the horizontal shaft. Directly over the hole to be 
drilled is placed one end of the "walking-beam," generally 26 feet in length. 
This rests near its center on a heavy post 13 feet high, known as the " Samp- 
son post. ' ' Before drilling the upper part of the hole is dug by a spade, then 
the process known as " spudding " is followed for a short distance, by mak- 
ing fast the rope to which the tools are attached to one end of the walking- 
beam. This beam is so operated by steam power as to successively raise 
and drop the tools, which pound the rock into fine fragments. After every 
five feet of drilling the tools are raised out of the hole and the broken debris 
with the water are taken out by a bailer or sand pump, an iron tube about 20 
feet long, at the bottom of which is a valve so made that it opens when the 
bailer touches the bottom of the hole and closes when it is lifted off. The 
cost of drilling a well in this field is now about $1,500. Ten years ago it cost 
$2,000 or over. The depth of wells depends upon the relative position of the 
surface of the earth to the oil sand. In this county it averages perhaps 
1,300 feet. When. a well first strikes the oil rock its depth is accurately 
measured. It is measured again when it has been drilled to the bottom of 
the oil-bearing rock, the depth of which will average in this field about 20 
feet. Beneath this a " pocket " 10 to 15 feet deep is usually drilled. Some 
operators however do not follow this custom, but drill only through the 
sand. 

Torpedoing or Shooting. — The exploding of nitroglycerine in a well, 
popularly known as "shooting," has always been an interesting process. 
From 40 to 100 quarts are used, costing as many dollars. In 1882 a 40 quart 
" shot '' cost $140. Glycerine handling is a hazardous occupation. In this 
field alone many " shooters " have lost their lives, and hair breadth escapes 
from frightful deaths are related by all veterans in the business. Wells are 
" shot " in order to break or crack the oil bearing rock so that it may pro- 
duce petroleum the more readily. 

The usual process of " shooting " is to pour the glycerine into long tin 
tubes, which are lowered into the hole and exploded by dropping into the 
well a triangularly-flanged piece of iron weighing about 10 pounds, known 
as the "go-devil," which strikes a percussion cap on the top of the upper 
glycerine shell. The glycerine shells are placed in the well only through 
the oil rock, that is if the wells have 25 feet of oil rock and a 12 foot pocket, 
an empty tin tube 12 feet long is attached to the bottom of the first glycerine 
shells in order to raise it to a level with the oil sand. The few producers 



Oil and Gas. 157 



who do not drill below the oil sand use a " dump shot, " lowering- the ex- 
plosive into the hole by the bailer. Col. W. A. Meyers of Bolivar is the 
pioneer glycerine man of the Allegany field. He claims the honor of mak- 
ing the first pound ever exploded in a well. In 1869 he had a factory at 
Titusville where at first he mixed the explosive in earthen crocks. After- 
wards he invented a machine which turned out 400 cans a day. In 1882 he 
was manufacturing 5.000 pounds of glycerine daily at Bolivar. Glycerine is 
generally transported to the well in gallon cans in a specially arranged spring 
wagon, over rough roads, and, quite likely, drawn by a team of fractious 
horses driven by the careless " shooters." With quantities to suit the de- 
mand of the well owners these wagons are driven into every corner of the 
country where oil is produced or wells drilled. It is not unusual for an order 
for a "shot "to be received from a distance of 100 miles, and often the 
"fiend "will start and travel night and da}^ over rough and smooth high- 
ways, and will arrive on time or kill a team in the attempt. Within two 
years two Allegany men have lost their lives in this labor. Their places 
were easily and immediately filled. 

Pumping and Disposing of the Oil. — In the early days of this field's 
history, a large number of wells, after being " shot " produced oil naturally, 
that is they flowed periodically. This was caused by the gas pressure, 
which soon diminished. It was found necessary then to pump the wells. 
This is done by a lift jmnip working by means of "sucker rods " through 
the 2 inch iron tubing which is put into the hole from top to bottom. The 
5f inch casing is outside the tubing, and reaches only deep enough (300 feet 
on the average) to shut off the water, which naturally flows into the wells 
from the upper walls of the hole. Every lease is furnished with one or 
more wooden receiving tanks of 100 or 250 barrels capacity. Into these the 
oil is pumped from the wells. When these tanks are filled the "pumper " 
sends for the United Pipe Line Company's "ganger," who measures the 
number of feet and inches of oil in the tanks, and " runs " it into the Stand- 
ard Oil Company's pipe lines, which are connected with all tanks in the field. 
There is no choice in the disposition of the oil, nor but one way to disj^ose of 
it. The Standard Oil Company has the only pijDe lines in the county. As 
soon as the ganger " runs " a tank of oil, he reports to the pipe-line office, 
and the owner is credited with the oil "run." He may keep the oil any 
length of time he desires by paying storage to the pipe-line company. He 
may sell at any time to any buyer or to the Standard Oil Company, which 
always stands ready to pay cash at the " market " price, which means its 
own figures. In this field the Standard has several minor storage and pump 
stations, from which the oil is forced to the large station 3 miles east of 
Wells ville, where there are seventy 35.000 barrel oil tanks, affording a stor- 
age capacity of 2,450,000 barrels. From here the oil is forced through a 6 
inch line, of which the company has two running side by side, to Cameron 
Mills, and thence, through several stations, to refineries at Bayoune, N. J. 

The x^i'ocess of jDumping one well has been briefly noticed. After a 



158 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

lease or oil farm has been thoroughly drilled, with a well on perhaps every 

5 acres, the wells may be rigged together for pumping in different ways. 
The old method was by an engine at each well and one steam boiler for from 

6 to 20 wells. Steam lines ran from the boiler, which was centrally located, 
to each engine. This method, with a combination of make-shifts, in still 
much in use. Riley Allen, the veteran producer, has among his employees 
one man who pumps 40 wells. In one instance he uses one boiler for 30 
wells. When an engine is not used for each well, surface rods, arranged to 
pull back and forth, are employed. 

Natural Gas. — Gas in greater or less quantity is always found with 
petroleum, but petroleum does not always occur with gas. For the early 
field operations for oil sufficient gas was found to flow the wells and also to 
furnish fuel for the drilling of additional wells. The oil wells in the vicinity 
of Allentown produced such a quantity of gas that, in 1882, the Empire Gas 
Company laid lines from them to furnish Wellsville with fuel and light. 
The villages of Allentown, Richburg and Bolivar were also supplied by this 
company. These Allentown gas wells supplied 200 boilers at drilling wells 
in 1882, and, being otherwise improvidently handled, showed signs of ex- 
hustion in 1888. In 1889 the Empire Gas and Fuel Company laid lines to the 
strong gas wells which the firm had developed in Oswayo and Sharon town- 
ships. Potter county. Pa. These wells, now 23 in number, lie just across 
the state line, 12 to 14 miles from Wellsville. They produce no oil, but 
adequately meet all the present gas demands of Wellsville and the other 
villages supplied. The company owns a large amount of undrilled territory 
in the vicinity of the wells now producing, and will be able to supply fuel 
and illuminating gas to its consumers for 25 years to come. The drilling in 
this gas region varies from 1,400 to 1,600 feet. From 30 to 90 feet of sand is 
found. The rock pressure is 250 pounds. 

The richest gas territory in Allegany county lies in Clarksville and Wirt 
where there are now 80 producing gas wells. The Cuba Gas Company, or- 
ganized in 1884, obtains its supply from these towns. The Allegany Gas 
Company, supplying Friendship and Belmont, also has its wells in Clarks- 
ville and Wirt. The Mutual Gas Company supplies Andover, Greenwood 
and Wliitesville. Its gas comes from the Andover oil and gas pool. In all 
nine Allegany villages burn natural gas including the three largest towns. In 
winter probably 8,000 stoves in Allegany flush with the glow of the most 
luxurious fuel which Providence has provided. In WellsviUe, with its 800 
to 1,000 consumers, only 15 meters are used. In Cuba one-third the con- 
sumers use meters. 

The Empire Gas and Fuel Company's rates are: 

Cook stoves by the year $33-oo 

" " month in summer 2.50 

" " " winter 3.50 

Heating stoves by the month in summer i.oo 

" " '• winter 3.50 

Lights " " dwellings 25 

" " " stores 30 



Agriculture. 159 



Rates are arranged according to size of rooms heated, and yearly rates on 
heating stoves may be thus obtained. When metered the company charge 
22 cents per thousand cubic feet. 

To estimate the worth of the gas produced in the Allegany field is im- 
possible. That it aggregates a great sum all agree. In drilling the 5,500 
wells scattered over the field as well as in pumping them, the gas supply 
has saved an immense outlay for fuel. Gas has been carelessly wasted and 
in enormous quantities. Wells have been left open, and gas lines from 
pumping wells are usually very heedlessly looked after. In the years to 
come producers and other consumers of natural gas will realize that every 
foot taken from a well just so much diminishes the supply. It is by no 
means inexhaustible. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

OUR AGRICULTURE.^ 

BY A. W. LITCHARD, ESQ. 



IT is not only a fitting thing but a high privilege that we enjoy to-day as far in - 
ers interested in the cultivation of the soil and the development of the 
agricultural resources, to be permitted to stand on this elevation and over- 
look and briefly review the progress made, the privations endured, the vic- 
tories won during a century of time by those who by their sturdy manhood 
and womanhood made our county what it is in an agricultural point of view, 
one of the most prosperous in the Empire State. Born in poverty with a 
cold and frosty climate, with the land covered with heavy timber, with no 
near market for their limited products, the pioneers had a cheerless outlook. 
Yet despite all discouragements our county has steadily grown from a small 
clearing on Dike's creek in Wellsville in 1795, to a county covered over with 
productive farms and such comfortable homes as are seldom seen in any 
country. It is a fact that should not be overlooked or forgotten, that the 
first farmer who located in this county was a person of culture and of prac- 
tical ability. He could build a mill, tan leather, make shoes for his children, 
do his own blacksmithing, and, at the same time, establish that which was 
more valuable than all the rest, a good character. Such a man was Nathan- 
ael Dike. 

Very little progress was made by the settlers in the way of farming for 
the first quarter of the century. Sparse settlements were made here and 
there in different sections. The year 1816 was a trying one for the pioneers. 

* Paper read at Wellsville Centennial, 1895. 



160 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

It was known for many years as the " Allegany county famine, " and if it had 
not been for the liberality of Gen. William A. Mills, of Mt. Morris, who fur- 
nished the settlers with wheat arid corn (in many instances without compen- 
sation), many would have suffered severely if they had not perished with 
hunger. The chief sources of revenue to the settlers were lumber, shingles 
and maple sugar. The lumber in order to find a market had to be drawn to 
Cuylerville, Canisteo, Dansville, and often as far as Rochester. One source 
of revenue to the people was going north each year to assist the farmers in 
the lower Genesee Valley to harvest the wheat. Large companies of men 
could be seen every year carrying rakes and cradles on their shoulders, 
migrating to that better country to earn something to carry their families 
through the winter up in this poor county. Among these yearly travelers 
was a young man, good-looking and ambitious, who has since made a repu- 
tation and built up for himself a character which commands the respect and 
admiration, not only of the people of Allegany but of the entire nation, H. M. 
Teller, United States Senator. 

To say that the early settlers of Allegany county were poor is putting 
the facts mildly. Many were of New England stock, intelligent, industrious 
and possessed of those qualities of character which always overcome opposi- 
tion and win success. No county in the state was regarded so unfavorable 
and uninviting as this one we to-day call our own. Well do I remember 
when my father and mother bade good-bye to their well-to-do friends in 
Livingston county where plenty abounded, and took their four children and 
came up into poor Allegany to build up a home where only $400 was required 
to buy a farm. 

In 1841 the Genesee Valley canal was completed to Mt. Morris, and in 
1851 the Erie railroad was comj)leted from Hornellsville to Dunkirk. With 
these permanent advantages in the way of better markets new hopes dawned 
upon the people, and agricultural development took on new life. The ad- 
vancement made during the next 25 years was marked and permanent 
The farmers paid less attention to lumbering and more to the clearing of the 
land, raising better stock and making their homes more comfortable in every 
way. As the years sped on changes came. Carding mills took the place of 
hand carding and home weaving. Little was had by the rural people that 
the farm did not furnish. They had oxen for work, cows for the dairy, sheep 
for clothing. Threshing grain by flails was abandoned. The old wooden 
plow was laid aside and a better one jiut in its place. The sun-dial and horn 
announcing the time of day or warning the settlers against danger that their 
stock might be protected became a thing of the past. The town clock and 
the whistle of the locomotive spoke surely of better markets and better 
times. So did the mowing machine in the field, the sewing machine in the 
house. The ox team for farm work and church going on Sunday was super- 
seded by well-bred horses and comfortable conveyances. Development of 
intelligence through agricultural progress, the improvement of the farm 



Agriculture. 161 



home, and a higher social position of the farmer's family marked a new era 
in agricultural development. 

Agricultural Resources. — Butter and cheese have been in the past, 
and will, I doubt not, be in the future our farmer's chief sources of revenue. 
In an early day the dairy interest was neglected. Up to 1844 our cheese 
and butter product was small. There were no cheese or butter factories, 
the work was all done on the farm. In 1845 the whole number of milch 
cows in the county was 16,517. The number of pounds of butter manufac- 
tured was 1,268,960; pounds of cheese manufactured same year 806,014. 
Alfred made 204,600; Independence 108,530; Rushford 106,755; CenterviUe 
57,910. All the other towns fell below 50,000 pounds. Four leading farmers 
that year in Rushford, Talcott, McKinney, Slocum and Kendall, sold and 
delivered to Cuylerville (then the head of the Genesee canal) four tons of 
cheese for which they received 4^ and 5 cents per pound. The first pine 
apple cheese made in this state was made in Rushford. The patent was 
issued in 1808 and bears the signature of James Madison. Now after fifty 
years we note the advancement made. In 1892 we had 80 cheese factories, 
and the total amount made was 8,538,800 pounds. The increase in the but- 
ter product was less by far than cheese. Among the extensive dealers in 
cheese we mention only two of the leading firms: Ackerly & Sill of Cuba 
and Wm. C. Burdick & Co. of Alfred. These firms alone do a business of over 
$800,000 a year. No county in the state sustains a better reputation for fine 
butter and cheese than Allegany. We have a home market that ranks with 
the best and in point of value stands third in the United States. 

Dairy Cattle. — Well may the people of our county feel proud of the 
advancement made along the line of breeding fine dairy cattle. And I here 
desire to mention some who by energy and means have contributed to 
this result. Judge Philip Church of Belvidere was the pioneer in good 
breeding, both in cattle and sheep, and the value of his example upon the 
people in an early day in this direction was of great value. His favorite 
breed was the Durhams or Short Horns. Among others we find WiUiam 
Simpson of the New York Stock Farm of New Hudson. L. D, Stowell of 
Black Creek, D. B. Wliipple of Cuba, Amsden Brothers of Cuba, Jerry 
Clark of Andover, William G. Tucker of Elm VaUey, the late Daniel Gardner 
of Angelica, Joel Carr of Almond, Joseph Lockhart of Almond, Richard 
Charles of Angelica, David Norton of Friendship, H. Vanderhoof of Belmont, 
L. C. Drew of Cuba, J. E. Middaugh of Scio, Cobb Brothers of Independ- 
ence and S. S. Carr of Almond. The principal breeds bred by them were 
the Jerseys. Holsteins, Short Horns, Ayrshires and Guernseys, and among 
these herds in this county are as fine dairy cattle as can be found anywhere. 

Horses.— While the advancement along the line of breeding fine horses, 
especially for draft and farm purposes, has not been what we might wish or 
expect, yet among those who have taken an interest in this direction and 
have done what they could toward bettering our condition, I will mention a 
few: Judson Clark of Elmira, formerly of Scio, WiUiam Simpson of Neve 



162 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Hudson, the late Daniel Bennett of Canaseraga, Elliott & Kingsbury of 
Friendship, E. A. Cottrell of Andover and Cobb Brothers of Independence. 

Sheep. — Allegany county has never been so distinctively devoted to 
sheep husbandry as the counties north of us. Yet our farmers have by no 
means been indifferent to this branch of farming. But it is a fact to be re- 
gretted that while we are making progress in every other line of practical 
husbandry, the sheep, one of the noblest of animals, is being sorely neglect- 
ed. Much of our land is rough and better adapted to sheep raising than 
for any other purpose. Yet for various reasons, known or unknown, 
some legitimate and some foolish and unbusiness like, our resources in this 
direction have been largely cut off, and this valuable industry well nigh 
ruined. 

Hay. — One source of revenue to our farmers has been the selling of hay. 
Whether this practice will be so much continued in the future as in the past 
we are not able to say. It certainly will not be during 1895. Selling hay 
as a general thing is disastrous to good farming, and for our agricultural 
advancement it would be well if the practice was discontinued. 

Maple Sugar. — In mentioning our resources we must not forget the 
sweetest of them all, maple sugar. Not only in an early day did the pioneers 
derive much help from this source, but even now we would be reluctant to 
part with this branch of farming, especially when we produce 600,000 pounds 
in a single year as has been the case in the past. 

Potatoes. — While our county has not until recently been regarded 
favorably as regards potato culture, yet it is fast coming to the front in 
that line of farming. This is due largely to the fact that potatoes have been 
the best paying crop raised on the farm for twenty years, and the only crop 
that has steadily increased in quality and price. In 1894 and 1895 there 
was sold and shipped out of the county over 500,000 bushels. 

There are other resources that might be mentioned but time will not 
permit, and as we bid good-bye to the first century and begin the active 
duties of the second, the question naturally arises, "What will the future 
be to us as farmers ? " We have many natural advantages. The sweetest 
of grasses, the purest of water and that in abundance, a healthy climate, 
natural gas and oil for fuel and light, and with a people intelligent, industri- 
ous, we ought to strive to make our calling what God intended it should be, 
the noblest and most desired of all vocations, and as we to-day enjoy in many 
ways the fruits of the labor and toil of the noble men and women that have 
been x>rominent all along the past century, so may we strive to do well our 
part, ever remembering that true nobihty lies not for what you do for your- 
self but what you do for others. 



Our Public Schools. 163 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

DEVELOPMENT AND PROGRESS OF OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS.* 

BY SAMUEL A. EAHLEY, ESQ. 

I ASSUME the duties assigned to me, l^nowing well that others are better 
prepared to do justice to the subject than myself. Still I will submit a 
few facts as I have learned them from others or recall them to mind. 
Almond furnished the first school, taught by Joseph A. Rathbun, 1802;f 
Angelica the second, 1804; Amity, 1810; Wellsville, 1811; Scio, 1819. I think 
schools were established in all the towns as early as 1825. The first news- 
paper was published at Angelica in 1820. These schools were supported by 
private subscriptions. The people of each neighborhood would look about 
for some young lady among them to take charge of a few scholars and teach 
them to read, write, spell and perhaps cipher as far as division. For the 
winter a man was secured who could assist the young men in mathematics 
as far as the Rule of Three or Interest. The following are some of the sub- 
scriptions: " I give one bushel of Indian corn and one cord of wood to Robert 
Reed for teaching my two boys three months. " Another: " I give one bushel 
of wheat, one quarter of beef and three bushels of buckwheat for my four 
childrens' schooling this winter (1824). Districts were soon formed. The 
state became interested in the schools, giving some little aid, as you will see 
by these receipts for public money. 1831, "Received of Samuel Van 
Campen. Commissioner of Schools, $12.36, District No. 2, Scio, Middaugh 
Hill, Philip McCutchen, trustee. " Another: " 1830, Joseph Davis, trustee, 
$7.30." Report of school district No. 4, Amity, 1831: Whole number of 
families in district 9; Number in the school 6; Refused by teacher one. 
Benjamin Luther, district clerk. 

Prom this time three inspectors were elected in each town to look after 
the schools and examine teachers. Trustees hired the teachers paying them 
the public money and the balance by rate bill. My friend. Ex-commissioner 
Renwick, well remembers the logs drawn to the schoolhouse for the boys to 
prepare for the fire during recess. Every boy was required to assist. I 
have heard this quoted: " ' He that will thrive must either hold or drive. ' If 
you cannot chop, you must either sj)lit or pile the wood." Christmas was a 
great day. The boys would arrive at the schoolhouse in advance of the 
teacher, and upon his arrival would be demanded a "forfeit" or "treat." 
I well remember the first term I attended school. The boys captured the 
schoolhouse before daylight on Christmas morning, barricaded the door and 

*A paper read at the fiftieth annual meeting of the Teachers' Association of the Southern District of 
Allegany Co., held at Friendship in Feb., 1893, when Mr. Earley was teaching his yad term of school, is the 
basis of this chapter. 

+ Mr. Rathbun received the first deed of land for a farm on record in the county. 



164 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

windows. Upon the arrival of the teacher he was ordered to take the water 
pail and bring from the distillery, just across the road, a pail of whiskey, 
which he did with pleasure, distributing it judiciously no doubt. The girls 
returned home, while the boys and teacher held high carnival through the 
day. It was the first real circus I ever attended. All went merry as a 
marriage bell. The next day the teacher's hair pulled and woe to any pupil 
who by chance came within his vision from the wrong side. Some half-dozen 
water-beech whips, from four to eight feet long, were brought in and secreted 
under the floor, but at an opportune moment were brought forth, thrust 
under the forestick in the fireplace, withdrawn, and twisted under the 
teacher's huge foot, thus made ready for use. Some of the larger boys were 
then called to the front, they politely removing their coats. I took a com- 
manding position back of a large splint broom in the corner behind the door. 
Solomon was the first victim. The whip was applied longitudinally, trans- 
versely and horizontally until debris filled the air. As soon as the storm was 
over and the skies brightened so I could see my way clear I sought home, 
" sweet home " (without making my bow or waiting to bid the teacher 
" Good afternoon " as was the custom) where I remained for the remainder 
of the term, satisfied that there was no place like home. The breaking down 
of doors and smoking-out process I will not attempt to describe. 

At this time the school houses were constructed of logs, with a large 
chimney of stone, while the jamb furnished a good seat for an unruly boy. 
The desks were placed around the outside of the room. A dunce block was 
placed in the corner, where refractory pupils wearing the "fools' cap" were 
made the laughing-stock of the school. The first half hour in the morning 
the teacher was employed in making or mending the quill pens for the day. 
Cobb's or Webster's spelling-books were the only books used for reading by 
the smaller scholars, until they were ready to read in the English Reader, 
American Manual, or Hale's History. Murray's, Kirkham's and Brown's 
grammars were in some of the schools at this time, 1830 to 1838. Daboll's 
Arithmetic and Morse's Geography were also in use.* 

In 1840 a new era dawned upon the educational interests of Allegany 
county. Prof. Loomis opened what was called the Angelica Academy with 
success. Alfred University was established in 1838 with Prof. William C. 
Kenyon as its principal. He was a very active, energetic and able instruct- 
or. Teachers with improved methods were soon furnished from this institu- 
tion. The board of supervisors in 1841 elected Wm. C. Kenyon and Abra- 
ham Burgess "deputy superintendents of common schools." From this 
time state, county and town superintendents were chosen. All this time 
the secretary of state had supervision of all schools, receiving about $700 
per annum. Prof. Kenyon was long county superintendent. He was to 
education what John Marshall was to the judiciary of the United States. 
He visited nearly every school in the county, called the inhabitants together 

* In 1836, Lyman Lovell, from Vermont, taught a very superior select school at Centerville Centre, hav- 
ing from 30 to 35 pupils. — j. s. M. 



Our Public Schools. 165 



in the evening, and, in his hicid manner, portrayed the advantages of a 
thorough education. He breathed into them " the breath of life and they 
became living souls." The fire was kindled. A teachers' meeting was 
called at Friendship in December, 1843. A preliminary organization was 
effected which resulted in the permanent organization of the Teachers' As- 
sociation in September, 1844. The prime movers of this association were 
Gurdon Evans, Horace H. Nye, afterwards doctor, Dr. C. R. Earley. Cyrus 
Mver, Jerome Harrison, Betsy Harrison, Mina LeSuer (Marvin), Susan 
Crandall (Larkin), Charles Willard, Cyrus Cotton, W. H. Crandall, John 
Wells and many others. The following is a copy of a certificate of member- 
ship issued to Charles R. Earley at that time: 

" Friendship, N. Y., Sept. 27, 1S44. 
This is to certify that Charles R. Earley is a member of the Teachers' Association of the Southern As- 
sembly disirict, of the county of Allegany, N. Y. H. H. Nye, President. 
G. Evans. Secretary." 

The Albany Normal school was opened in the same year (1844) with an 
instructor second to none, Prof. Page.* This was the year the telegraph 
was first used, and I think the State Association was organized the year 
following (1845). The National Association was organized in Philadelphia by 
Horace Mann, Samuel Randall and others. The institute, which was a 
powerful auxiliary, was then organized, with first-class conductors, such 
as Salem Town, Chas. Sanders and others. Town associations were after- 
wards held twice a month at which all teachers were expected to take part. 
You can easily see that with institutes of two weeks with two associations 
in each year, together with the town associations, many opportunities were 
furnished for improvement. Davies' Arithmetic, Charles Sanders' graded 
series of readers, Colburn's Intellectual Arithmetic. Town's Analysis, Olney's 
Geography and Prof. Kenyon's Grammar (which contained an excellent 
system of analysis) were adopted as text books, all of which combined to 
give our schools an impetus heretofore unknown. Compensation of teachers 
advanced from ^12 to $18 per month for gentlemen and from $1 to $3 per 
week for ladies, and board with the scholars. New schoolhouses were built, 
the dunce block was exchanged for blackboards, and the fools' cap gave 
place to chalk and maps. Alfred University has, from its inception, ren- 
dered great aid to our public schools by furnishing them with able teachers. 
" The first class was graduated there in 1844, and numbered 20 members — 
11 gentlemen and 9 ladies, among them, Jonathan Allen, Sayles, Pickett 
and Evans, among the ladies were the future wives of President Kenyon, 
President Allen, and Professor Sayles. Subsequent classes have varied in 
size from four or five, to twenty-five or thirty. The largest being in 1887, 
when, counting graduates in music, art, the business department and theol- 
ogy, as well as regular college graduates, the class numbered 51 members. 

* About 1843 or 4 J. W. Earle, a graduate of the Vermont University, opened a school at Centerville, 
which was the best in all that part of the county up to that time. Mr. Earle was a very competent teacher, 
and his patronage was extensive, pupils coming from Pike, Portage, Nunda, Hume, Rushford and Cattaraugus 
county. — J. s. M. 



166 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



The whole number of graduates is about 630, making an average of over 
twelve a year since the first class was graduated in 1844. Besides those 
who have graduated, the institution has given instruction in partial courses, 
without graduation, to nearly 20,000 young men and women. Many of these 
students were from families which had not the means to send their children 
away to school and they must have remained without such opportunities had 
not Alfred given them encouragement in their poverty, and given many of 
them some opportunity to help themselves." Teachers came from Alfred 
with new inspirations, new ideas. Among them were Prof. Picketts, Prof. 
Larkin, Prof. Bean, D. A. Ford, Dr. MilfordCrandall, the late Hiram Dimick, 
Miss Mehssa Applebee (Mrs. S. A. Earley), Prof. James Marvin, Ex-Com- 
missioner W. D. Renwick, E. W. Johnson, afterwards town superintendent, 
and Dennis Chapin from Albany Normal School equipped with the very 
best methods. I was a pupil of his on his return in 1845. I never saw his 
superior to simplify mathematics. There were other noted teachers too 
numerous to mention but none the less worthy.* 

The office of county superintendent was filled by Prof. W. C. Kenyon, 
John J. Rockafellow, Hiram Wilson (an uncle of Mrs. Geo. W. Fries of Friend- 
ship)and Hugh M. Severance, who knew moreabout estimating contract labor 
on the Genesee Valley canal than of supervision of schools. The office of 
county superintendent was abolished early in 1856, and that of town superin- 
tendent was soon afterwards done away with and the present system 
adopted. 

I will relate a little incident that occurred in a school not far away. A 
town superintendent, a dignified old gentleman, was visiting the school. A 
young lady was analyzing a sentence from Kenyon's grammar, calling a 
phrase "a prepositive, substantive modifier." The old gentleman ex- 
claimed: "What! a preposterous, substantial mortifierV What is that'::'" 
As soon as the teacher could recover her equilibrium she exjilained that it 
was a prepositional phrase modifying a noun which was entirely satis- 
factory. 

Friendship, Richburg, Belfast and Rushford built academies. At 
Friendship, Prof. J. Hatch and Prof. Prosper Miller v,^ere principals, both 
able instructors. Richburg, with Prof. Bixby and Prof. Badger had also 
excellent teachers. The day of teaching the letters abstractly had passed. 
Later, about 1866, the word and the sentence method was introduced. I 
think it was under the management and during the first term of Ex-Com- 
missioner W. D. Renwick, who had no superior as commissioner in this or 
adjoining counties. Examination of teachers in civil government was intro- 
duced during his second term, 1874. About this time there was another 
advance in teachers' wages, which brought other good workers to our aid, 
such as Prof. Lewis and his accomplished wife, also Prof. Freeborn, and 

* Abial L. Cook, a graduate of the Albany Normal School, taught the Hume Union School in 1848 and 
9. He was followed by C. F. Wallace. Both were superior teachers, and gave the school an impetus, which 
has been plain'y discernible ever since. — j. s. M. 



Our Public Schools. 167 



Prof. Blakeslee who took his place among the older teachers which he filled 
long- and well. Prof. Burdick and wife came among us later. The first 
graded school in the state was at Mt. Morris in 1835. Prof. Lewis was the 
first to grade a school in this county. He and his wife were highly esteemed 
by the profession. President Allen of Alfred University never lost an 
oi)portunity to lend a helping hand to a struggling pupil and send him on his 
way rejoicing. No pupil was turned away from that institution because he 
was out of money. Institute conductors, Johnnot, Buckham, DeGraff and 
Dr. Armstrong of Predonia, gave the teachers of Allegany county the 
credit of being in advance of any other rural county or state. The old log 
schoolhouses have been replaced with magnificent structures furnished with 
all the modern equipage. The school year has been materially lengthened. 
The telegraph has been extended from one short line from Baltimore to 
Washington. 30 miles, in 1844, to 100,000 miles in 1892, affording instantaneous 
communication with the whole civilized world. We have a telephone in 
every business place. Electricity is furnishing motor power for machinery 
as weU as propeUing our street cars and lighting our cities and towns. Rail- 
roads have increased in the United States from about 1,000 miles to 216,149 
miles in the last 48 years. Rapid strides are being made by the manufactur- 
ing interests of the country, one man of to-day doing the work of 100 men of 
forty years ago. 

The first apportionments of school moneys to the county from the state 
were: 1813, $58.86; 1815, $100.33; 1816, $190.98. The county clerk's office 
has been searched without avail for any evidence of its receipt or distribu- 
tion, and only when the treasurer's records were examined was a voucher 
found under this head: "March 1st, 1816, Moses Van Campen, treasurer 
of the county of Allegany, in account current with Allegany county, N. Y., 
under the common school account. Dr. to New York draft on state treas- 
urer of this date for quota of school fund for 1816 appropriated by the clerk 
of the board as follows: Alfred, $26.52; Angelica, |32.14; Caneadea, 0000; 
Rushford, $53.52; Friendship, 0000; Nunda, $63.16; Ossian, $15.64; total 
$190.98." I have exhausted in vain all means to obtain the first appropria- 
tion, besides conferring with state treasurer, secretary of state, comptroller 
and superintendent of public instruction. From these I have received 
answers as follows: 

State of New York, ) 

Superintendent of Public Instruction, • 

Superintendent's office. ) 

Albany, N. Y., May lo, 1895. 
S. A. Earley, Esq., 

Wellsville, Allegany Co.. N. Y. 
Dear Sir: — Replying to your letter of the loth inst., the following information requested 
is respectfully submitted. The date and the amount of the first apportionment of school money 
to Allegany county since the establishment of this department in 1854, was in January, 1855, 
when there was apportioned for teachers' wages $17,108.28 and for libraries $679.84, making 
a total of $17,788.12. based upon reports made for the preceding school year which ended July 



168 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

I, 1854. The whole number of log schoolhouses in the state as reported to ihis depaninent for 
1894, was 31. The whole number of children of school age 1,932,325. The whole number 
attendmg school 1,124,998. The average daily attendance 721,063, and the whole number of 
teachers employed 32.929. The estimated per cent of increase cannot be given as no reports 
have been made to the department since the Compulsory Act went into effect on the first of 
January last. Respectfully yours, Charles R. Skinner, State Superindendent. 

The State Treasurer's office under date of May 23, 1895, writes, "The 
apportionment of school moneys of the date that you seek is, as I think, a 
record of the comptroller's department only. Would suggest that you 
write to that office for information." The Secretary of State's office under 
same date, writes: " In answer to your communication of the ^Ist instant, 
I regret to inform you that I am unable to comply with your request, as the 
Secretary of State has not the information asked for at his disposal. The 
Superintendents of Public Instruction or Regents of Universities should 
have the record desired. " 

Only five of the seven towns receiving the 1816 school money are now in 
Allegany county. The whole money charged to the treasurer was $1,070.59 
for all purposes. The total amount collected and paid by the state in 1815 
for all school purposes was $104,099. The first act establishing free schools 
was passed in 1812. The first superintendent of common schools was Gideon 
Hawley of Saratoga appointed in 1813, who rendered great service to the 
state and declared the first distribution of public money in 1813. After a 
time the office of state superintendent was abolished and the secretary of 
state performed the duties. In 1829 a law was passed authorizing rate bills. 
January 15, 1833, John A. Dix was appointed secretary of state and had 
charge of the public schools. He continued in office until 1839. During this 
time a certain sum "was set aside from the literary fund for the several 
academies of the state to establish and conduct teachers' classes, that com- 
petent teachers might be furnished to the several districts of the state." 
This law induced many localities to build academies and conduct teachers' 
classes. In 1836 the deposit of the surplus fund of the United States, with 
a sum equal to this income which was to be raised by tax, was appropriated 
to academies. This made a total of $200,000, making these institutions far 
more efficient for educating school teachers. In 1841 the Legislature passed 
an act providing for the appointment of a county superintendent of common 
schools. This occurred under Spencer's administration as superintendent 
of public instruction. S. S. RandaU, deputy superintendent (afterwards 
superintendent), carried this law into effect. In 1843 the office of town 
superintendent was created. 

May 7, 1844, the act was passed creating the first normal school in the 
state, located at Albany. $9,600 was appropriated. A building was rented, 
and David P. Page of Newburyport, Mass., was secured as principal, who 
conducted the school with superior ability and skiU until January 1, 1848. 
He died, leaving as his monument not only 421 superior teachers engaged in 
the district schools of the state, but also his admirable course of lectures on 



Our Public Schools. 169 



the Theory and Practice of Teaching dehvered before the school. Every 
teacher should possess this book. 

In 1847 the office of county superintendent elected by the people was 
created. In 1847 also a law passed authorizing the organization of teachers' 
institutes on application of a majority of town superintendents of any county 
in the state. A town institute was held at Ithaca, April 4, 1843. Salem 
Town and James Thompson conducted it, and they were considered the 
prime movers of the State Institute in 1847. In 1894 110 institutes were 
held in the state, at which 15.430 teachers were instructed. Thus the 
institutes have grown from one town institute at Ithaca in 1843 to 110 in 
1894. 

RusHFORD Academy. — In 1851 was raised $2,500 to build the academy 
at Rushford, incorporated March 4, 1852.* The officers in charge were: 
Board of Trustees: B. T. Hapgood, John Holmes, Israel Thompson, Titus 
Bartlett, Wm. Merryfield. Robt. Norton, Jas. Gordon, 2d, Isaac Stone, 
Washington White, Sampson Hardy. Chas. Benjamin, J. G. Osborne, Oliver 
D. Benjamin, Wm. Gordon. Alonzo H. Damon. President, B. T. Hapgood; 
Secretary and Treasurer, Robt. Norton; Correspoyiding Secretary, Dr. Wm. 
McCall; Librarian, Ira Sayles. Board of Instruction: Principal, Ira Sayles, 
A. M.; Male assistant, W. W. Bean; Female assistant. Miss E. Frances Post; 
Assistant teacher in French, Mrs. S. C. Sayles. This institution did effec- 
tive work and contributed very much to the high standard of morals of that 
town, and greatly advanced public education in northwestern Allegany. A 
union school with 5 teachers takes its place at present. It was changed 
from an academy to union school in 1867. 

RiCHBURG Academy. — Erected in 1848 at an expense of $3,000. The 
members of lirst board of trustees were: Alvan Richardson, Samuel S. 
Carter, Samuel Sherman, Pliny Evans, Hollis Newton, Alvan Richardson, 
Jr. Prof. Bixby and wife, first instructors, were followed by Prof. Badgley 
and Henry L. Jones, and the academy is now succeeded by the Richburg 
union school with 3 teachers, jDrincipal F. L. Peckham. 

Friendship Academy. — Friendship academy opened about 1848 with 
Jeremiah Hatch as principal, and W. D. Renwick assistant, followed by 
Prof. Miller. The work done by this academy was of a high order and con- 
tributed much to the growth of the town. A union school conducted by 
Prof. T. H. Armstrong, principal, with 8 assistants supplies its place, and it 
is second to none in the county for efficient work. 

Wellsville. — The Wellsville union school building in Dist. No. 1 is a 
magnificent structure, costing about $30,000, and with all the equipage of 
modern times. Twelve teachers are employed. Prof. Craig being principal. 
He is assisted by a corps of teachers second to none in the county. All 
have combined to elevate this school to its high standard of usefulness. 
Prof. C. M. Harding conducted this school for a number of years, and to his 
genial nature, deportment, energy and personal magnetism is largely due 

* The building: was built in 1851 at an expense in all of nearly $5,000. — j. s. M. 



170 History of Allegany County, N Y. 

its success. Prof. J. M. Reed, of Wells ville union school No. 2, and his 
assistants are doing creditable work and building up the school. 

Some of the teachers of note have been: W. D. Renwick, of Friendship, 
commenced teaching in 1846 for $13 per month at Haskell Flats and boarded 
with the scholars. He taught at Portville, Cattaraugus county, and at 
Friendshij) for $30 per month as assistant principal of Friendship academy 
in 1851, and there received a state certificate. He taught at Belmont from 
1859 to 1861; conducted a school at Scio in the new house two years with 
success and satisfaction to all. Elected school commissioner in 1863 he 
served to 1866, and was re-elected in 1872. This position he filled with honor 
to himself and profit to the people. In aU his work he was energetic, 
thorough, original and practical. He has taught 72 terms in all, including 
several terms of select schools. Mrs. Abigail A. (Maxson) Allen was the 
first woman in this county that demanded and received adequate pay for 
teaching. In 1814 she demanded |20 per month and received it. Jonathan 
AUen, afterwards her husband, received at the same time $15 per month. 
Washington Steenrod, Steven Wilson, Hiram Wilson, Davis Browning, Shel- 
don Stanton, Edward Wightman. Cyrus Cotton. Sr.. Francis Norton, the 
late Judge Green, Miss Lucy Willard, Sally Simons, Elmira Allen, Robert 
Reed, Randall Reed (afterwards doctor) were of our best teachers. Among 
later teachers mention should be made of Prof. Mills, one of our best teach- 
ers. He is now teaching in the Geneseo Normal school, with credit to the 
institution. Prof. Water bury served long and well in the county and in the 
same normal school. Prof. Crissey of Belmont union school did excellent 
work in that school. Its present high standing is in a great measure due 
to his personal efforts. Prof. Armstrong of Friendship is doing superior 
work. The institution is worthy of the patronage it receives. Prof. A. J. 
Glennie of Bolivar is doing well and is esteemed by all connected with the 
school. The veteran teacher Prof. A. D. Howe has conducted the Whites- 
viUe union school with great abihty for a number of years. 

There are now in existence 13 union schools in this county with 77 teach- 
ers as follows: Alfred 4, Andover 6, Wellsville No. 1, 12, Wellsville No 2, 3, 
Belfast 5, Whitesville 3, Belmont 7, Friendship 9. Cuba 8, Bolivar 7, Rich- 
burg 3, Canaseraga 5, Rushford 5. The number of teachers employed in 
teaching at the same time in 1894 was 330. The result of the teachers' ex- 
amination for the year ending March, 1895, in 2 districts of Allegany county 
is as follows: June, 60 examined, 20 passed; August, 85 examined, 29 
passed; September, 38 examined, 18 passed; October. 83 examined, 32 
passed; January, 105 examined, 14 3d grade, 13 2d grade; March. 74 ex- 
amined, 21 3d grade, 13 2d grade, 1 1st grade; April, 45 examined, 12 1st 
grade, 4 3d grade, 2 2d grade. Eight first-grade certificates have been 
granted since 1890, 356 second grade, and 403 third grade. 

The state " compulsory attendance " act took effect January 1, 1895. In 
May I endeavored to ascertain its effect, and wrote to the principals of the 
various union schools for the approximate increase in attendance. I received 



Our Public Schools. 171 



ten answers from whicli I quote. Prof. Craig of Wellsville No. 1, said, "no 
change." Prof. B. B. Brown of Andover said "about three per cent." 
Prof. A. Hebding of Alfred says ' • no noticeable increase with the exception 
of two boys who liked to play truant." Prof. A. D. Howe of Whitesville says 
"attendance since January 1st has increased about two per cent. I do not 
knov/ as the law caused it." Prof. J. Crissey of Belmont wrote, "the com- 
pulsory education law has probably increased the attendance here ten per 
cent." Prof. P. L. Peckham, Richburg. writes, "my school has increased 
in numbers but a very little, because the law has not been enforced as it 
should have been." Prof. T. H. Armstrong, Friendship, says "probably 
from one to two per cent." Prof. H. A. Adams of Canaseraga writes "no 
perceiDtible increase. " Prof. P. W. Gray. Belfast, says "increase onlj^ one 
and three-fifths par cent." Prof. J. M. Reed, Brooklyn Union School (No. 
2), Wellsville, " In a total registration of 152 there is an increase of ten. A 
marked result of the law has been increased regularity of attendance of for- 
mer irregular scholars. Another result has been the strengthening of the 
teacher's authority in making the pupils to resjiect the office of teachers." 
The school money appropriated in 1895 to the county, was: 

Commissioner District No. i $ 18,440.58 

Commissioner District No. 2 ; 22,053.89 — $ 40,494.47 

District No. i, collected by tax 21,372.79 

District No. 2, collected by tax 43, 707. 77 — 65,080. 56 

Total for common schools $105,575.03 

Literary Fund 15,983.99 

Total for all purposes $121,559.02 

The number of teachers teaching at the same time was 333. Number 
of children of school age 11,997. Number of children in the school some 
time during the year 9,649. Not in school at all 2,348. Average attendance 
6.097, less than 51 per cent. 

There are two parochial schools in the county, both in Wellsville. The 
Roman Catholic school with three teachers under the supervision of Sister 
Borgia, has 180 scholars. The German American Lutheran school has 103 
enrolled pupils, from six to fourteen years of age. The English branches 
taught are reading, si)elling, penmanship, arithmetic, geography. United 
States history. Prof. H. A. Laewen is principal. Miss Ottilie Sievers and 
Rev. George Buch assistants. 

The cost of the eleven State Normal Schools for 1894 was >t^352, 190.33. 
The contrast of distribution is great between 1816 and 1895. In 1816 only 
1112.18 came to what is now Allegany, if78.80 going to Nunda and Ossian. 
The county collected an equal sum, which made a total of JS224.36. In 1895 
the total is $105,575.03, and, including the literary fund, §121,559.02. The 
32.000 teachers now engaged in teaching in the state are paid §11.000.880. 
The training classes number 100, and cost §217.740. This county has teach- 
ers' training classes at Alfred University, at the Genesee Valley Seminary 
and Union School, at Wilsons Academy Angelica, at Belmont Union School, 
at Friendship Union School, and at Wellsville, costing the state §1,829. 



172 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Upon the whole we now have as good a class of teachers as any county 
in the state; the union schools are well supplied with normal teachers, yet 
we have some imi:)erfections, and, even at the expense of criticism, I will 
say that we have too much crowding for regent's examination and too little 
concentration; too much Greek before the foundation is substantially laid 
for a good English American business education. Develop the whole man 
symmetrically, and the whole structure will be as enduring as the rock of 
ages. Embellish and beautify the fabric as much as you please, but do not 
neglect the foundation. This beautiful structure of ours, our system of 
education, must be adjusted by skilled workmen, or the whole fabric may 
be impaired. Like a beautiful bouquet of flowers, the imperfections must be 
removed by a competent and delicate hand, or the beauty of the whole will 
be destroyed. While our public schools formerly instructed about 68 per 
cent, of the children of school age, the average attendance of the state now 
is only about 58 per cent, of its 2,000,000 children. If the decrease contin- 
ues it will not be long until more than one-half of the children of school age 
will be educated in private schools or in the streets. We may excuse it as 
we will, yet the stubborn fact exists and calls for remedy; our compulsory 
educational law alone will not do away with it. Notwithstanding the normal 
schools of this state have increased in number from 1 to 11, and our colleges 
to 15 or 16, and with all our academies and a graded school in every hamlet, 
yet about 42 per cent, of the children of school age are now out of school. 
I think we have in the United States 197 normal schools, with about 45,000 
pupils, and only about 6,000 who are taking a business course and 4,000 a 
special course. We must make one grand effort to win back the pupils of 
the private schools and gather in the non-attendants from the highways and 
byways. If we are good teachers to-day, let us be better to-morrow. We 
live in an age of unparalleled development. Industrial schools are to be 
established aU over this land with competent instructors who will receive 
large salaries. Will you be of their number? There is no such thing as a 
state of rest in this work. You are advancing or retrograding. 

In conclusion I will say, let us continue to labor, earnestly incessantly 
and honestly. "Whatsoever our hands find to do, do it with our might." 
"Rest not, haste not,'' advance all along the line, allow no subject to lose its 
place for another, but keep each in its proper j)lace until every American 
son and daughter shall have a good American Business Education. Run 
the whole race and run so that we may win. You must not allow yourselves 
to stumble over some Greek roots and fall by the way. When it shall be 
ours to join the silent majority, may those who are left behind cry out with 
one voice: "'Well done, good and faithful servant.' You have done your 
duty according to the abihty given, the world is the better for you having 
lived in it," and as we cross the Mystic River, we shaU see upon the other 
side those who have gone before beckoning us on. Yes, they will be the 
first to take us by the hand and welcome us. 



Alfred University. 173 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

ALFRED UNIVERSITY. 

BY REV. LEWIS A. PLATTS, L). D. 

U OOME ARE BORN GREAT, SOME ATTAIN GREATNESS, AND SOME HAVE 

vj GREATNESS THRUST UPON THEM." The first two members of this 
aphorism strikingly describe the manner by which the great institiitions of 
learning in this country have become what they are. A few among the 
newer ones, like Cornell in New York, Leland Stanford in California, and 
the Chicago University, are constituted great; the vast gifts of money by 
which they are founded giving them buildings, appliances and faculties 
which enable them to organize departments and open classes at full size and 
strength, at the very beginning. They are born great. Others, like Yale, 
Harvard, Columbia, etc., were content to begin in a humbler way, and multi- 
ply facilities and strengthen faculties as the demands of patrons made these 
things necessary and funds in the hands of trustees made them possible. 
They have attained greatness. But the majority of men, even of those filling 
important places and doing honorable work in the world, are in no sense 
great. In like manner the hosts of institutions which bless our state and 
nation are in no sense great, save as, in spite of the poverty of their 
resources, they have trained, inspired and fitted for honorable and useful 
work multitudes of men and women. 

It is cause for congratulation that, comparatively early in the century 
which has marked the settlement and growth of Allegany county, one of 
these humbler institutions of higher learning found its home in the primeval 
forests that covered our hiUs and valleys. Alfred University was the off- 
spring of that sturdy valor which made homes out of wild wastes, and which, 
while felling forests and building homes, longed for that mastery of mind 
and heart which makes men and women. Many of the people who settled in 
and about Alfred came directly, and others by only one or two removes, from 
homes of culture in New England, and they were not content to rear their 
children with no better opportunities for an education than were afforded 
by the meager common schools of that early day. One of the first efforts in 
the direction of a better training was the organizing in 1834 or 5 of an even- 
ing school for the purpose of teaching the rudiments of vocal music. The 
organizer and teacher of this school was Maxson Stillman. who still lives in 
Alfred, having reached his 9Gth year. A little later, when the academy was 
organized, and, later still, when the university organi2;ation was effected, Mr. 
Stillman was made a trustee, in which capacity he served until the annual 
meeting in 1893. 

In 1836, Bethuel C. Church, a young man who had enjoyed better educa- 
tional advantages than most young men of his time, organized and taught, in 



174 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

the chamber of a dweUing-house, a select school. Among the pupils in this 
school, and the youngest of the number, was Jonathan Allen, a man since 
become famous in the annals of Alfred University. During the next two or 
three years, this school began to be called an academy; of which James R. 
Irish, a student from Union College at Schenectady, N. Y., was principal. 
Mr. Irish was also a minister of the gospel, and the pastor of the church in 
the village. Finding the work of both school and church too great for him, 
and preferring to continue in the latter, he wrote to a fellow student at Union 
College, and besought him to come to Alfred ^nd take charge of the young 
and promising academy. In the summer of 1839 he came, making the 
journey to Dansville by canal packet, and the remainder of the distance on 
foot, much of the way through unbroken forests. Thus was introduced to 
the scenes of his future life work. Prof. William C. Kenyon. He was a man 
of slight, nervous body, bright, keen intellect, and an indomitable will. For 
the student of honest endeavor, however dull, he had large patience and 
helpfulness. But he hated shams and pretences; and woe betide the student 
who tried to shirk his duties. 

Prof. Kenyon began at once to call in students. He gave lectures about 
the county on the subject of education, showing its importance in the various 
walks of life, awakening in the minds and hearts of young people a desire 
for learning and urging parents to give their children an education as the 
best outfit for life's w^ork. Wherever he went there was an educational 
revival. With his profound convictions, ardent nature and unbounded 
"genius for hard work,'' it could not have been otherwise. He visited 
families for similar purposes and with similar results. Students came to 
the academy, came fired with noble ambitions, came from homes meagerly 
furnished with even the comforts of life. In some cases the boys and girls 
were sorely needed at home to help develop the farm and sujjport the family. 
In many cases all that the parents could do was to let the children go. If 
they gave them their time, and perhaps a change of clothing, the boys and 
girls must do the rest. A young man in New England wrote to Professor 
Kenyon, asking if there were any way at Alfred by which a boy not afraid of 
hard work, fired with an ambition for an education, but almost penniless, 
could take a course of study. Professor Kenyon replied by return mail: 
"Come on, young man. There is room here for lots of just such boys as 
you. " He came and worked his way through the entire course. That young 
man was Darwin E. Maxson. subsequently well known as a working factor 
in Alfred, and throughout the county. That quick, warm sympathy of 
Professor Kenyon with poor, but ambitious young people, has been a char- 
acteristic feature of this institution. Hundreds of young people have, 
through this, been helped in gaining an education, and through it have 
gained power for usefulness in the world, who would never have arisen above 
the common level but for such timely sympathy and aid. 

Though thus begun in 1836, the formal act of incorporation and organi- 
zation as an academy did not take place until Jan. 31, 1843. In June, 1844. 




-^MEMORIAL HALL.-<* 



^LETKE® HNIATEKSITr. 

Dedicated October, 1882. Cost $28,000. 

Containing University Library Reading Room, Lecture Room, Art Room, 

Departments of Natural History and Industrial Mechanics. 



176 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

the academy graduated its first class, consisting of 20 — eleven gentlemen 
and nine ladies. At the head of this list we again find the name of Jonathan 
Allen. In the same list, also, are the names of three other men who have 
since been professors in the school: Ira Sayles, Daniel D. Pickett, and 
Gurdon Evans. Among the ladies are those who are best known as the 
wives of Professors Kenyon, Allen and Sayles. 

During the second year of the select school it moved out of the chamber- 
room into a small frame building erected by the people of Alfred in the cen- 
tral part of the village for its better accommodation. Between 1840 and 
1850 the grounds were procured on the western slope of the hill in the south- 
eastern part of the village, which now constitute the upper part of the Uni- 
versity campus, and three commodious buildings were erected. These were 
the Middle Building, which furnished homes for the families of several of 
the professors, and contained the general boarding hall, in the later years 
the home of President Allen. The second was the North Hall, used 
chiefiy as a dormitory for the gentlemen; since sold to the trustees of the 
village public- school, and, after some years of service in that capacity, sold 
to a private party and fitted up for a hotel. Near the original site of this 
building now stands the Steinheim. The third of these buildings was the 
South Hall, used mainly as a dormitory for ladies. This building was 
burned in 1858, and upon its site has since been erected the astronomical 
observatory now in use. A fourth building, the Chapel, was erected near 
these in 1852. This still stands, containing Chapel Hall, the office, reci- 
tation rooms, and the young men's lyceum rooms. 

To acquire these grounds, erect and equip these buildings, while pro- 
viding instruction for all the various departments of such a school, pay 
teachers' salaries, current expenses, etc., with no wealthy patrons, no 
endowments, and tuitions adjusted to the possibilities of students largely 
dependent upon their own resources for their education, was a task which 
would have appalled hearts less brave and determined than those who had 
given themselves to this noble work. $10,000 had been borrowed to pur- 
chase the grounds and to begin the work of building, and the citizens of 
Alfred and vicinity and other friends of the work had done what they could, 
some in " day's works," some in material, and some in money to aid in the 
erection of 'the buildings. It was, however, still a work of self-sacrifice on 
the part of those engaged in the management and instructional work of the 
school to keep the machinery running and avoid further debt. 

It was during this rapidly growing period that the seven professors, 
then engaged in the school, entered into a voluntary contract with each other 
that they would remain with the institution for a period of seven years, and 
that no one of them should receive from the institution as compensation for 
his labor anything more than barely enough to meet the actual necessities 
of himself and family for food, clothing and shelter. It was further agreed 
that each one should keep a strict account of all that he received, and at the 
end of the seven years, if there should be any " surplus " it should be divided 



Alfred University. 177 



among them in an inverse proportion to the amount which each should have 
already received. One of the seven gave up the contract at the end of the 
fifth year, another at the end of the sixth, the other five completed it. One 
of the seven distinctly remembers that his receipts for some years were less 
than ?t^800, and it is safe to estimate that the average income of the several 
parties to the contract for the entire period was not much, if any, above that 
amount. Whether any of them were made rich by the final distribution of 
the *' surplus " the records fail to show. During this period they gave a 
mighty impetus to the school, and sent out as graduates more than 100 
young men and w^omen well trained for life's work, besides giving help and 
inspiration to a much larger number, who, for various causes, could not 
complete the full course. It will be worth while to pass the names of this 
unique covenant-band down to future generations. They are Principal 
William C. Kenyon. and Professors Jonathan Allen, Darwin E. Maxson, 
Darius R. Ford, Daniel D. Pickett, James Marvin and Ira Sayles. In the 
catalogues of this time, after the name of Professor Kenyon as principal, the 
names of all the others appear as " associate principals; " showing that, not 
only in the matter of compensation, but in the matter of work and respon- 
sibility, they were disposed, as far as possible, to share equally the burdens. 

About the time of the building of the chapel there began to be a strong 
feeling among the friends and patrons of the school, as well as on the part 
of those having the work in charge, that the institution must assume the 
powers and responsibilities of a college if it would fill successfully the place 
in the educational system of the state which the good work already done had 
made for it. Almost simultaneously with the growth of this feeling, the Sev- 
enth-day Baptists, under whose labors and management, largely, the school 
had been established and maintained, were coming to the conviction that 
they must found and maintain, at some convenient and suitable place, a 
seminary for theological instruction and training. After due deliberation, 
Alfred was chosen as the place at which to locate the seminary. Thus it 
was that the applications for a college charter and for a seminary organization 
were presented to the Legislature at Albany by the same jDarties and at the 
same time. 

Under these circumstances, and by advice of the state officials, a uni- 
versity charter was drawn up, by the provisions of which, under the same 
board of management, the academic work could be continued, the work of 
the coUege could be assumed, and the seminary privileges could be enjoyed. 
The bill granting such a charter passed both branches of the Legislature 
and received the signature of Governor King, March 28, 1858, and, on the 
14th of April the University was organized by the appointment of the. re- 
quired board of trustees. William C. Kenyon, principal of the academy, 
was unanimously chosen president, and the faculty of the academy were also 
made professors in the college department with several "adjunct profes- 
sors" and teachers. The old academic organiziation was kept up until its 
property and general business matters could be transferred to the new 



178 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

organization, when it ex|)ired, having finished, its work as a separate organ- 
ization. The Theological Department was organized a little later, and com- 
plete courses in Music, Art, Industrial Mechanics and Business have since 
been established, the last having been discontinued. 

Professor Kenyon continued in the active work of the presidency until 
1865, when failing health comj^elled him to ask for a vacation in the hope of 
regaining strength for the work he so much loved. In the mean time his 
first wife. Melissa Ward, " Mother Kenyon," as the students affectionately 
caUed her, had died, and President Kenyon had married Mrs. Ida P. Sallan 
Long. After passing some months traveling in Missouri and other parts 
of this country they went to England and the Continent; but, failing to find 
relief from his increasing malady, started homeward. Reaching Paris and 
London, he arranged to spend a few weeks with friends in the latter city. 
Here he grew rapidly worse, and, in June, 1867, his work being finished, he 
entered into rest, in the 56th year of his age. His body was brought home 
and buried beside the remains of his first wife in Schenectady. His second 
wife, who survives him, his faithful attendant in all his later labors, and in 
this anxious quest for health, most lovingly carried out his last wishes re- 
specting the disposition of his mortal remains. Mrs. Kenyon returned to 
Alfred where she became Professor of the Modern Languages, in which 
capacity she labored most earnestly and successfully until the close of the 
school year of 1894. 

Professor Jonathan Allen was. in the minds of the trustees, almost the 
only possible candidate for the vacant presidency. His profound and ver- 
satile scholarship, his lofty ideals, his catholic spirit, his sympathy with am- 
bitious and struggling youth, and his long familiarity with the peculiar mis- 
sion and work of the University, together with his self-sacrificing spirit in 
its behalf, combined to qualify him in an eminent degree for the position. 
He was accordingly unanimously called to it. Greatly as he longed for re- 
lease from responsibility and care in order that he might devote himself to 
uninterrupted study, he accepted the greater responsibility and care. For 
twenty-five years he performed the duties of his holy office with such fidelity 
and success as proved that the trustees made no mistake when they threw 
the mantle which fell from the ascending Kenyon upon his broad and manly 
shoulders. During several years before the end came, it was manifest that 
President Allen was failing in health, but he finished the work of the school 
year ending June, 1892. At the opening of the fall term he was not able to 
resume his duties, and September 21st of that year he died, at 70 years of 
age. In accordance with his well-known wish his body was cremated and 
his ashes were placed in an old Greek vase, a choice relic in the Steinheim, 
and so laid away among the classic remains of the long ages agone, among 
which he had found so great delight. 

After prolonged deliberation, the trustees gave a unanimous call to the 
Rev. A. E. Main of Ashaway, R. I., to the vacant presidency. Mr. Main was 
a graduate of Rochester University and Theological Seminary, had been a 



179 Alfred University. 



successful pastor, and was the able secretary and general manager of the 
Seventh-day Baptist Missionary Society- — home and foreign. He accepted 
the call and entered upon his work at the opening of the spring term of 1893. 
Meanwhile the aifairs of the University were most acceptably administered 
by Professor A. B. Kenyon as President «tZ interim. Through a failure on 
the part of the trustees and President Main to mutually understand each 
others' spirit, aims and methods, this choice did not prove so fortunate as 
all had hoped, and after nearly two years, it was deemed best by both parties 
to dissolve the contract. Accordingly. President Main's resignation was 
presented and accepted, and he closed his labors with the school year end- 
ing June 20, 1895. 

At the annual meeting of the trustees. June 18. 1895, the Rev. Boothe 
Colwell Davis was unanimously chosen president. He accepted the position 
and entered upon the duties of the office at the opening of the school year 
beginning September 10, 1895. Thus far his w^ork is most satisfactory, and 
gives promise of continued success and prosperity. Mr. Davis is still a 
young man, having large sympathies with young people, entering, with the 
spirit of youth, into their hopes and plans in a way to encourage and help 
those who need encouragement and help, and to inspire all with noble aims 
and lofty ambitions. He graduated from Alfred University with the class 
of 1890, and after spending three years at Yale University, partly in the 
divinity school and partly in other work, became the pastor of the First 
Alfred Church, in which capacity he continued to serve until chosen presi- 
dent of Alfred University, as before mentioned. 

The limits of this article forbid further details respecting the personal 
history and work of those who have toiled and sacrificed for the establish- 
ment and upbuilding of the school with devotion equal to those who have 
been its chosen leaders, though their ability and efficiency have been less 
conspicuous. The list, including both men and women, is too long to admit 
of even the mention of their names. Not fewer than eighty persons, during 
the fifty-nine years of the institution's history, besides those, who, from 
time to time, have been employed as tutors, have been on the faculty's lists. 
Doctor Thomas R. Williams, who for 21 years devoted himself to the build- 
ing up of the Theological Department, deserves to be ranked by the side of 
the noble presidents who toiled so long and sacrificed so freely for the inter- 
ests of the University. He was seconded in this department by other able 
and devoted men. 

The present faculty numbers eighteen members, of whom six are ladies 
and twelve are gentlemen. Among these, four have been on the staff for 
more than 20 years each, the time of service of the others varying from 
one to ten years. Of the large number who have been professors in the 
University, many are now filling similar positions in other institutions. 
Among these are Professor William A. Rogers, for ten years assistant in 
the Cambridge Observatory, now professor of Physics and Astronomy in 
Colby University, Waterville, Me.; Miss Elvira E. Kenyon, principal of 



180 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Young Ladies' Seminary, Plainfield, N. J.; Professor R. A. Waterbury, of 
the State Normal School at Geneseo; Professor Geo. Scott, professor of 
Latin in Otterbein University, Ohio; Professor Alfred A. Titsworth, pro- 
fessor of Graphics and Mathematics, Rutgers College, New Brunswick, 
N. J., and others who are equally honored in the institutions where they 
now labor. 

The graduates and old students of the University are to be found in 
every state in the Union, and some are in foreign countries. They are to 
be found in all honorable callings. They are members of legislatures, state 
and national, supreme court judges, lawyers, ministers, missionaries to for- 
eign countries, physicians, teachers, merchants, farmers, mechanics, etc. 
The whole number of graduates is over 500, while the number of students 
receiving instruction for less than a full course is not less than 10,000. 

The present facilities for the work of the University, besides the grounds 
and buildings mentioned in this article under the account of the academy, 
are a Ladies' Boarding-hall, with accommodations 'for one hundred students, 
built in 1859; the Kenyon Memorial Hall, erected to the memory of President 
Kenyon and dedicated in 1882; a small frame building popularly known as 
the "Gothic," bought about 1885, used for recitation rooms, and the Stein- 
heim. In the Kenyon Memorial Hall are rooms and equipments for the 
department of Industrial Mechanics and of the Fine Arts — lecture rooms, 
museums and work rooms for the department of Natural History — the 
Library, numbering 10,000 volumes, and a reading room furnished with 
current periodical literature, including the great dailies, weeklies, and 
monthly and quarterly magazines of literature, science and religion. 

The Steinheim is an unique building of native rocks and woods. Of the 
rocks there are in the walls of the building between seven and eight thou- 
sand different specimens, gathered chiefly from the hills and brooks in the 
immediate vicinity; of the woods there are in the finish of the interior sev- 
eral hundred varieties, both foreign and native. The coUections within 
number about 30,000 specimens, gathered from all over the world and rang- 
ing through almost every subject of interest to the student of nature and 
history. 

The endowments of which Alfred University is now the beneficiary 
amount to about $180,000. These funds are held and managed in part only 
by the trustees, more than two-thirds of the sum being in the hands of cer- 
tain organizations of the nature of trust companies, the income only being 
paid by them to the University. Recent donations will bring the aggregate 
up to about $265,000; of these later gifts the school does not yet receive the 
income. Among those who have generously come to the assistance of the 
University in this substantial way are its Alumni, who, through an associa- 
tion organized in 1886, have undertaken to endow the chair of the president. 
This endowment has been named, in honor of the first and second presidents, 
the Kenyon-Allen Endowment Fund. To afford all old students an oppor- 
tunity to share in this labor of love, subscriptions have been received from 




#K 







THE STEINHEIM, ALFRED UNIVERSITY. 



Alfred University. 181 



one dollar upwards, the entire sum being now about $7,000. The value of 
the grounds, buildings, apparatus, laboratories, museums, libraries and 
other property, together with the total endowment, may be safely estimated 
at $400,000. Wliile these figures are small when compared with those of the 
great universities, they give assurance of permanence and increase of 
l^ower. 

It, perhaps, does not need to be said that the chief factor in the working 
force of Alfred University is the class-room, with all that it implies of effi- 
ciency and zeal on the part of those who shape its work, aided by all the facili- 
ties which the institution possesses. This work carries the student, in 
steady day-by-day and year-by-year drill, through full courses in Literature 
ancient and modern — English and foreign. Mathematics, the Sciences, Phi- 
losophy, the Arts, etc. From its earliest work onward the institution has 
exercised scrupulous care for the bodily health as well as for the intellect- 
ual training of its students, while in the routine of daily study and recita- 
tion the students have been acquiring knowledge and with it discipline of 
mind. The four Lyceums, which were early formed among the students, have 
afforded excellent training in the art of imparting to others what has been 
acquired by their weeldy sessions for extemj)oraneous debates, the reading 
of original essays and other literary exercises. 

Any sketch of Alfred University would be incomplete without at least a 
brief mention of the influences and forces which help to shape the life and 
character of students outside of classroom and kindred work. "While it has 
always been the aim of the institution to keep its courses of study up to the 
normal standards of such courses in all first class institutions, and, while it 
has always striven to make its instruction of the highest value to the stu- 
dent, it has also sought to give them high ideals of life and to inspire them 
with the laudable ambition to reach the highest degree of personal excellence. 
To this end, religious instruction, which, while it respects the rights of in- 
dividual opinions and conscience, gives dignity, worth and power to per- 
sonal character, has been imparted in daily chapel exercises, in religious 
services for and by the students, and by the general religious atmosphere 
of the community. The voluntary Christian associations among the students 
have contributed largely to the creation of such a religious atmosphere in 
the school, and has put the students in touch with the religious life of stu- 
dents in other schools throughout the state. 

Alfred University has filled an unique i^lace in the educational work of 
the state. She numbers among her sons and daughters not only the hun- 
dreds who have won her diplomas, but also the thousands who have entered 
her halls and taken so much of the instruction she had to impart, of the 
inspiration she could give during such lengths of time as the necessities of 
other labor or the pinchings of poverty would permit them to stay. Her 
blessings have followed them to the ends of the earth. Such an institution 
could not be other than a blessing to the county, state and nation in which 
it is located. Glorying in her past, strong in her present and confident in 



182 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



her future, she takes her place among the factors which, during the century 
noAV closing, have wrought mightily for the development, intellectually, 
socially and religiously, as well as materially, of Allegany county; and she 
takes a just pride in the good work which Allegany's sons have been doing 
throughout the world, for Allegany's sons, are, in very large measure,, 
sons of Alfred. 



William Colgrove Kenyon.* — It has been given to no man to exert,, 
directly and indirectly, a greater, or more far-reaching influence for good 
upon the character of the population of Allegany county and of Western New 
York, than to William Colgrove Kenyon, founder of Alfred Academy and 
Alfred University. A history of Allegany county which should fail to give 
a record of his work and to convey to future generations the lessons and the 
inspiration of his life and his work would be conspicuously defective. The 
citizen who develops the material resources, who organizes the commerce, 
or makes, or administers wisely, the laws of his country is worthy of honor; 
but he who, as a teacher, conveys to his fellowmen the torch of truth and by 
his own i3ure life inspires those with whom he comes in contact with the 
love of truth, kindles a fire, the effects of which are beyond calculation, and 
deserves the homage of all men as the instrument of divine power. It was 
from the most humble source, and mainly amid the most simple surround- 
ings, that William C. Kenyon came and wrought. He was born in poverty, 
of almost unknown parentage, on the barren plains of Richmondtown, Rhode 
Island, October 23, 1812. At the age of five years he was bound to a guar- 
dian and experienced the severity and ungraciousness then attaching to the 
life of a ward. When he became old enough he was "hired out " summers 
to neighboring farmers, and in winter he was put out to board and got such 
schooling as he might, doing "chores" night and morning, and working 
one day in a week for his board while attending the district school. One 
who knew him when thirteen, wrote: "His form was slender, slightly 
clothed, and his countenance careworn. No one made of him a companion 
or thought of doing so; he appeared melancholy and heart-stricken, said little 
to any one and exhibited no anxiety to engage in the sports that delighted 
other children. He was not a scholar. Books had no charm for him. He 
could read only the easiest lessons, and utterly failed in spelling.'" At this 
age he fortunately found a temporary home in a Christian family, and fell 
under the care of a teacher who treated him with kindness and inspired him 
with confidence that he might become a scholar. With new hope came new 
life; latent abilities and energies were developed, and he became possessed 
of a determination to acquire an education. If his intellectual powers were 
only moderate, his habits of labor and his relentless will supphed the deficit, 

* By Silas C. Burdick, Esq. 




Oi-L "It 



Alfred University. 183 



and the vigorous use of his faculties resulted in growth and strength. 
When at work on the farm he kept a book handy that all odd spells might be 
improved. When about nineteen he bought his time of his guardian giving 
his note which was paid by funds earned by teaching. He became a 
machinist and prepared for college while working at this trade. In 1836 he 
entered Union College and paid his way by working at his trade and by 
teaching. Leaving college in his junior year, he came to Alfred in 1839 to 
become the principal of the infant Alfred Academy, where, while teaching, 
he carried his college studies to comj^letion and received the degree of 
Master of Arts. His was only a temporary engagement at Alfred as he had 
planned to give his life to foreign mission work; but, devoting himself to 
his present work, and surrounding himself with able assistants, he soon 
found the little school planted in an obscure country community, becoming 
one of the chief educational institutions of Western New York. The plans 
of his life were changed, and to found an academy, a college, an university, 
became his ambition. To this work he gave his life and strength without 
reserve. A most rare combination of qualities made up the mature char- 
acter of President Kenyon, and assured his success. Chief among these 
were honesty, sincerity and love for his fellowmen. While always, at heart, 
as gentle and playful as a child, he was most intensely in earnest, and his 
personal magnetism made him a natural master. Promi^t and energetic in 
all his ways, he set things astir and awakened new life, often sharp opj^osi- 
tion, wherever he went. To dullness and laziness and all dishonesty and 
shiftlessness he was a bitter foe. No delinquent failed to receive a prompt 
and stinging rebuke; but the shaft always lodged in the fault; the unmis- 
takable honesty and faithfulness of the motive carried healing to the 
wounded spirit, and the sufferer was sure to be greeted with a polite touch 
of the hat and a cordial recognition at the next meeting. Though radical 
and uncompromising in his own views, the fullest freedom of opinion was 
accorded to others. Though polished and urbane in his bearing, the uncouth 
rustic was always put at ease in his presence and made to feel himself a 
peer. No one could live near him and retain a sense of inherent degradation 
in labor, for to work early and late to the full limit of his ability was the law 
of his life. Alfred was always the school of the poor. Its doors have stood 
wide open to any and all who had the ability and disposition to work their 
way. So President Kenyon, from beginning to end, waged a fierce battle 
with financial difficulties. His own necessities were always the last to be 
provided for. He desired and expected to spend his days and to die in the 
harness. Though often invited to other fields of labor affording larger 
financial remuneration, he chose to hold to the work he had undertaken, and 
seemed to take no thought of the needs of declining years. He lived, 
expended his energies for others, and, having crowded the labors of many 
ordinary lives into one short one, he died June, 1867. in his 56th year. His 
beloved University was then so far established that its perpetual existence 
and usefulness were assured. His enduring monument is in its existence 



184 History of Allegany County, N Y. 

and in the thousands of hves that have been made purer, stronger, brighter, 
and in every way better by the intense glow of liis life. 

President Jonathan Allen, Ph.D., D.D., LL.D.,* was born in Al- 
fred, N. Y., January 26, 1823. In this rugged region, where unremitting 
toil was the birth-right of every boy, he grew to six feet, erect, broad-shoul- 
dered, a perfect specimen of physical manhood. Prom his New England 
parents he inherited a love of knowledge for its own sake. His father, a 
stern, upright man, was a teacher and leader in the community. His moth- 
er, possessing abundant common-sense, was also endowed with quick 
perceptive faculties and a fine poetic temperament. These parents thus 
gave to their son an inheritance rich in all that goes to make the true wealth 
of a great character. Being naturally religious, he became a member of the 
church at the age of twelve. At thirteen he was one of the number to make 
up the first select school in the town of Alfred. (This was taught by B. C. 
Church.) At seventeen he began teaching, taking charge of his first district 
school. This was in a neighborhood where it was the pride of the " toughs" 
to have two or three successive teachers each winter. They had but one 
that winter. In 1842, when Jonathan was nineteen, his parents re- 
moved to the then western wilderness of Wisconsin. Here for two years 
he spent his summers either in surveying or in working on his father's 
farm. He taught school during the winters and became known at that early 
age as the best teacher in Rock county. At twenty-one he found himself in 
possession of enough money (which he had accumulated) to either " take up " 
a quarter-section of land near his parents, or to return to Alfred to go on 
with his education. Knowing that it was the earnest wish of his parents 
to have their children settle near them, it was no small struggle for a duti- 
ful young man to decide to obtain a higher education. This he did, however, 
and took the first boat that came down the lakes in the spring. His former 
teachers, B. C. Church and James R. Irish, had given him a thirst for ad- 
vancement, but it was Prof. Wm. C. Kenyon who stirred his young soul to 
its core, and gave him confidence in himself and in his future. Mr. Allen 
early became a tutor in the Academy at Alfred, and was enabled by this 
means to pay most of his expenses while pursuing his studies. Sometimes, 
when his funds were low, he would teach a term in some near district for 
the winter. Having finished his academic course of study in 1844, Mr. 
Allen did not wait long before deciding to enter Oberlin College. One of 
the principal reasons for this choice was the strong religious influences 
centering there. During the busy years of his coUege life, he never lost 
his interest in Alfred. A close correspondence was kept up with Professor 
Kenyon regarding plans for the future development of the incipient Uni- 
versity. Indeed, Mr. Allen fully pledged himself to help work out these 
plans, and received from Prof. Kenyon a letter of gratitude, which was a 
most fitting exponent of that earnest, true man. While in Oberlin Mr. 
Allen was asked to take charge of a new academy in Milton, Wis., (his home), 

* Contributed by Mrs. A. A. Allen. 



Alfred University. 185 



but this he was not tempted to accept, as his pledge to work for Alfred had 
not been taken without much serious thought. When he returned to Alfred 
he remained faithful to his post there, never heeding positions of honor or 
highly-paid service that were so many times offered him. In 1849 a syndi- 
cate of live, besides Professors Kenyon and Sayles, was formed with this 
strange pledge from each, to work five years at a salary of $400, and to give 
their entire time and all the surplus funds to the growth of the school. This 
action gave a marked impulse which was felt in all the departments. The 
special work of Alfred Academy then was the training of teachers for the 
district schools, and more than 150 young men and women went out each 
year as teachers for district schools in Allegany and surrounding counties. 
Many also became teachers in the higher schools and academies that were 
then being formed. (We are not now writing the history of Alfred Univer- 
sity. We are simply following one man as a factor in its development. ) 
President Allen was a born radical. In the societies, in the church, and in 
secular work he was a leader in all the reform questions of the day. Dr. 
D. R. Ford has said that the secret of his power in directing the varied inter- 
ests for the general growth of the University, lay in his tact and originality 
as an organizer. In Alfred, July 12, 1849, Mr. Allen was married to Miss 
Abigail A. Maxson, the precei)tress, and through the rest of his life they 
were co-workers in the busy lives they were called upon to lead. In 1854 
he was appointed general agent for the Educational Society to secure funds 
for the endowment of a theological department in the school. Though 
spending only his vacations in this work, more than $20,000 were secured 
during the first year. The winter of 1856-7 Mr. Allen spent in Albany in 
the interests of the University charter. During this interval he continued 
the study of law in the Albany Law School, was examined and admitted to 
the bar of the state. In 1864 he was ordained by the general conference to' 
the Gospel ministry. This was done with especial reference to his being at 
the head of the theological department of the Institution. His sermons, 
lectures, and chax3el talks bore the mark of research into many new fields 
of thought, and were most carefully prepared, though he seldom wrote them 
out fully, preferring to speak directly to his audience as he would teach a 
class. During his more than fifty years of teaching his work embraced 
most of the studies in the college curriculum. He taught at different times, 
mathematics, history, civics, the natural sciences, literature, rhetoric, elo- 
cution, Latin, Hebrew, metaphysics, and theology. To him teaching never 
became a humdrum business. Each pupil seemed a sacred trust, one to be 
helped in developing the very best that was in his nature. Mr. Allen was 
called to till the president's place in the University in 1866, after the death 
of President Kenyon. In 1869 he received from the Regents of the State 
of New York the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, in 1874 from the University 
of Kansas the degree of Doctor of Divinity, and in 1886 from Alfred Uni- 
versity the degree of Doctor of Laws. As Doctor Platts has said, "AU 
these honors came to him entirely unsolicited and unexpected. They were 



186 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

the spontaneous expression of the high regard that these institutions held 
for hiin as a profound scholar, as an experienced educator, as a Christian 
gentleman." As the head of the University, no detail of the work was too 
insignificant to receive personal attention, The grounds, buildings, and 
the health, as well as the moral and intellectual development of each student 
received his special care. The co-educational system was considered of 
great value in giving home-like surroundings to the students and in remov- 
ing false views of the relations of men and women in their after lives. Be- 
lieving that the influence of delightful surroundings had great power in 
forming the tastes, manners and morals, indeed the whole character of the 
young. Mr. Allen spared no pains and gave much time and means to make 
the grounds the finest possible exponent of nature and art, so that they 
might impart life, health and strength to all. He was specially fond of the 
natural sciences, and, in order to make a home for his private cabinet and 
a place in which he might study in his old age, he built Steinheim. The 
w^alls of this building mal^e, of themselves, a rare geological cabinet of over 
7,000 kinds of rock. The interior is a collection of native and foreign woods 
of many hundred varieties, while the various coins, implements, and other 
things make up more than 25.000 specimens. These have been collected 
from all parts of the w^orld and many of them cannot be duplicated. As the 
years wore on, Mr. Allen's arduous labors as president and trustee of the 
University began to tell seriously upon his health. His friends, seeing 
this, persuaded him to accept (in the spring of 1H82) the generous offer of 
Mr. Charles Potter, of Plainfield, N. J., to be his guest on a European tour. 
A most congenial companyof four fast friends was formed for this journey. 
These were besides himself, Mr. Charles Potter, Mr. Geo. H. Babcock, and 
Rev. A. H. Lewis. In early autumn they returned, refreshed and in- 
'vigorated in body and mind. Mr. Allen's friends think that this trip abroad 
added years to his life. He brought many interesting specimens to Stein- 
heim, and entered with more enthusiasm than ever into his home w^ork. 
Every department of the University continued to advance, though there 
was much need of more funds to carry out the many new plans to success- 
ful completion, and the constant strain for years of making one dollar do 
the work of ten, the continued effort to "make bricks without straw," 
again began to tell upon his vigor. In 1891 Judge N. M. Hubbard of Cedar 
Rapids, Iowa, made us his guests, taking us to the Pacific coast, through 
the National Park and many more of the "wonder lands " of our country. 
It was a delightful t]'ip, and we both returned with renewed life. Mr. 
Allen, though then nearly seventy years of age, felt that he was doing his 
best work. He gave up no part of it, but added much that seemed to re- 
quire his special care. He often quoted, when advised to give the labor 
into other hands, the remark of John Quincy Adams, " An old man has no 
time to rest." He prayed to die in the harness, and his prayer was 
ANSWERED. His will-power seemed to conquer most of the w^eaknesses of 
the flesh, and his mind was never more clear than on September 1st, 1892. 



Alfred University. 187 



When our old family physician. Dr. E. C. Green, told him he ought not to go 
to the chapel to begin the year's work, he seemed to know the end was 
near. He continued, however, busy in correcting the proofs of his last 
sermon, and in directing the work for the one who had taken his classes. 
On the morning of the 21st of September, 1892. those who stood near him 
showed upon their faces their deep sympathy Avith his suifering. "I am 
happy," he said, " v/hy cannot you be soy" These were his last words. In 
a few" moments he had passed beyond mortal ken, and when those who 
stood by looked at the dear face for the sign of " peace," they saw, instead, 
a glorious joy. Judge Hubbard writes: " President Allen, during his fifty 
years as professor and teacher, came into personal acquaintance with 10,- 
000 young men and women of more than ordinary intellect. He made as 
profound an impression upon them as did Plato or Aristotle upon their 
pupils. These 10,000 have gone into all the earth, and other tens of thou- 
sands follow, and all bear the impress, to some extent at least, of the intel- 
lect, the goodness, the greatness of this great teacher. And thus it is that 
his influence goes on in an ever-widening and never-ending path to bless, to 
cheer, to purify, to elevate. His immortality is like himself when with us 
here, modest, charitable, unselfish, sweet, all-pervading and altogether 
blessed. May w^e all live as he lived, teach as he taught, and die as he died. " 

FACULTY — 1895-6. 

Rev. Boothe Colwell Davis. M.A., B.D., was born near Jane 
Lew, W. Va.. July 12. 1863. He is the eldest son of Rev. Samuel D. and 
Elizabeth Randolph Davis, still living at Jane Lew. His district school 
education was supplemented by one year in the Fairmont (W. Va.) State 
Normal School. He then taught four years in the public schools of West 
Virginia. In September. 1885. he became a student at Alfred University. 
In 1890 he graduated in the classical course, and in the fall entered Yale 
University to pursue a course in divinity. In June, 1892, he received a call 
to the pastorate of the First Alfred Church. The call was accepted to begin 
his labors Sept. 1, 1892, with leave of absence to complete his course in 
divinity in Yale University, where he was graduated. May 17, 1893. May 
18, 1893. he married Miss Estelle W.. daughter of John B. and Josephine 
Crandall Hoffman of Shiloh, N. J., and June 1st they -came to Alfred. 
They have one child, Stanton Hoffman, born Aug. 31, 1894. In June, 1895, 
Mr. Davis was unanimously elected president of Alfred University. 

Edward M. Tomlinson. — The Greek department of Alfred University 
is most satisfactorily conducted by Professor Edward M. Tomlinson, whose 
thorough preparation for and complete devotion to his work, afford the 
student a rare opportunity for accxuiring proficiency in Greek scholarship. 
Mr. Tomlinson, son of Dr. George and Phebe (Mulford) Tomlinson, was born 
at Roadstown, Cumberland county, N. J,, October 22, 1842. After attending 
for a short time the public school of his native village, he entered Union 



188 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Academy at Shiloh, N. J., and was a student in that institution during the 
principalship of Wm. C. Whitford, C. R. Burdick, Wm. A. Rogers, Chas. H. 
Thompson, and George E. Tomhnson. He was graduated at Bucknell Uni- 
versity, Lewisburg, Pa., in 1867. The same year he was called to the pro- 
fessorship of Greek in Alfred University, and occupied this position for four 
years. During the year 1870-71 he served also as professor of Latin. Early 
in 1872 he went abroad, where he remained about two years and a half, the 
most of this time being devoted to study at the Universities of Berlin and 
Leipsic. After his return he taught for a time in Germantown Academy, 
Philadelphia. In 1881 he returned to Alfred University as professor of 
Greek and this position he still holds. Mr. Tomlinson married, March 12, 
1884, Miss Mary E., daughter of Rev. Thomas B. Brown, of Little Genesee, 
N. Y. Their home on Terrace Avenue is notable for its cozy appointments, 
its well stocked and well chosen libraries and its genuine hospitality. 

Henry Clarke Coon, M D., Professor of Physics and Chemistry in 
Alfred University, was born in West Edmeston, N. Y., Jan. 28, 1828. His 
Scotch ancestors came to New England, from thereto Otsego county amongits 
first settlers. His father, a farmer, gave him a good common school educa- 
tion. He attended DeRuyter Institute and Alfred University, was gradu- 
ated in the Classical Course in 1868. He received the degree of A. M. in 1871 
and of Ph. D. in 1891. He graduated in medicine at the New York Homeo- 
pathic Medical College in 1872, and the same year, was elected professor of 
Physical Science in Alfred University. He married L. Elvira Stillman of 
Alfred, Nov. 21, 1851. She died April 21, 1879. He was again mar- 
ried to Mary E. Hill, Dec. 6, 1880. While he has practiced medicine consid- 
erably, yet his life work has been mostly teaching, and he has helped many 
yonng men to commence their studies in medicine and also in other profes- 
sions. He was ordained deacon of the First Alfred Seventh-day Baptist 
Church, Aug. 30, 1879. He is a member of the American Institute of Homeo- 
pathy, The American Association for the Advancement of Science, The 
American Chemical and Microcospical Societies, and the Institute of Civics, 
which help to keep him in touch with the advanced thought of the day in 
these lines of work. 

Lewis A. Platts, D.D.— Doctor Platts is a native of the state of Ohio, 
having been born at Chapman's Creek in that state. His ancestry, partic- 
ularly in the maternal line, has been especially prolific of ministers of the 
gospel. Dr. Platts in early youth entered Milton Academy and literally 
worked his way through, earning every dollar of his expenses. Entering 
Alfred University in the Junior Class, he was graduated two years later, 
after which he studied three years in the Union Theological Seminary of 
New York, receiving with its diploma special commendation for proficiency 
in scholarship. He was ordained to the gospel ministry in 1866, and has 
served as pastor of the Seventh-day Baptist churches at Nile, N. Y., New 
Market, N. J., and Westerly, R. I. In 1882 he became editor of the Sabbath 
Recorder, the denominational paper of the Seventh-day Baptists, published 



Alfred University. 189 



at Alfred, which position he ably filled for ten years. In 1892 he was elected 
to the professorship of Church History and Homiletics in the Theological 
Department of Alfred University, where he still labors. In the fall of 1893, 
upon the reorganization of the Department of English Literature, he was 
made professor of that department also. In addition to his regular work, 
Doctor Platts has done much preaching service during a large part of the 
time and has frequently responded to calls for funeral services and public 
addresses. He was married at the age of twenty-four to Miss Emma Tefft, 
.of Almond, N. Y., who has continued throughout to be his sympathetic and 
devoted co-laborer. 

Lester C. Rogers, A.M. — Professor of the Charles Potter Professor- 
ship of History and Civics. This department was endowed in 1888 by 
Charles Potter, Esq., of Plaintield, N. J., who has always been a staunch 
friend of and liberal donor to Alfred University, as well as to other benev- 
olent institutions and enterprises. Professor Rogers was born in Water- 
ford, Conn., in 1829, and is a descendant in the tenth generation of the 
martyr John Rogers. He prejDared for college at DeRuyter Institute and 
Alfred Academy, entered the Sophomore class of WiDiams College in 1853, 
where he was a classmate of President Garfield, graduated with honor in 
1856, and received the degree of A. M. in 1859; entered Rutgers Theological 
Seminary, New Brunswick, N. J., September, 1859, and graduated in 1860. 
He was married to Miss Josephine Wilcox, preceptress of DeRuyter Acad- 
emy in 1857; was ordained to the gospel ministry in 1858 and has been pastor 
of the churches at New Market, N. J., Brookfield, N. Y., Milton, Wis., Harts- 
ville and Alfred Station, N. Y. He also served the Seventh-day Bai^tist 
Missionary Society from 1875 to 1877. In the war of the rebellion he was 
chaplain of the 29th N. Y. Regt. U. S. Volunteers. 

Alpheus B. Kenyon, A.m., Professor of Mathematics, was born at 
Potter Hill, R. I., Aug. 2, 1850. and spent his boyhood at Mystic, Conn. He 
received his early education in the public schools of Mystic and Hope Valley, 
R. I.; spent three summers working in the shipyard, and later learned the 
trade of house carpenter. In the fall of 1868 he entered the Academic De- 
partment of Alfred University; taught school three winters in Smethport, 
Pa., and Little Genesee, N. Y., and was graduated from the University in 
1874, receiving the degree of Bachelor of Science. Having taken special 
work in draughting, mechanics and kindred subjects, he received the degree 
of Master of Science in 1877. Professor Kenyon was elected to the chair of 
Industrial Mechanics in 1872, but did not begin his work until the fall of 
1874, when he was also called to the chair of Mathematics. He continued in 
charge of both departments on the salary of one for ten years, when Profes- 
sor A. A. Titsworth was elected to the chair of Industrial Mechanics, which 
he held for two years. After that time Professor Kenyon was again in 
charge of both departments for two years. In the winter of 1887 he received 
a furlough from Alfred University, and did post-graduate work in Cornell 
University, studying mathematics and methods. Professor Kenyon has 



190 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

served during several years as secretary of the faculty and has held the 
office of registrar since 1891; served as acting president of the University 
after the death of President Allen until the duties of the office was assumed 
by President Main in April, 1893. He married Miss M. Viola, daughter of 
Martin W. Babcock, in 1873. 

Amelia E. Stillman, A.M., Professor of Art, was born in Alfred, 
March 20, 1834, and was educated in the district school and in Alfred 
Academy, receiving the degree Laureate of Arts in 1853. She received her 
earliest instruction in art of Mrs. A. A. Allen. In 1869 she studied art in 
Chicago, 111., and in 1870-71 taught painting in the public schools of Hor- 
nellsviUe, N. Y.,-also in the select school of Miss Kingsley. In February, 
1872, she became associated with Mrs. Allen in the Art Department of 
Alfred University, in which she has continued until the present time. Miss 
Stillman spent the fall and winter of 1886-7 in study at the Corcoran Art 
Gallery at Washington, D. C, and the spring and summer of 1883 at the 
Metropolitan Museum in Boston, Mass. In 1881 she studied with L. W. 
and R. Wiles at Leroy, N. Y. 

Charles M. Post, A.M., M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Natural History, 
is second son of Doctor George Post and Mary, daughter of Judge Clark 
Crandall, the first settler of the town of Alfred. He was born in Chicago, 
111., in 1864, and educated in Milton College, Wis., and Alfred University, 
having graduated from the latter in 1886. He received the degree of A. M. 
in 1887, that of Ph. D. in 1889, and the degree of M. D. from the College of 
Physicians and Surgeons, of Chicago, 111., in 1892. He assumed the chair 
of Natural History in Alfred University in 1892, and was elected University 
physician in 1893. He married, in 1888, Dolly, second daughter of Dr. D. 
E. Maxson. 

F. S. Place, A.B., B.D., Professor of Industrial Mechanics, son of Rev. 
Alvin A. and Ruth (Sherman) Place, was born in Wirt, N. Y., Aug. 15, 1858, 
and lived from infancy until he was seventeen at Nile. He entered Alfred 
University in 1875, where, with interruptions, he studied for ten years. He 
received the degree of A. B. in 1882, and that of B. D. in 1885. In 1888 he 
was called to the chair of Industrial Mechanics in Alfred University, having 
served as tutor for two years. He is now in charge of Mechanics and 
Astronomy. Prof. Place married Martha Bur dick of Ward in 1882. 

Earl P. Saunders, A.M., Professor in Preparatory and Normal De- 
partment, a native of Genesee county, N. Y., born in 1856, worked his way 
through Alfred University, from which he graduated in the classical course 
in 1880. After taking one year of Theology in Alfred he spent two years in 
Union Theological Seminary in New York city. He has been pastor of the 
Seventh-day Baptist churches of New Market, N. J., and New York city, 
has been principal of the graded school at Ashaway, R. I., and of the Pleas- 
ant Street grammar school at Westerly. He served the American Sabbath 
Tract Society as business manager of its publishing house at Alfred lor 
four years. He has ably performed the duties of his present position since 



Alfred University. 191 



the fall of 1893. He was married to Miss Carrie Briggs of Ashaway, R. I., 
in 1882. 

Inez R. Maxson, A.M., Professor in Preparatory and Normal Depart- 
ment, is a native of Rodman, Jefferson county, N. Y. She received the rudi- 
ments of her education in district schools and entered Alfred University in 
1870, from which she was graduated four years later. Since her graduation 
she taught in Berlin, N. Y. , one year, and from 1878 to 1883 in New Rochelle, 
N. Y. In 1885 she began teaching in the prej^aratory and normal depart- 
ment of Alfred University. In 1891 Miss Maxson received a furlough of 
one year which she spent in the State Normal School at Albany, N. Y. , grad- 
uating at the end of the year and receiving the degree of Bachelor of Peda- 
gogy. She then returned to Alfred and resumed her work in the Prepara- 
tory and Normal Department. 

Martha B. Saunders, Professor of Modern Languages, is a native of 
Providence, R. I. She spent a year and a half in school at Alfred at a very 
early age, but while yet a child accompanied her parents, who were sent as 
missionaries, to Palestine, where they remained six or seven years, residing 
mainly in Jaffa. This cosmopolitan city, the seaport of Jerusalem, made a 
knowledge of many languages a necessity. Miss Saunders received here 
the best instruction from native teachers. Her father becoming connected 
with the consular service, Doctor John W. Gorham, who was then United 
States Consul at Jerusalem, became a member of the family. Dr. Gorham, 
who was an American, a graduate of Harvard College, and who had spent 
many years in study and the practice of medicine in Paris and Rome, was a 
most accomplished linguist. Owing to failing health he became a perma- 
nent attache of this family, and Miss Saunders's constant tutor. He re- 
turned with them to their former home in Westerly, R. I., where he gave 
private and public instruction in the modern languages. Miss Saunders 
spent a year in the Seward Institute at Florida, N. Y., and later three years 
in the private school of Miss Brace, where she enjoyed many of the privileges 
of Yale University, and from which school she was graduated. Returning 
to Westerly she took up the labors which Dr. Gorham had been compelled 
to relinquish, and after his death went to Germany in the fall of 1893, to 
perfect her knowledge of the German and French languages. She located 
in Berlin where she took private lessons of Frau Hempel, and attended 
her lectures on history and literature, living in a " pension, ' " where only 
German was spoken. Leaving Germany in the spring of 1894 she traveled 
for five months through Europe, spending some time in Paris and London, 
and arriving in America in time to commence her work at Alfred at the be- 
ginning of the school year of 1894-5. 

William C. Whitford, A.M., Professor of Biblical Languages and 
Literature, is a native of Madison county, N. Y., and was born Jan. 31, 1865. 
He received his early education and prepared for college in Brookfield 
Academy. In 1882 he entered Colgate University, from which he was grad- 
uated with honor in 1886, after which he served three years as cashier of 



192 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

the Banking House of Calvin Whitford, his father, in Brookfield. Feehng 
it to be his duty to enter the gospel ministry he entered Union Theological 
Seminary, from which he was graduated in 1892. He accepted at once a 
call from the Seventh-day Baptist Church of Berlin, N. Y., to become its 
pastor, having served that church as supply during part of the time spent 
in the Theological Seminary. He was married, in 1892, to Miss Jessie Briggs, 
of Ashaway, R. I., a graduate of Alfred University, and in the fall of the 
same year accepted a call to the chair of Biblical Languages and Literature 
in Alfred University. 

F. A. J. Waldron, A.m., Professor of Latin, was born in Springfield, 
111., Sept. 17, 1862, and educated in the public schools of that city, graduat- 
ing from the Springfield High School in 1879. He removed to Philadelphia 
and 'later to Chester, Pa. , and for a time engaged in mission work in New 
York city. He graduated from the University of Rochester in 1886 and 
from the Rochester Theological Seminary in 1893. One year during his 
studies in Rochester he taught in Jackson College, Miss., and was called to 
his present position in 1893. 

George Wesley Hill, Professor of Elocution and Physical Culture, 
was born in Victor, Ontario Co., N. Y., in December, 1866. He secured his 
early education at the Victor public school and at Genesee Wesleyan Semi- 
nary, Lima, N. Y. , graduating from the latter institution in 1888. He then 
attended the School of Oratory at Boston, Mass., from which he graduated 
in 1890. Mr. Hill adopted teaching as a profession and accepted a position 
as instructor in the Conservatory of Music at Lincoln, Neb., where he re- 
mained two years. Wishing to live in the East he was admitted as instruc- 
tor in Elocution and the English branches at the Military Academy at Peeks- 
kill-on-the-Hudson, teaching at said academy until he was called to the Pro- 
fessorship of Elocution and Physical Culture in Alfred University. 

Mrs. Mary E. B. Main, Professor of Music, was born in Painesville, 
Ohio, and moved to Adams, N. Y., when a child. She received her early 
musical training in Adams from local teachers, and at the Adams Centre 
Institute; graduated at Bellville Normal Music School under Prof. A. N. 
Johnson and studied music later with L. O. Emerson and Carl Zerhan. She 
took a course at Utica Conservatory and studied voice culture with Prof. 
Tower of Towers College of Music, New York, and Prof. Howard, author of 
the Howard Voice Method; graduated in Vocal Normal Music with Prof . J. 
T. Roberts, of Utica, and taught music in Oswego, Schenectady, Watertown 
and Adams, N. Y. 



Bibliography of the County Newspapers. 193 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE COUNTY NEWSPAPERS. 

BY ROGER STILLMAN. 

'^PHE history of the press of Allegany county would, if it could be accurately 
1 followed from the first pUper printed within its boundaries to the pres- 
ent time, giving- the changes in ownership and editorial management, form 
one of the most interesting chapters in the county's history; but data at 
hand is too meager to enable us to give more than a mere outline of the more 
noted of them. Many have come into existence, flourished for a short time, 
died and been forgotten, while others have become household companions 
from one generation to another, giving their readers a complete history, not 
only of the happenings in the towns where they were printed, but also of the 
county, state and nation. In preparing this chapter it is impossible to trace 
aU the changes made in the names of publications, or their migrations from 
town to town or the merging of one into another. We have however followed 
them as closely as possible, though in many cases the exact dates of these 
changes have been lost in the dust of years. This chapter is appropriately 
opened by an account of the first paper printed in its territory. 

Tlie Allegany Republican, which first went to press in Angelica in Octo- 
ber, 1820, and was owned and edited by Franklin Cowdery, who continued 
it for two years when he suspended its i3ublication. In 1827 The Angelica 
Republican took its place, and was conducted by Samuel P. Hall until 1832, 
when it passed into the hands of B. F. Smead with the name changed to 
The Angelica RepiMican and Fanner s and Mechanic's Press. During 1832 
it was sold to Peter Cherry, who changed its name to The Allegany Republi- 
can and Internal Improvenient Advocate. Mr. Cherry continued its publica- 
tion for a trifle over four years, agaiii changing its name in 1836 to The An- 
gelica, Republican and Allegany Whig, soon after this selling it to Wm. P. 
Angel, when its title was changed to The Angelica^ Reporter and Allegany Re- 
publican under which name it had run but a short time when it was pur- 
chased by Samuel C. Wilson who issued it as The Angelica Reporter nntil 1856. 
Mr. Wilson sold the paper to Horace E. Purdy and Charles Horton in 1841, 
and. in 1844, Mr. Purdy retired, leaving Mr. Horton sole proprietor. In 
1856 Mr. Horton purchased 'The Advocate and Whig (a jiaper started at Cuba 
as The Advocate in 1842 by Erastus S. Palmer who sold it to Elray & Churchill, 
who, in turn, sold to Peter S. Norris, who transferred it to W. H. & C. M. 
Beecher. It was consolidated with the Cuba Whig in 1852 forming The Advo- 
cate and Wiig) and consolidated it with The Angelica Reporter under the name 
of The Angelica Reporter and Angelica Advocate and Whig. Some years later 
Geo. W. Dickinson purchased the paper and soon after moved the plant to 



194 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Belmont where the paper was pubhshed until 1874 when it was purchased and 
moved to Wellsville and united with The Wellsville Times by the stock com- 
pany owning- the latter, under the name of The Allegany County Reporter. In 
1876, Enos W. Barnes purchased a controlling interest in the stock, and took 
entire charge of the paper until his death in 1888, when it was continued by 
Mrs. Enos W. Barnes, assisted by her sons E. Wiliard and Charles H., who 
now publish it as a semi- weekly, and also publish The Wellsvile Daily Reporter, 
founded by E. W. Barnes in 1880, the only daily paper in the county. 

After the removal of the original Angeliai Republican from Angelica in 
1870, there was a time when that village was without a paper, but, in Decem- 
ber, 1871, Mr. P. S. Norris revived the name of the Angelica Republican in a 
new paper established there, of which he issued the first, Dec. 22, 1871. He 
continued the publication until August, 1875, when A. W. Phillips & Co. 
became owners. They, after a few months, sold to Clark & McLaughlin, 
who were burned out and soon thereafter gave up its publication. Early in 
1876, H. C. Scott, who started The Canaseraga Times at Canaseraga in 1873, 
moved the plant to Angelica and started a paper, adopting for its title the 
old established name of Angelica Republican. This journal was sold to L. G. 
Raymond in 1879, and still continues to be published by him. 

The Repiiblican Aegis and Allegany Democrat was the second paper pub- 
lished at Angelica and in the county, having come into existence in 1830. 

The Genesee Valley Free Press first apj)ears as an occasional publication at 
Belfast in 1852, where it was printed and edited by A. N. Cole until early in 
1853, when he moved it to Wellsville and issued it from that place regularly 
each week until 1865 when he sold it to Pisk & Pish and its name was changed 
to The Wellsville Free Press. In 1870 Charles M. Beecher purchased the busi- 
ness and conducted it until 1875. The Genesee Valley Free Press was revived 
by its founder at Belmont in 1877, in an office purchased from The Alleganian 
by his son, A. P. Cole, who became the publisher of The Free Press and The 
Genesee Valley Farmer, (which formed a part of the weeldy publication occu- 
pying one page under the above head). This paper was discontinued and 
the plant sold in 1881. 

Tlie Cuba Patriot was first published at Cuba in 1862 by Stebbins & Bur- 
dick as a Republican paper. Burdick soon sold his interest to W. J. Carrier, 
who. after one year, withdrew from the firm, and P. G. Stebbins continued 
sole owner until 1865 when Mr. Carrier again became a partner, but only 
for a brief period, for, in November, 1865, Mr. Stebbins was again its sole 
proprietor, and a month later the firm was changed to Stebbins & Pratt. In 
August, 1866, Mr. Pratt retired and Mr. Stebbins continued alone until 1869 
when he sold one-half interest to C. P. Meloy. In March following Meloy 
sold his interest to C. L. Shepard. In October, 1872, The Patriot was sold to 
The Cuba Herald Association, its name changed to The Cuba Herald, which 
was placed under the editorial management of James A. M'Kibbin. About 
Jan. 1, 1875, it was sold to E. S. Barnard, who associated Mr. Stebbins with 
him as associate editor and changed the name back to Tlie Patriot. Mr. 



Bibliography of the County Newspapers. 195 

Barnard died in March, 1875, and Mr. Stebbins again bought the paper and 
conducted it until IHISO when he sold to Miles A. Davis, who edited it one 
year when it again came into possession of its founder, who published it 
until his death. In 1883 W. J. Beecher and W. J. Glenn became proprietors. 
In January, 1887, Mr. Beecher retired, leaving the firm name W. J. Glenn 
& Co. Stanley C. Swift purchased the Patriot in April, 1891, and sold it to 
H. Moulton & Co., in July, 1892. W. J. Glenn & Co., its present proprietors, 
took possession again in April, 1893. 

The Allegany Democrat was founded at Wellsville in 1876 as an exponent 
of Democracy by Myron E. Eddy and Charles F. White. In December, 1872, 
Mr. Eddy retired, and Mr. White continued alone until August, 1874, when 
he sold the property to W. W. Nichols. A. E. Cowles purchased a one-half 
Interest. June 11, 1882, and the firm of Nichols & Cowles appeared as pub- 
lishers until P^eb. 2, 1887, when A. E. Cowles purchased the entire business 
and continues to publish the Democrat. 

The FrionUliip lierjl.ster was first printed in Friendship by J. J. Barker 
Dec. 30, 1869, and was sold by him to R. R. Helme in 1871, in 1888 Mr. 
Helme sold to Geo. W. Fries, the present p.ropretor. 

The Genesee VaUeij Post was first issued in 1881 as a Prohibition paper by 
James E. Norton, who purchased the printing material formerly used by 
the Free Press, and soon after secured the services of V. A. Willard as editor. 
Later the plant was sold to The Post Publishing Co., V. A. Willard continu- 
ing the editorial management until 1895, when the paper was moved to Cuba 
and is now edited by John F. Coad. 

The Belmont Weekly Dispatch, a Republican paper, was established at 
Belmont in 1889 by R. R. and F. B. Helme. In November, 1892, it was sold 
to W. M. Barnum. In March, 1893, Wm. E. Smith bought out Mr. Barnum 
and two weeks later Roger Stillman took a one-half interset. In January, 
1895, Mr. Smith retired, and the firm became C. L. Stillman & Co., who now 
publish it. 

The Angelica Every Week was started in Angelica as the organ of the 
Angelica and county organizations of the W. C. T. U., in 1884 by Mrs. M. L. 
Rumpff, and has been successfully continued by her as an independent 
newspaper. 

The Andover Neius was first printed in 1887 by H. S. Norris and Geo. L. 
Tucker, Jr. Mr. Tucker retired at the end of the first year and Mr. Norris 
has since conducted the paper alone. 

The liushford Spectatoi' was founded in 1878. In 1883 it was edited by 
Frank B. Smith and later passed into the hands of W. F. Benjamin, its pres- 
ent editor and proprietor. 

The Northern Allegany Observer was started in 1880, and is now owned by 
Judson Howden. 

The Spirit of Reform was started in Belmont a few years ago, in the in- 
terest of the Peoples' party by Scott & Osencup. In 1893 Geo. A. Scott 
purchased his partner's interest and published the paper until 1894 when he 



196 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

sold to Victor Allen who soon after, in 1895, moved the paper to Richburg, 
and later disposed of it to M. C. Wescott who now conducts it. 

The Hume Enterprise was first printed in 1885 at Hume village. It has 
changed hands several times and is now owned and edited by E. W. O'Hara. 

Tlie Almond Era was started in 1887 by S. H. Jennings at Almond; it is 
Populistic in politics. Mr. Jennings changed its name in 1894 to Tlte True 
Issue. 

The WhifesviUe News was founded, April 3, 1895, by L. J. Fortner and 
La Burt Davis as an independent (non-partisan) newspaper. 

Among the papers which have been published in the county in time past 
but have suspended publication and left no successors, are: 

The Almond Herald founded in 1853 and published one year by R. Denton. 

The Allegany Sentinel, published in Almond by Melvin Hyde and Isaac 
Bush from 1854 to 1856. 

The American Banner, printed at Cuba from 1855 to 1857, by Hatch & 
Pratt, was sold in 1857 to Cyrus Pratt and M. B. Champlain, and its name 
changed to The Southern Tier. It lived only a few years. 

The Allegany County Advocate; founded at Angelica in 1868 by P. S. Nor- 
ris, lived one year. 

The BejmMican Aegis and Allegaiiy Democrat, published in Angelica in 
1830, continued but a short time. 

The Allegany Gazette, printed at Angelica in 1840. 

The Andover Advertiser, founded at Andover by E. S. Barnard in 1868, 
existed about 2 years. 

Tlie Friendship Chronicle, printed at Friendship in 1881 by J. W. Hen- 
drick, was soon discontinued. 

The Neiv Democratic Era, started at Cuba by W. J. Carrier in 1865, was 
consolidated with The Patriot the same year. 

The WellsviUe Times was established at Wellsville in 1872 by Geo. Howe, 
Benton C. Rude being its editor. It was merged in the lieporter in 1874. 

Tlie Almond CJironicle was suspended in 1895, having been published 
about one year. 

Tlie Bolivar Sundaij Leader* was launched in November in 1881, by Well- 
ington, Nash & Anderson. It was a sprightly 6-column quarto and for a 
time prospered, but it never outgrew a Washington hand press. Wlien the 
oil boom began to decline Wellington became sole proprietor and continued 
its publication until 1890, when it was sold to a Populist stock company, who 
installed C. M. Mason as editor. The name was changed to Alliance Leader. 
Mason was a theorist, not a practical newspaper man, and from the day of 
change the paper steadily "lost money." In 1891 the plant was moved to 
Belmont where publication continued a few months. When the stock 
holders ceased to "loosen," the paper suspended. F. R. Wellington is now 

* We are indebted to Brother J. P. Herrick of the Bolivar Breeze for the following bibliography of the 
papers of the southern towns. 



Bibliography of the County Newspapers. 197 

in business in Taconia. E. A. Anderson is a Methodist minister, and Nash 
has e:one from the oil regions. 

The first issue of TIte OH Echo appeared at Richburg on tlie morning of 
January 18, 1882. It was a seven-column folio, published by a stock com- 
pany, with P. C. Boyle, now of the Oil City Derrick, as editor and manager. 
It was printed on a two-revolution Hoe press, and enjoyed a news franchise. 
The Echo was conducted in a fearless manner and had a good circulation. 
The office was burned in May, 1882, shortly after the Cherry Grove " boom " 
began to depopulate Richburg and no further issues were made. 

The Elchburg Weekhj Era was launched in November, 1881, by S. H. 
Jennings, at present publisher of the The Almond Neiu Era. It was soon 
made a daily with S. J. Small business manager. Tlie Era was continued 
several months but it never proved a success financially. Mr. Small finally 
bought the plant and issued The Sunday JRacqiiet, which lived but a short 
time. 

The initial number of the Bolivar Breeze appeared on Saturday, August 
29, 1891. The Alliance Leader had been moved to Belmont and Bolivar needed 
a newspaper. The editor and proprietor was J. P. Herrick, of the Ceres Mail. 
The Breeze at once struck the popular fancy and proved remunerative from 
the start. It has one of the most completely equipped plants in the county, 
and enjoys a very liberal patronage. The paper does not dabble in politics, 
is independent, and aims to excel as a local and county newspaper. 

The first printing office in Alfred was established in 1859 by J. E. B. and 
Wm. P. Maxson, who published T'he Neio Era. a weekly local newspaper. 

In 1872. the Sabbath Recorder, the organ of the Seventh-day Baptist 
denomination, was issued in Alfred in July of that year. It was the prop- 
erty of the American Sabbath Tract Society, and was in the 28th year of its 
existence. The plant, during its stay here, until the close of 1894, grew 
to immense proportions, the office issuing very many other publications, 
weekly, monthly and quarterly, among them the Outlook, Peculiar Pecyple, 
Eelxiing Hand, etc., sending through the mail, yearly, tons upon tons of read- 
ing matter. They also printed for Alfred University The Alfred Student and 
The Alfred University, both of w^hich have ceased to exist. During these 
years the editors were, Rev. N. V. Hull, Rev. Stephen Burdick, Rev. L. A. 
Platts and Rev. L. E. Livermore, and the business managers, David R. Still- 
man, Rev. L. A. Platts. Rev. Earl P. Saunders and John P. Mosher. At the 
close of 1894, the Publishing House was transferred to Plainfield, N. J. 

In 1883 it was planned by F. A. Crumb, Bert Sherman, L. W. Niles, 
John P. Mosher and John M. Mosher. employed in the Publishing House at 
Alfred, to start a weekly local newspaper, non-partisan in politics, and Jan- 
uary 1, 1884, the first number of the Alfred Snn was issued, with John M. 
Mosher editor, and John P. Mosher business manager, without remunera- 
tion. The composition and press work were done at the Publishing House at 
the actual cost. It was run under this management one year, when three 
of the stockholders retired, leaving it in the hands of P. A. Crumb and L. W. 



198 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Niles, the latter soon buying out the former. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Crumb 
purchased the entire plant of Mr. Niles, and carried it alone until the close 
of the year, when he sold out to Rev. L. E. Livermore, who purchased 
material, and, with the help of one or two others, issued the paper for tw^o 
years, when he, being called to a pastorate of a church in New Jersey, sold 
to his son-in-law, W. H. Satterlee, who carried on the business for two years 
more, when several of the young men in town thought best to have a Repub- 
lican paper in our midst, and they, forming a stock company, purchased the 
plant, and issued their first number under the new regime Jan. 1, 1890, with 
John M. Mosher editor and business manager, and Jno. J. Merrill assistant 
editor. On the first of January, 1895, the stockholders of the Sun Associa- 
tion purchased material for a job ofdce and moved into the building known 
as the Publishing House, enlarging the Sun, and appointing John M. Mosher 
and Frank A. Crumb editors and managers. At the beginning of 1896, 
Frank A. Crumb and Frank S. Whitford, having purchased a controlling 
interest in the stock of the Association, assumed the management thereof. 
The Alfred Sun to-day is recognized as one of the leading Republican papers 
of Allegany county. 

Our Sabbath Visitor is a weekly Sabbath-school paper, and is published 
by E. S. Bliss. It is now in its fourteenth year. 

The University Bulletin, a paper published qiiarterly by Alfred Univer- 
sity, was commenced in 1895. The printing is being done at the office of 
the Alfred Sun. 

The Arena, a paper devoted to the interests of the Farmers' Alliance^ 
was issued from the ofiice of E. S. Bliss, Alfred, in 1889. On account of 
the lack of patronage but a few numbers were printed. 

Mr. Frank S. Miller, proprietor of the Ganaseraga Times, sends us this 
concerning his paper: " In 1872 H. C. Scott established the Times, and con- 
ducted it until 1877. He was succeeded as owner and publisher by W. H. 
Barnum, who continued in the business until April 1, 1885, when I purchased 
the entire plant and have since been publisher." 



The Woman's Christian Temperance Union. 199 

CHAPTER XXX. 

THE woman's christian TEMPERANCE UNION. 

BY MISS MARY E. BOWLER. 

SOME sayings haunt us, and since we have undertali:en to choose out and 
set in order those things concerning this great organization which 
shall be just and adequate as history, there are three: "Histories are strange 
things," "Whoever writes history writes himself a liar, " and "The begin- 
nings of all things are small," which we feel sure we shall be able to verify. 
The "Woman's Crusade." inaugurated in our neighboring county of 
Chautauqua at Predonia, Dec. 15, 1873, and of which the Woman's Christian 
Temperance Union was the outgrowth (the first one being organized there 
one week from that day, Dec. 22, 1873), did not. to our knowledge, take root 
in our county. At the convention called in Syracuse, Oct. 14, 1874, where 
the state organization was etfected, Allegany county was represented by 
Mrs. B. C. Rude of Wellsville, her name appearing as chaii-man of a com- 
mittee to draft a memorial to President Grant and Governor Dix. Whether 
any efforts were made in the meantime to organize the county Union, we 
do not know, but not till nearly five years later, at Friendship, in July, 
1879, was it accomplished. At a temperance convention (they were held by 
men in those days) held in the old academy at Friendship, July, 1879, Mrs. 
B. C. Rude asked all women who were interested to meet her at a stated 
time in one of the recitation rooms. 25 or 30 responded. After explaining 
the object and methods of the organization, and urging its benefits as she 
could so well do, remarks were made by othei's, and a motion to organize 
prevailed. A paper was circulated for names of those who would become 
members, but it was not preserved, and the minutes of the meeting were 
not entered in the secretary's book. Mrs. Helen M. Barker of Friend- 
ship was chosen president, and Mrs. V. A. Willard of Belmont secretary, 
neither of whom were present. Four women paid the fee of fifty cents and 
their names are on the book in the treasurer's account. They are Mrs. 
James Smith, Mrs. John Briggs, Mrs. John McKee and Mrs. D. C. Willard 
to whom we are indebted for the account of tlie organization. 

The first meeting was called in connection with a temperance convention 
held at Andover, January 28, 1880. 15 names were added to the member- 
ship. Articles of constitution were presented by Mrs. B. C. Rude, and 
adopted with the amendment to Art. 1, "that the payment of fifty cents 
should not be requisite for membership, " which was reconsidered at the 
next meeting, and the constitution adopted as it now stands. It was known 
as the Allegany County Woman's Temperance Union. The officers were to 
be as follows: President, vice president, secretary and executive committee 



200 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

of five, and one honorary vice president from each town in the county, who 
should act as corresponding secretary of that town, sohcit members from 
their several towns and at once take steps for the formation of unions to act in 
co-operation with and subordinate to the county union. The first ex- 
ecutive committee was Mrs. H. M. Barker of Friendship, Mrs. B. C. Rude 
of Wellsville, Mrs. N. V. Hull of Alfred Centre, Mrs. A. Coit of Wellsville 
and Mrs. V. A. Willard of Belmont. The organization was now fully accom- 
plished and the next meeting was called at Friendship, July 20, 1880, where 
eleven towns were rejiresented by delegates though as yet there were no 
local organizations. 

In the light of the sixteen years that have since passed with their 
evolutions on the temperance question, it is interesting to read some of the 
first resolutions adopted by them, especially as we are so often told that we 
have turned aside from the work we were organized to do: '' Besolved, That 
we as women must ever use our utmost efforts and influence to induce our 
husbands, sons and brothers to enforce more rigorously the laws already 
made, and to enact laws still more stringent to protect society against the 
terrible evils of intemperance." ''Whereas, the license law already in ex- 
istence sends forth a desolating scourge into the land to waste and destroy; 
therefore. Resolved, That we use our utmost endeavors to introduce in its 
stead a prohibitory law, which shall strike at the root of this great evil and 
seek to exterminate it at once and forever from our fair land. We earnestly 
recommend that young men band themselves together in the formation of 
anti-treat-societies." " We recommend the use of unfermented wines for 
sacramental purposes, and, further, that in all total abstinence pledges 
cider be included." "We renew our entreaties that our husbands and 
brothers abandon the use of tobacco, and unite their influence with ours 
against it. ' ' 

These declarations show women intelligent, moral, broad and brave, 
who fearlessly took their stand and have steadfastly held their place in the 
extreme advance line of this unpopular cause. We may not even tell their 
names; the great majority are unknown to the world, but we know that 
because of them the work prospered, and, because of the work, they were 
made better. 

But to return, Mrs. N. V. Hull and Mrs. H. M. Barker were appointed 
organizers, later, Mrs. J. B. Bradley, and when the young women's work was 
taken up. Miss Emma A. Ross was superintendent and organizer. Through 
their efforts, aided by lecturers who have visited the county from time to 
time, every town of the county but three has had an organization. Some 
unions were established that only had a name to live, and other unions (be- 
cause the members were now at school, now teaching, or called from home 
for other reasons) have disbanded, still the interest has never languished. 
The first "local" was organized in Cuba, October 26, 1880, and from that 
time organization went steadily forward. Since 1886 an excess of 500 mem- 
bers has entitled us to a representation in the National conventions. Few 



The Woman's Christian Temperance Union. 201 

counties in the nation were as little atfected as ours by the sifting process 
the organization jjassed through in 1889. 35 conventions have been held 
where different phases and plans of work were discussed, reports made and 
a mass meeting, addressed by some speaker of note, has inspired the 
workers with added interest and zeal, and given to the public the broad 
principles and outlook of the W. C. T. U.. and what they deemed to be the 
urgent need of tlie hour. 

Departments taken up by the county, are Evangelistic; Prison and Jail; 
Social Purity and Mothers' meetings; Juvenile; Sabbath School; Soldiers 
and Sailors; Scientific Temperance Instruction; Narcotics; Franchise; 
Health and Non-Alcoholics; Literature; Press Work; Young Women's 
Work; Fair Work. Effective labor has been done along all of these lines. 
The organization became auxiliary to the state at the annual meeting held 
in Wellsville in 1882, took the name W. C. T. U., and, since that time, the 
money raised for all purposes by local unions, as reported, amounts to $16,- 
514, but reports are never complete, and it is safe to say a much larger 
amount than that has been used in the work. 

In this sketch little can be said of the workers. We append tabulated 
statistics, names of oflicers, superintendents, etc., for reference in con- 
densed and convenient form, and we would gladly add the name of every 
woman who has kej^t warm in her heart an interest in this work for human- 
ity. They are the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. They 
have traveled innumerable miles through heat and cold with petitions, be- 
seiged assembly and senate with letters, pleaded with school boards and 
teachers for more thorough teaching of the effects of alcohol and narcotics, 
put literature on ship board (Allegany has 4 libraries out), held services 
continuously in jails, and alms houses, and in every way made possible the 
accomplished work of the W. C. T. U. To them be all honor. 

But a word is due the five women who have stood as our leaders. In 
having such leaders we have been signally favored. The readers of the 
future will look with interest on the features of those who in time of stress 
bore heavy burdens to advance this good cause. Mrs. Barker is now treas- 
urer of the National organization at Chicago. Mrs. Rude is now of Duluth, 
Minn., and Mrs. Potter of Oakland, Cal. Mrs. J. B. Bradley of Bolivar, has 
been a standard bearer ever since she came into the county in 1882. Liv- 
ing in an •• oil town," where C(mditions are peculiar, the population continu- 
ally changing, the union under her leadership has bravely held its numbers 
in members, and no less than five women who have gone out from there are 
now presidents of unions in difi'erent parts of the county. Mrs. Willard's 
work speaks for her. For fifteen of the sixteen years of the organization 
she has been a member of the executive committee and for twelve years of 
that time its president. To her efforts is largely due the uncompromising 
attitude on all essential points, the unity of purpose and harmony of efl'ort 
that has made this one of the strongest county organizations in the state. 
Whatever work the state has accomplished in legislation or other effort, Ai- 



202 History op Allegany County, N. Y. 



legany has given her full share. The greatest work we have done may not 
be written in history, it is on the hearts of the workers and on the lives of 
those they have influenced; for "Wherever there is a wrong to right, an evil 
to attack or a hand to help, there will you find a woman with a white ribbon 
on her breast." 

Officers of Allegany County W. C. T. U. from 1879 to 1895. Presidents: 
Mrs. H. M. Barker, 1879-1880; Mrs. B. C. Rude, 1880-1881; Mrs. E. J. 
Potter, 1881-1882; Mrs. Mary L. Willard, 1882-1884; Mrs. J. B. Bradley, 
1884-1885; Mrs. Mary L. Willard, 1885-1895. Vice Presidents: Mrs. H. M. 
Barker, 1880-1881; Mrs. W. Wesler, 1881-1882; Mrs. L. A. HuU, 1882-1884; 
Mrs. E. M. Steele, 1884-1885; Mrs. J. B. Bradley, 1885-1887; Miss Emma A. 
Ross, 1887-1892; Mrs. G. W. Fries, 1892-1894; Mrs. A. M. Taylor. 1894-1895. 
Corresponding Secretaries, and Treasurers: Mrs. Mary L. Willard, 1879- 
1882; Miss Emma A. Ross, 1882-1885; Miss Mary E. Bowler, 1885-1886; 
Mrs. L. A. Hull, 1886-resigned; Mrs. Chas. StiUman, Feb., 1887-1889; Cor- 
responding Secretaries, Mrs. J. Hendricks, 1889-resigned; Miss Mary E. 
Bowler. Aug., 1889-1895. Recording Secretaries, Mrs. J. R. Freeland, 
1882-1884; Mrs. D. V. Scott, 1884-1885; Mrs. S. M. Bhss, 1885-1888; Miss 
Mary. E. Bowler, 1888-1889; Mrs. A. M. Taylor, 1889-1894; Miss Emma A. 
Ross, 1894-1895. Treasurer, Mrs. Helen A. Richardson, 1889-1895. County 
officers, 1895: President, Mrs. Mary L. Willard, Belmont; Vice President, 
Mrs. A. M. Taylor. Rushford; Corresponding Secretary, Miss Mary E. 
Bowler, Little Genesee; Recording Secretary, Miss Emma Ross, Wellsville; 
Treasurer. Mrs. Helen Richardson, Belmont. Department superintendents, 
Soldiers and Sailors, Mrs. Mary A. Allen, Friendship; Social Purity and 
Mothers' Meetings, Mrs. A. A. Allen, Alfred; Narcotics, Miss Mary E. 
. Bowler, Little Genesee; Scientific Temperance, Mrs. J. B. Bradley, Boli- 
var; Evangehstic, Mrs. A. M. Taylor. Rushford; Franchise, Mrs. Mary B. 
Miller, Andover; Prison and Jail, Mrs. J. W. Bartlett, Belmont; Health and 
Non-Alcohohcs, Mrs. M. B. Burdick, Alfred; Juvenile, Mrs. K. M, Kavert, 
Belfast; Literature, Mrs. L. E. Clark. Houghton; Press Work, Mrs. Mary 
A. Minard, Fillmore; Cuba Camp Secretary, Mrs. J. M. Barnes, Cuba. 

List of Unions with date of organization: Cuba, Oct. 26, 1880; Little 
Genesee, Nov. 18, 1880; Nile, Feb. 8, 1881; Friendship, Jan., 1882; Scio, Feb. 
15, 1882; Belmont, Feb., 1882; Alfred Centre, Feb. 20, 1882; Andover, March 
1,1882; Richburg, March 2, 1882; Independence, July, 1882; Rushford, Nov. 
30, 1882— Oct. 27, 1887; Almond, March, 1883— Jan. 24, 1895; Angehca, April 
28, 1883; Belfast, Oct., 1883; Bolivar, Dec. 6, 1883; Ceres, April 19, 1884; 
West Almond, July 2, 1884; Whitesville, Nov., 1884; Canaseraga, June, 1885; 
Allentown, June 15, 1885; Stannard's Corners. 1885; Birdsall, No. 1, 1885; 
Birdsah, No. 2, 1885; Caneadea, 1885; West Clarksville, 1886; Honeoye, 
1887; Shongo, 1887; Houghton, May 17, 1887; Fihmore, June 8, 1888; Black 
Creek, Aug. 8, 1888; Hume, Nov. 16, 1889. 

Y Unions have been established at Bohvar, 1886; Cuba, 1887; Ceres, 
Scio, Wellsville and Allentown, 1888; Belfast, 1889. 





L 





MRS. H. M. BARKER 




MRS. M. L. WILLARD. 





MRS. E. J. POTTER. 



MRS. N. S. BRADLEY. 



The Allegany County Sunday-School Association. 203 

Conventions held and speakers: Andover, Jan. 28, 1880; Friendship, 
July, 20, 1880, Mrs. B. C. Rude; Cuba, Feb. 2, 1881, Mrs. Letitia Yeomans; 
Andover. Nov. 15. 1881. Mrs. Lillie Devereaux Blake; Scio, Feb. 15, 1882, 
Mrs. Mary T. Burt; Wells ville. July 12. 1882, Mrs. Letitia Yeomans; Rich- 
burg-, Oct. 18, 1882, Mrs. Louise Rounds; Alfred Centre, Feb. 21, 1883, Miss 
NarcissaE. White; Nile. July 11. 1888. Mrs. L. M. Stoddard; Rushford, Oct. 
3, 1883, Miss Narcissa E. White; Almond, Feb. 6, 1884, Mrs. D. V. Scott; 
Angehca, July 9, 1884, Rev. Mr. Coit; Little Genesee, Oct. 8, 1884, Miss 
NarcissaE. White; Alfred. Feb. 11. 1885. Mrs. Mary T. Burt; Bolivar, July 
30, 18S5. Mrs. Mary T. Lathrop; Scio. Feb. 17, 1886. Mrs. Emily McLaugh- 
lin; Belmont, July 28, 1886, Mrs. R. A. Emmons; Allentown, Feb. 1, 18h7, 
Mrs. Mary A. Woodbridge; Andover, July 13, 1887, Miss Narcissa E. White; 
Belfast, Feb. 1, 1888, Mrs. Mary A. Woodbridge; Ceres, July 10, 1888, Mrs. 
Helen L. Bullock; Wellsville, Jan. 30, 1889, Mrs. Ella A. Boole; FiUmore, 
July 24, 1889, Mrs. Clara C. Hoffman; Friendship. Jan. 29, 1890, Mrs. Mary 
A. Woodbridge; Angelica. July 23, 1890, Mrs. Louise Rounds; Almond. Jan. 
28, 1891, Mrs. Ella A. Boole; Bolivar, July 29, 1891, Mrs. Mary T. Lathrop; 
Alfred Centre, Jan. 27, 1892, Rev. Anna H. Shaw; Rushford, July 26. 1892, 
Mrs. Marion Baxter; Scio. Jan. 25, 1893, Mrs. Lytie P. Davies; Belfast, July 
26, 1893, Carrie Lane Chapman; Richburg, Jan. 24, 1894, Mrs. Mary J. 
Weaver; Fillmore, July 17, 1894, Rev. Henrietta Moore; Belmont, Jan. 23, 
1895, Mrs. Ella A. Boole; Almond. July 24, 1895, Mrs. H. M. Barker. 



The Allegany County Sunday -School Association. — No records 
showing how long the Association has been in existence or of its earlier 
work are in the hands of the present officers. The object of the association 
as set forth in its constitution is •• by union and concert of action to improve 
the character and efficiency of the Sunday-school work, and extend its intiu- 
ence to every part of the county." The 21st annual convention of the asso- 
ciation in its present form was held in the M. E. church at Wellsville on the 
14th and 15th of May, 1895. At this meeting the county secretary's report 
of work for 1894 showed that 73 schools in the county had made reports of 
their work, showing- these totals: number of officers and teachers 957. pupils 
7,661, average attendance 3,815. number of conversions 342, amount of con- 
tributions $3,276. 18. The present officers of the Association are: Rev. James 
A. Miller, Ph.D., Angehca, president; R. D. Bebee, Spring MiBs, Fred R. 
Pratt, Short Tract, R. L. Andrus, Bolivar. Rev. B. C. Davis, Alfred, Charles 
E. Davis, Wellsville, Charles Cochran, Andover, Charles Ingham, Hume, 
vice presidents; Clinton H. Miner. Cuba, corresponding secretary; W. J. 
Richardson, Belmont, treasurer; Miss Mary E. Fuller, Cuba, recording 
secretary; Miss Estella Cole, Friendship, women's mission secretary. 



204 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Federation of Women's Clubs. — The first meeting of the Executive 
Board of the Allegany County Federation of Women's Literary Clubs and 
Societies occurred at the library building in Belmont, Sept. 11, 1895. The 
members of the board present were: President. Mrs. Hamilton Ward, Beh 
mont; 1st vice president, Mrs. F. B. Church, Wellsville; 2d vice president, 
Mrs. F. B. Keeney, Belvidere; secretary, Mrs. F. L. Charles, Cuba: treasurer, 
Mrs. S. M. Norton, Friendship; alternates, Mrs, Rice, Friendship and Mrs. 
L. A. Platts of Alfred. The invitation to hold the annual meeting in Wells- 
ville, as guests of the Monday Club, was accepted, and a program arranged 
for that occasion. The preparatory sessions to this annual meeting of the 
Federation were enthusiastically attended and great interest was manifested. 
Allegany may be proud of this organization since she has the iirst County 
Federation of Literary Clubs and Societies organized in the state, and it was 
the first one received into the State Federation and also the General Federa- 
tion. All women's clubs in the county that have been organized at least one 
year, and are existing for the purix)ses of culture and intelligence, are eligi- 
ble. Application for membership shall be made to the president or secre- 
tary at least two weeks before the annual meeting, and shall be accompanied 
by a copy of its constitution and by-laws, a sketch of the work of the club, 
its membership, etc. The first annual meeting was held at Wellsville, Oct. 
23, 1895. It was largely attended. Mrs. Hamilton Ward of Belmont, Mrs. 
F. L. Charles of Cuba. Mrs. Frank B. Church and Mrs. Nora E. Darling of 
WeUsville, represented the Allegany Federation at the first annual meeting 
of the New York State Federation held at Brooklyn, Nov. 20, 1895. Here 
Mrs. Hamilton Ward, the honored president of our County Federation was 
elected a vice president of the State Federation. 

A Political Equality county organization was effected at Belmont, 
Jan. 23, 1895, with Mrs. Ida K. Church of Wellsville, president; Mrs. Eliza 
B. Fries of Friendship, -Ist 'vice president; Miss Mary E. Bowler of Lit- 
tle Genesee, 2d vice president; Mrs. Sara W. Freeland of Wellsville, secre- 
ary; Mrs. Mary B. Miller of Andover, treasurer. The first annual meeting 
(suffrage convention) was held at Andover, Dec. 5. 1895, where these officers 
were .elected: President, Mrs. Ida K. Church, Wellsville; vice president, 
Mrs. Eliza B. Fries, Friendship; recording secretary, Mrs. Sara W. Free- 
land, Wellsville; corresponding secretary, Mrs. Abigail A. Allen, Alfred; 
treasurer, Mrs. A. M. Burrows, Andover; auditors. Miss Fannie Lewis. 
Wellsville, Mrs. Hendricks, Andover; honorary vice presidents. Mrs. Brad 
ley, Andover, and Mrs. Allen, Alfred. 



Prominent Organizations. 205 



CHAPTER XXXI. 



prominent organizations. 



THE Allegany County G. A. R. Association. — At the state capital at 
Springfield, 111., July 12, 1866, was organized, the Grand Army of the 
Republic. The objects of the organization, which is composed of those who 
were oflicers and private soldiers in the late civil war, are the fostering of 
fraternal relations, and the keeping alive the zeal of patriotism, and devotion 
to our country, mutual support and assistance, clothing the naked and feed- 
ing the hungry, furnishing employment to destitute sick and wounded com- 
rades and caring for the widows and orphans of the gallant dead. While it 
wisely claims to abstain from political and partisan action, it has, as an 
organization, taken an active part in public matters affecting their general 
interests, notably, to secure increased pensions for many deserving classes, 
and to remove conceded obstacles to a fair construction of the application of 
pension legislation. The organization is National, Departmental and by 
Posts. In the department of New York in 1894, there were 070 posts, with 
a membership of 39,909. 

January 15th, 1891, 33 delegates, from the different posts in the county, 
assembled at Cuba, and organized the Allegany County G. A. R. Asso- 
ciation, with the following officers: President, P. G. Mayhew, Angelica; 1st 
vice president, A. M. Boyd, Wells ville; 2d vice president, L. A. Krusen, 
Stannards Corners; secretary, C. H. Miner, Cuba; treasurer, W. Kelly, Bel- 
fast; O. D., P. C. Soule, M. D., Wiscoy. The objects of the association are 
in accord with the national organization, and also to effect unity of purpose 
and action by the posts of the county. Twelve posts were represented at 
this first meeting. The next meeting was held in Wells ville. May 14th, 
1891, and the same year the association met at Cuba, on the grounds of the 
Temperance Camp Meeting, and the meeting was called the •■ campfire " of 
the Association. The attendance was large. 

The second annual meeting was held at the court house in Angelica, 
December 31st, 1891. 13 posts were represented with 31 delegates, and the 
officers elected were, President P. G. Mayhew, Angelica; 1st vice president, 
A. M. Boyd, Wellsville; 2d vice president, A. B. Cottrell. Bolivar; secretary, 
R. H. Grady, Cuba; treasurer, E. O'Malley, Cuba; O. D., J. E. Middaugh, 
Scio. The Association met next at Alfred, February 25th, 1892, 10 posts 
being represented by 33 delegates. The next annual meeting was held at 
Belmont, December 30th, 1892, 36 delegates being present from 14 posts, 
and choice of officers was made as follows: President. A. M. Boyd, Wells- 
ville; 1st vice president, J. W. Marsh, Alfred; 2d vice president, L. Burdick, 
Nile; secretary, R. H. Grady, Cuba; treasurer, E. GMalley, Cuba; O. D., 
Robert R. Seely, Belfast; chaplain, W. B. Wagoner, Cuba. Aug. 11th. 1893, 



206 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

a campfire was enjoyed at Friendship. The third annual meetino- was held 
at Belmont, December 28th, 1893, at which were elected: President, J. W. 
Marsh, Alfred; 1st vice president, L. Burdick, Nile; 2d vice president, Geo. 
A. Gseen, Belmont; secretary, R. H. Grady, Cuba; treasurer. E. O'Malley, 
Cuba; chaplain, T. C. Carrier; O. D., A. H. Waters, Belmont. 9 posts were 
represented with 26 delegates. At the spring meeting at Andover, April 
26th, 1894, 11 posts were represented with 25 delegates. A campfire was 
held Aug. 17th, 1894, at Belfast. 

The fourth annual meeting was held at Belmont, December 13th, 1894, 
at which 11 posts were represented, 27 delegates being present. These offi- 
cers were elected: President, J. W. Marsh; 1st vice president, L. Burdick; 
2d vice president, R. R. Seeley; secretary, R. H. Grady; treasurer, E. 
O'Malley; chaplain, A. L. Halbert; O. D., A. H. Waters. The campfire held 
at Belmont, Oct. 3, 1895, was a very pleasant meeting. Hon. Seymour Dex- 
ter of Elmira, addressed the large gathering with a most pertinent, able 
and patriotic speech. 

At the fifth annual meeting held at Belmont, December 19th, 1895, the 
following officers were elected; President. Captain R. R. Seeley, Belfast; 
1st vice president, E. O'Malley, Cuba; 2d vice president, R. Tremain, Wells- 
ville; secretary, R. H. Grady, Cuba; treasurer, Thos. S. Tetft, Belmont; O. 
D., A. H. Waters, Belmont; chaplain, A. L. Halbert, Belmont. 

At present there are 16 posts in the county, and their numbers, names 
and locations are as follows: No. 86, A. K. Thorji Post. Belfast; 183, Stephen 
T. Bartle Post, Cuba; 195, Revere Post. Belmont; 237, Burnside Post, 
Wiscoy; 241, Hatch Post, Friendship; 247, H. C. Gardner Post, Bolivar; 249, 
Cassius Maxson Post, Richburg; 261. Hakes Post, Scio; 296, S. H. Weed 
Post, Canaseraga; 332, Wesley Rolfe Post, Stannards Corners; 333, Sawyer 
Post, WhitesviUe; 336, Dexter Post, Wellsville; 428, B. Frank Maxson Post, 
Alfred; 481, Edward Seaman Post, Andover; 502, Wilbur Haver Post, An- 
gelica; 603, A. & I. Van Nostrand Post, Short Tract. 

Woman's Relief Corps. — An auxiliary to the Grand Army of the Re- 
public, Woman's Relief Corps have been organized in many if not all of the 
counties of the state. The county of Allegany is not backward in this move- 
ment, as by the following list of names and presidents of corps, it appears 
that 12 out of the 16 i3osts of the county have their auxiliary organizations. 
No. 19, Dexter, Wellsville, Rosella H. Boyd; 49, Stephen T. Bartle, Cuba, 
Eunice Thompson; 54, H. C. Gardner, Bolivar, Etta Dunning; 67, Sawyer, ^ 
WhitesviUe, Augusta Forsyth; 68, Cassius Maxson, Richburg, Mary R. 
King; 69, Wesley Rolfe, Stannards Corners, Vina L. Krusen; 90, Hatch, 
Friendship, Eliza Benjamin; 95, Wilbur Haver, Angehca, Mary O. Blanch- 
ard; 155, Ed. Seaman, Andover, Frances Boyd; 161, B. Frank Maxson, 
Alfred, DeEtte Place; 169, O. & I. Van Nostrand, Short Tract, Hattie E. 
Hall; 173, A. K. Thorp, Belfast, Jennie A. Babcock. 



Prominent Organizations. 207 

Farmers' Alliance and Industrial Union. — The first organiza- 
tion of this character in the state was organized at Richburg. April 3, 1890. 
The next was formed at Inavale, also in Wirt, April 17, 1890, by D. Frank 
Allen the state organizer. June 3, 1890, a temporary organization of the 
county was formed at Friendship with 13 Sub-Alliances. July 8, 1890, the 
permanent organization of the county was perfected with these officers: 
S. L. Stanton, president; J. D. Rogers, vice president; George A. Scott, 
secretary; D. C. Millis, treasurer; Dennis Barnes, lecturer. Through the 
efforts of Mr. Allen, assisted by secretary Scott, the order was established 
in every town of the county by the spring of 1891, when there were 80 Sub- 
Alliances, with more than 5,000 members. The county has ever since re- 
tained its place as the banner county of the state in Alliance work. Several 
co-operative stores have been established by the order, which has been the 
means of saving thousands of dollars to its members. Several halls have 
been built, notably Sherman Alliance, No. 2. Hall, at Inavale, which, together 
with the sheds and other property, is valued at upwards of $1,000. Much 
benefit has been derived from the social and educational features of this 
order, as no other organization has ever attained so great a membership or 
reached the same class of people. Present officers of the County Alliance 
are: John C. Powers, president; S. L. Stanton, vice president; M. C. West- 
cott, secretary and treasurer; D. F. Allen, lecturer. 

The Allegany County Farmers' Club. — Owing to the loss of the 
records of this club uj) to two years ago, this account can not be given as 
much in detail and particulars, as might be desired. From information 
gained from Mr. A. W. Litchard and one or two others, we learn this: 

It was organized in February, 1883, at the court house in Angelica. The 
attendance was not large, but energetic, wide-awake, enterprising elements 
were present and well represented. Mr. Hiram Karr of West Almond was 
elected its first president, and Joseph H. Rutherford of Angelica its first sec- 
retary. Meetings were held during the year at different places, and con- 
siderable interest awakened. In 1884, William Weaver of Angelica was 
made president, and the membership of the club considerably increased. 
Mrs. M. L. Rumpff of Angelica was this year, or the next, made secretary, 
and published the proceedings regularly in her paper, Every Week, which 
became an organ of the society, and continued as such for six or seven years, 
during her incumbency of the oftice. She was succeeded by J. F. Coad of 
Cuba, and Mr. Charles Stillman of Alfred, the present secretary, succeeded 
Mr. Coad about 1893. In 1885 David H. Norton of Friendship, was elected 
president, and the interest in the meetings kept on increasing. In 1886, W. 
D. Renwick of Friendship was president, and in 1887, Wm. McClumpha, also 
of Friendship. In 1888 Almanzo W. Litchard of Rushford was elected 
president, and has been re-elected every year since. Meetings are held 
every month, most of the towns in the county being visited. Great interest 
had been worked up, and the meetings are well attended. The membership 



208 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

is now over 1,000. A number of farmers' institutes have been held, which 
have been well attended, instruction being given by lectures, illustrated and 
otherwise, by expert scientists employed by the state. The information 
imparted has been of a practical nature, and of great advantage. It would 
be difficult to properly estimate the value the club has been to the agricul- 
turists of the county. Its president, Mr. A. W. Litchard, has lately been 
designated as an instructor at the institutes, and in point of intelligence and 
solid worth the membership of this club is excelled by none in the state. 
During the presidency of Mr. Norton, the late A. N. Cole extended a formal 
invitation to this club and the Elmira Farmers' Club, to visit him at his Home 
on the Hillside at Wellsville, during the strawberry season. The invitation 
was accepted and the two clubs visited Mr. Cole, feasted on strawberries 
and cream, and experienced a royal good time generally. This was a great 
advertisement for the club and helped largely to direct public attention to 
its proceedings. At the present time the discussions are published in full 
regularly in many of our county papers, and are very instructive and use- 
ful. The club has been a grand success. " May its shadow never grow 
less! " 

The Allegany County Farmers' Co-operative Insurance Com- 
pany was organized in April, 1887, with A. W. Miner, of Friendship, presi- 
dent, L. M. Wait, of Friendship, treasurer, and J. H. Rutherford, of Angelica, 
secretary. Mr. Rutherford has been the secretary from organization. 
President Miner was succeeded in turn by Herman Rice, and A. W. Litchard, 
the present incumbent, and Mr. Wait has been continued treasurer. The 
company is now insuring the property of its members to the extent of 
$5,000,000. The directors are A. W. Litchard, Rushford; Charles F. Moul- 
ton, Cuba; Lorenzo M. Wait, Friendship; James L. Crittenden, Whitesville; 
John E. Middaugh, Scio; R. Emmet Middaugh, Friendship; Walter L. Rew, 
Friendship; Alonzo H. Hooker, Angelica; R. J. Brockett, Angelica; E. D. 
Barry, Almond; Wm. E. Pierson. Fillmore; Ebenezer S. Bartlett. Belfast; 
J. B. Sayres, Black Creek; Will H. Langworthy, Alfred; Joseph H. Ruther- 
ford, Angelica. 

The Allegany County Historical Society. — Pursuant to notice 
published in the county papers, these gentlemen assembled at the office of 
(then) Judge-elect S. M. Norton in Friendship, December 6, 1889, for the 
purpose of organizing a county historical society: Richard Church, J. S. 
Minard, W. D. Renwick, Evander E. Hyde. Stephen Pollard, J. P. Rice, Prof. 
John P. Slocum, L. M. Wait, Herman Rice, Elmer E. Peterson. W. N. Ren- 
wick, S. M. Norton and Geo. W. Fries. S. M. Norton was made temporary 
chairman, and W. N. Renwick temporary secretary. J. S. Minard moved 
that the secretary read the constitution and by-laws of the Buffalo Historical 
Society, for information and suggestions sought for. It was carried. A 
motion made by Herman Rice, that J. S. Minard be made president of the 



Prominent Organizations. 209 

permanent organization, was seconded by W. D. Renwick and carried. Mr. 
Minard took the chair, thanking the meeting for the honor conferred upon 
him. A motion of Major Church that George W. Fries be made permanent 
corresponding and recording secretary was carried. Mr. Herman Rice was 
elected treasurer and Richard Church first vice-president. President 
Minard then appointed a committee of three, John P. Slocum of AngeHca, 
Stephen Polland of Wellsville, and W. D. Renwick of Friendship, to draft 
and report a constitution and by-laws. The committee on constitution and 
by-laws were instructed to make the call and name the time and place of the 
next meeting for some time in January, 1890, and the meeting adjourned. 

The next meeting was held on the 8th of January, 1890, at the office of 
D. P. Richardson in Angelica. The committee reported a constitution and 
by-laws which were adopted, and a general discussion of objects to be sought 
and methods to be pursued, was had, much interest being manifested. In 
the evening a public meeting was held at the courthouse, and the Hon. Nor- 
man Seymour of Mt. Morris, delivered an address appropriate to the occa- 
sion, and president Jno. S. Minard delivered his inaugural address. These 
were published in the Friendship Register, and the latter one in the Northern. 
Allegany Observer at Fillmore. The meeting was regarded as a success, 
though it was not largely attended. No more meetings of the society were 
held until the near approach of the centennial of the settlement of Allegany 
county infused zeal into some of its members. It was thought by many 
that the Centennial, if celebrated, would stimulate to life and activity the 
Historical Society, while others holding to the same views, also considered 
that the celebration should be conducted under the auspices of the society. 
And so, a call being published in the county papers to that effect, a meeting 
was held at the courthouse in Belmont, in October, 1894, at which the matter 
was brought up. This meeting was well attended. A delegation of the 
ladies of the Belmont Literary and Historical Society was present, and, 
through Mrs. Hamilton Ward, its president, very graciously offered the 
Historical Society the use of its hall for meetings and a room in which to 
keep relics, curios, etc. This offer was as thankfully accepted, as it was 
graciously made. The celebration of the centennial of Allegany's settlement 
was taken up, and the idea being generally entertained that such a celebra- 
tion should be held under the auspices of the society, the president was 
directed to appoint a committee of five to name the time and place for such 
celebration. This meeting was very pleasantly entertained by the reading 
of interesting papers written by Dr. E. E. Hyde, on "Early Times in and 
around Belmont," and by Mr. H. D. Kingsbury, ex-president of the Livings- 
ton County Historical Society, on Historical Societies. 

In January, 1895, the annual meeting of the society was held at Ward 
Hall, Belmont, when the old officers were re-elected except treasurer, and 
W. J. Richardson of Belmont, elected treasurer in place of Herman Rice, 
deceased. At the evening session, a public meeting, the secretary read a 
paper written by S. A. Earley, Esq., of Wellsville, on "Our Early Schools," 



210 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

and the president read a paper on ' ' The Caneadea Reservation and some 
Indians of the Upper Genesee." 

No meetings have since been held. Quite a number of presents have 
been made to the society in the way of historical relics, and a good nucleus 
of a valuable museum has been made. The present officers are Jno. S. 
Minard, Fillmore, president; Richard Church, New York City, vice presi- 
dent; Geo. W. Fries, Friendship, corresponding and recording secretary; 
W. J. Richardson, Belmont, treasurer, and Stephen PoUand, Belmont, 
custodian. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 



MEDICAL SOCIETIES AND PHYSICIANS 



FROM the days of Hippocrates the j^ractice of medicine has been consid- 
ered useful and honorable, and classed with the learned professions. 
To be a successful practitioner of the "healing art " calls into exercise the 
keenest faculties and most commendable attributes of human nature. 
Especially is this true of the doctor in a new country. Remote from the 
centers of civilization and of civilizing influences, his neighbors in some in- 
stances the rude Indians who lingered in the reservations, in others the 
venturesome, though as a rule shiftless, squatters, who, in many cases, 
preceded the advent of the earliest permanent settler, his nearest contem- 
porary in the profession dwelling quite likely 75 to 100 miles away, and that 
distance mostly covered by unbroken wilderness, depending upon malarial 
conditions, and diseases peculiar to new countries to furnish him with 
patients from families widely scattered and homes which could boast of 
nothing over and above the absolute necessities of life, the pioneer jjhysician 
of Allegany had certainly a hard time of it. That man, according to all 
accounts, was Dr. Ebenezer Hyde, who, born in 1777, studied medicine with 
his cousin, Zenas Hyde, at New Marlboro, Mass., graduating about 1795. He 
came here in 1801, and settled with his family at Belvidere in 1805. He had 
an extended practice for 40 years, and was, until 1831, the only physician in 
Amity. He died in 1858, his wife in 1854. His commodious log house was 
the first hotel of the town, and was the home of the pioneers. He has many 
descendants in this county. Some of the Indians on the Caneadea Reserva- 
tion were his best j)aying patrons, for it is a fact that for some years the 
Indians had more money than the whites. 

It is perhaps proper to state right here that the Senecas had their 
"medicine men." Shongo {Gah-nee- son-go) was one and Mohawk another, 
and while, after the coming and settlement of the first white physician, the 



Medical Societies and Physicians. 211 

Indians in some instances sought medical advice and treatment of the pale- 
faced doctor, it is equally true that some of the whites consulted "Dr." 
Shongo and "Dr." Mohawk. Persons are living who have known of Mo- 
hawk's visit to Friendship to see a sick man, he going twenty miles from his 
residence in Hume. To give a slight idea of the rude and primitive methods 
of treatment of these " Indian doctors " this incident is related. A settler 
received an injury on his back which resulted in a bad sore. Some friends 
persuaded him to go to Shongo lor help. He did so. Shongo was found. 
A number of people were present. Assuming a profoundly wise look Shongo 
ordered the clothing removed from the back of the patient and closely ex- 
amined the sore. Quickly gathering some dry punk- wood, he ordered the 
man to lie face down on the ground. Then, rubbing the punk- wood in his 
hands directly over the sore, he soon covered it with the dry powder. Or- 
dering a strong man to each hand and foot, and telling them to "hold him 
strong," with steel and flint he ignited the jDunk which immediately took 
fire and made it extremely uncomfortable for the patient. He yelled and 
screamed in a frightful manner, trying his best to wrench himself from the 
relentless grasp of the men who, obeying Shongo's orders to "hold him! 
hold him! " uttered in tones of thunder, did indeed hold him as in a vise. 
When the punk was consumed the man was allowed to rise, then Shongo 
blew away the fine ashes from the sore, re-examined it, and with an air of 
triumph said, in effect, "I can cure burns. " He then gave something to 
apply to the sore and it was soon healed. 

On some visits to distant patients Dr. Hyde was accompanied by an In- 
dian guide. At other times he carried an axe with which to " browse " his 
horse and " spot " trees to guide his way back, and often, detained by storms 
and swollen streams, he was forced to spend the night in the woods on beds 
improvised from hemlock boughs. The Genesee and its tributaries were 
great hindrances to the early physicians. No bridges had been constructed 
and "fording" and the canoe in summer, and the ice in winter were the 
only means of crossing the streams. The usual mode of travel was on horse- 
back, with saddlebags containing a small stock of medicine thrown over the 
doctor's saddle. These remedies were few in number. Rhubarb, jalap, 
calomel, salts, were the stajjles and were greatly depended upon. Emetics 
were frequently given, and bloodletting often resorted to. The inevitable 
turnkey was always at hand, and the lance for bleeding in the vest pocket, 
and it has been truly said that "• the instruments used in surgical operations, 
were often obtained from the chest of a carpenter or manufactured by the 
nearest blacksmith." "The distance from the centers of medical knowl- 
edge and their infrequent opportunities for consultation comjielled them to 
rely almost wholly upon their own resources," and so, of necessity, they 
were men of great self reliance, and ax)t in emergencies. 

For some years Dr. Hyde had the entire ride of a large extent of country, 
his visits extending as far north as Wyoming county and south into Penn- 
sylvania. In 1809 he opened his large log house (on the site of the residence 



212 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

of S. H. Whitcomb, Esq.) as a public house, it being on the line of travel to 
the great West, the route of the famous turnpike. Dr. E. E. Hyde is 
authority for the statement that over 100 horses, and a corresponding num- 
ber of men, women, children, wagons and carts loaded with household goods, 
etc., have been entertained at once. 

About 1812 or 13 Dr. Hyde was informed that Dr. Dyer Strong had 
settled in Rushford, (then Caneadea) and, not far from the same time, that 
Dr. and Rev. Jabez Spicer had "hung out his shingle " in Andover, (then 
Alfred). In 1822 Dr. Gilbert B. Champlain settled in Cuba, and in 1823 Dr. 
Joseph Balcom established himself at Hume, and a little later Dr. Seth H. 
Pratt, in Hume also. As early as this, too, had Dr. Charles D. Robinson 
begun practice in Almond, and in 1825 Drs. Anthony Barney, Jonas Well- 
man and Richard Charles had located respectively in Independence, Bolivar 
and Angelica. And thus it came to pass that Dr. Hyde at last had profess- 
ional neighbors. When great emergencies are to be met and great questions 
solved God sends the men fitted to meet and solve them. And so when a 
new country is being settled a hardy robust stalwart class of doctors are 
required, and in our case the requisition was promptly honored by the 
appearance of the stalwart pioneers just named. It is doubtful if ever a 
new country was supplied with better physicians than was Allegany county. 
They were an honor to their profession, a boon to the afdicted, and their 
posterity point with just pride to their records and careers. 

The diseases peculiar to the new country were largely fevers caused by 
the malaria evolved in "clearing" of land and consequent exposure of 
swales and marshes to evaporation. Along the Genesee river fever and 
ague were quite prevalent. Many cases of goitre were found along the 
river. Indeed Elisha Johnson, a very observing man, who in 1807 was 
employed to subdivide the Cottringer Tract, speaks of the Indians and some 
of the few white squatters as being afflicted with "swelled necks," which 
he ascribes to the "atmospherical conditions." Very much shade and but 
little exposure to sunlight, a very crooked stream with a proportionately 
large expanse of water surface, made heavy and lasting fogs. Under such 
conditions sickness prevailed and many found a grave. By the time the 
Genesee Valley canal was completed, say from 1840 to 1845, ague and its 
accompanying fever had measurably disappeared, but, upon the completion 
and opening of the canal, this disease re-appeared, and for a while was again 
quite prevalent for some time. It again appeared in quite a number of cases 
when the canal was " bottomed out " about 1850. A case of fever and ague 
is now seldom met with. 

During the last half century the medical profession of Allegany has 
been represented by a multitude of practitioners, many of whom will only 
be remembered by name, while others have been so thoroughly identified 
with the growth and progress of our county, and been so devoted to the 
successful practice of their chosen profession as to become a part and parcel 
of its history. Among these, Drs. Stephen Maxson, Calvin Allen, H. H. 



Medical Societies and Physicians. 213 

Nye, John R. Hartshorn, Wm. M. Smith, H. H. Lyman, Wm. A. Stacy, 
Archibald Morris, John H. and Chas. W. Saunders, C. M. Crandall, A. E. 
Willard. It is presumed that other names should be added; the reader may 
supply them. The profession of medicine in Allegany still has " bright and 
shining lights ' ' who rank in point of ability and proficiency fully up to the 
attainments of those of our sister counties. 

Allegany County Medical Society. — It is a matter of regret that 
the records of the original Allegany County Medical Society have not been 
preserved. If tire has not consumed them they may yet be found in some 
dusty old attic among the cobwebs and accumulated dust of three-fourths 
of a century, long after this work has gone to press and all chance of profit- 
ing by the lights they would doubtless reveal has gone forever. Dr. A. E. 
Willard, the secretary of the present organization, has none of its records 
nor is he able to afford any information concerning it, and so the personal 
recollections of the late Dr. Stephen Maxson of Cuba, which were relied 
upon by the historians of 1879, afford the only glimpse we are able to get 
of the old society. He says that an Allegany County Medical Society existed 
as early as 1827, and Dr. Richard Charles was then its president, and Dr. 
Jonas Wellman of Friendship secretary. On its membership list were found 
the names of Drs. Lorenzo Dana, Jonas Wellman and Asa Lu Davidson of 
Frienship, Dr. G. B. Champlain of Cuba, Dr. John T. Hyde of Amity, Dr. 
Wm. A. Stacy of Centerville, Dr. S. H. Pratt of Hume, Drs. CoUins and 
Cady of Alfred, Dr. Horatio Smith of Rushford, Dr. Gilmore of Nunda, Drs. 
Minard and Capron of Pike. Drs. Gregg and Faucet of Angelica, Dr. Wm. 
Smith of Rushford, Dr. Bell of Alfred and Dr. Stephen Maxson of Cuba 
were later members. Among those who served as president were. Dr. 
Richard Charles, Dr. Enoch K. Maxson, Dr. G. B. Champlain, Dr. Lorenzo 
Dana and Dr. Stephen Maxson. 

The organization of the present society occurred at a meeting held at 
the Charles Hotel in Angelica, June 15, 1854, and attended by Richard 
Charles, Archibald Morris, H. H. Nye, Brayton Babcock, Charles D. Robin- 
son, Norman N. Smith, W. Byrns, E. M. Alba, H. H. Lyman, Matthias Bur- 
ton, John H. Saunders, CM. Crandall, G.N. King, William B. Alley, A. B. 
Stewart, J. W. Black, WiUiam M. McCall. Dr. McCall presided and Dr. 
Alley was secretary. Drs. Richard Charles and E. M. Alba were apjiointed 
to draft a constitution and by-laws and the meeting adjourned to the 11th 
of July, 1854, when the constitution and by-laws were reported and adopted, 
and Dr. Richard Charles elected president. Dr. E. M. Alba, secretary, Dr. 
C M. CrandaU, treasurer, and Dr. W. Byrns, librarian. Hon. Lucien P. 
Wetherby was elected attorney and Drs. A. Morris, H. H. Nye, C. D. Robin- 
son, and N. M. Smith named as censors. Drs. William B. Alley, B. Bab- 
cock, G. N. King, J. H. Saunders and E. M. Alba, were appointed to prepare 
a "fee bill." At the next meeting (at Phillips ville, in September, 1854,) the 
following was adopted : 



214 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Whereas all kinds of produce and property necessary for the use of our families and prose- 
cution of our business have advanced very much in price during the last few years, and where- 
as, a corresponding advancement has taken place in all kinds of labor, it is deemed just and 
proper for this society to make a corresponding advance in the price of their services; more 
especially as the present prices are far below those of adjoining counties; therefore, Resolved, 
That this society adopt the following fee bill to take effect immediately: 

Day visits in village, 50 to 75 cents; day visits over i and under 2 miles, $1; travel fees every additional 
mile, 25 cents, (night visits add 100 per cent.); Consultation visits, (travel fees extra) $2 to $5; Detention per 
hour, 25 to 50 cents; Prescription and medicine in office common case, 50 cents; Obstetric fees, natural labor 
not over twelve hours duration, $5, (over 3 miles from home travel fees extra); When arriving afterbirth of 
child and before expulsion of placenta, $4; When arriving after delivery complete, $2.50; Instrumental labor 
and turning, $10; Consultation, $5 to $10. 

Surgical Fees. — Reducing fracture of thigh bone, $10 to $20; All other fractures or dislocations, $5 to 
$10; Subsequent dressings, $1 to $3; Amputation of thigh or leg, $25 to $100; Amputation of arm or fore- 
arm, $20 to $25, All other amputations, $5 to $10, Ligation of arteries, $5 to $50; Trephining, $10 to $25; 
Operation for strabismus, $5 to $15; Excising both tonsils, $5; Paracentesis abdomen, $5; Paracentesis thoracis, 
$10; Operation for cure of hydrocele, $5; Reducing strangulated hernia by toxis, $2 to $5; Reducing strangu- 
lated hernia by cutting, $25; Larynxotomy and traucheotomy, $15; Amputation of breast, $25; Castration, 
$15; Extizpating tumors, $2 to $25; Removing hemorrhoids, $5 to $10; Rhinoplastic operation, $5 to $50; 
Lithotomy, $50; Club foot, $5 to $50; Consulting surgical cases, (traveling fees extra) $3 to $10; Assisting in 
surgical operation, $5 to 15: Introducing catheter, $1 to $2; Dressing wound in office, 50 cents to $5; Cupping 
50 cents to $1; Leeching, $1 to $2; Venesection, 25 cents; Extracting tooth, 25 cents; Opening abscess, 25 
cents to $2; Prescription and medicine in venereal cases (always in advance) $2 to $5. 

"At the March (1855) meeting held at the Charles Hotel Angelica, Dr. 
William B. Alley delivered an address on the 'Prosperity and position of 
the medical profession in Allegany county, ' Dr. Crandall related an interest- 
ing case of rupture of the uterus, Dr. Alba spoke of a case of monstrosity, 
and Pres. Charles delivered his annual address, subject, 'Quackery.' The 
June meeting in 1858 seems to have been a veritable ' red-letter ' day. It 
was held at the residence of Dr. Wm. B. Alley in Angelica, Drs. Alba, Alley, 
Burton, Crandall, Davidson, Nye, Morris, Pearse, Parker, Purple, Smith, 
Sabin and Wylie with their wives were present. The president read an 
address, and after dinner a variety of toasts and speeches were oifered and 
made by Drs. Crandall, Morris. Nye, Smith, Burr and others. Dr. Smith 
exhibited a very interesting pathological specimen of diseased stomach." 
These extracts from the "proceedings " have been made to give an idea of 
its purpose and work. 

Meetings of the society were held quite regularly. Belmont, Belvidere, 
Friendship and Wellsville, besides Angelica, being visited. From June, 
1859, to March, 1864, there appears no record of meetings. At the latter 
time a special meeting was held at Belvidere, steps taken towards a revision 
of the fee bill; and from that time (March, 1861,) a sort of Rip VanWinkle 
sleep seems to have come over the society and its members, which lasted 
until Jan. 15, 1873, when a special meeting was held at Belmont. The record 
of this meeting speaks of "President O. T. Stacy in the chair." Evidently 
some records have been lost. From 1873 the organization has been kept up, 
and, judging from the records, a good degree of interest excited and main- 
tained. Delegates are chosen to represent the society at the meetings of 
the State Medical Society held in Albany every winter. 



Medical Societies and Physicians. 215 

The presidents have been: Drs. Richard Charles, 1854-4; C. M. Crandall. 
1856-7; Archibald Morris, 1858-9; O. T. Stacy, 1872; Wm. M. Smith, 1873; 
Stephen Maxson, 1874; H. P. Saunders, 1875; J. H. Saunders, 1876; E. H. 
WiUard, 1877; C. W. Saunders, 1878; W. W. Crandall, 1879; J. L. Cutler, 
1880; H. H. Nye, 1881; Otis Allen, 1882; G. C. McNett, 1883; W.W. Crandall, 
1884; M. B. Titus, 1885; M. E. VanDuzen, 1886; G. H. Witter, 1887; H. A. 
Place; 1888; F. C. Davie, 1889; Mark Shepard, 1890; C. C. Deming, 1891; 
H. A. Barney, 1892; J. W. Coller, 1893; Geo. E. Burdick, 1894; H. E. Cooley, 
1895. The secretaries have been: Drs. E. M. Alba, 1854-59; C. W. Saun- 
ders. 1873; F, J. Baker, 1874-76; O. L. Barney, 1877-79; A. E. Willard. 1880- 
95. The treasurers have been: Drs. C. M. Crandall, 1854-5; Archibald 
Morris, 1856-7; Wm. B. AUey, 1858-9; H. P. Saunders, 1873; F. J. Baker, 
1874-6. From 1876 the offices of treasurer and secretary have been held by 
the same person. The attorneys have been: Lucien P Wetherby, 1854-5; 
Green & Kendall, 1856-7; Z. A. KendaD, 1858; D. P. Richardson, 1873-79; 
S. M. Norton, 1880-1; C. A. Farnam, 1882; F. A. Robbins. 1883; F. B. Church, 
1884-88; S. M. Norton, 1889; Joseph F. Rice, 1890-95. 

The society at present, as it has in the past, includes in its membership 
the wide-awake, enterprising, up-to-date practioners of the county. The 
members are: Otis Allen Cuba, H. A. Barney Belmont, C. R. Bowen Almond, 
George E. Burdick Alfred Station, J. W. Coller Wellsville, F. E. Comstock 
Andover, Mrs. A. M. Congdon Cuba, H. E. Cooley Angelica, W. W. Crandall 
Wellsville. A. J. Remington Whitesville, Dorr Cutler Bolivar, J. L. Cutler 
Bolivar, F. C. Davie Oneonta, C. C. Deming Friendship, H. F. GiUette Cuba, 
S. W. Green Richburg, W. I. Hewitt Clean, O. N. Latham Bohvar, G. C. Mc- 
Nett Bath, Charles W. O'Donnell Andover, H. A. Place Ceres, H. P. Saun- 
ders Alfred, Mark Sheppard Alfred, F. N. Smith Allentown, William M. 
Smith (Angelica) New York, C. R. Spencer Angelica, O. T. Stacy Rochester, 
T. S. Thomas Cuba, M. B. Titus Whitesville, W. F. Wells Rushford, J. P. 
Bixby Rushford, A. E. Willard Friendship, G. H. Witter Wellsville, C. N. 
Hammond Angelica, W. G. Mortimer Cuba, Fred T. Koyle Wellsville, E. W. 
Ayers Richburg, O. E. Burdick Little Genesee. 

Amity. — Dr. Ebenezer Hyde was the first physician. Succeeding him 
came Drs. Gorham, E. A. Potter, Andrews, Erastus Willard, Randall Reed 
(who had many students and doubtless a large practice), A. B. Case, Ben- 
jamin and John Norton, E. E. Hyde. Archibald Morris, C. G.Anderson, 
Andrew Stout. Francis N. Smith, Charles H. Sharp, A. L. Simons and wife, 
Dr. Brooks, James Hewitt, H. A. Barney, George McNett and others. E. 
E. Crandall (physio medico), I. P. Truman, W. K. Paul, W. J. Hardy have 
practiced homeopathic and C. B. Newton has used botanic remedies.* 

Benjamin Norton, M. D., was born in 1819, at Easton, N. Y., was 
graduated from Castleton, Vt., Medical College, and practiced medicine 
over 40 years in Belmont. He held various offices, was county physician 15 

* For above list we are indebted to Dr. E. E. Hyde. 



216 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

years, supervisor and postmaster at Belmont from 1890 till his death, Oct. 
3, 1893. 

John Norton, M. D., son of Francis, was born in Sandy Hill, Washington 
Co., Sept. 8, 1827. In 1832 his father moved to Allegany county, and settled at 
Amity. John Norton, after attendance at common schools, received the 
advantages of Alfred University, then studied medicine with Dr. Randall 
Reed of Amity. He was graduated at Cleveland (Ohio) Medical College in 
1851 and settled first at Hinsdale, Catt. Co. In 1854 he located at Belmont 
where he died in 1887. He married Caroline, daughter of William Van 
Campen, who survives him. 

Ebenezer E. Hyde, M. D., youngest son of Dr. Ebenezer the pioneer, 
was born May 7, 1814, in Amity. He read medicine with Dr. Richard 
Charles and Dr. James D. Norton, attended lectures at Castleton, Vt., 
and in 1850 located as a physician in Scio. For 20 years he enjoyed a 
large practice, then failing health induced him to return to Amity where he 
gave little attention to medical practice. He married a daughter of Ebenezer 
Norton. Among his children are James M., clerk of the surrogate's court 
since 1890. 

Archibald Morris, M. D., son of Archibald Morris, Esq., was born in 
Scipio, Cayuga Co., May 7, 1819. His attention was attracted when but a 
youth to the brilliant private school conducted at Howard, Steuben Co., from 
1833 by that distinguished surgeon Abijah B. Case, M. D., and he became a 
student there, concluding his studies, however, and graduating as M. D. at 
Castleton, Vt. In 1843 he commenced medical practice in Burns in connec- 
tion with Dr. Robinson, still diligently pursuing his studies. About 1844 he 
located in Belmont and became known as an able and most successful physi- 
cian, acquiring an extended practice. He was connected with various medi- 
cal organizations, and was at one time president of the Allegany County 
Medical Society. He married a daughter of Alvan E. Parker, of Belmont, 
and is survived by his widow, her children and grandchildren. He died in 
Belmont, January 26, 1866. 

Charles G. Anderson, M. D., was born at Newfield, Tompkins Co., April 
5, 1834. Educated at Ithaca Academy and Alfred University, he was grad- 
uated from Geneva Medical College in 1860, and located in Granger. He 
was in practice there and at Wellsville until 1879 when he estabhshed him- 
self in Belmont, his present residence. In 1860 Dr. Anderson married Alzina 
M. Haskins of Granger. Their son, James H., born 1863, is a druggist in 
Belmont in company with his father. Dr. Anderson is a member of the 
Allegany Co. Medical Society. 

Edward E. Crandall, M. D., born in Chenango Co., N. Y., in 1829. (His 
father Asa settled in Ward in 1833.) He enhsted in Co. I, 85th Regt., and 
served 11 months as a soldier in the civil war. He graduated from Cincin- 
nati Medical College June 21, 1875, and located at Belmont in 1882. 



Medical Societies and Physicians. 217 

Lorenzo E. Norton was born in Belmont in 1848, a graduate from Belle- 
vue College in 1873, practiced a short time in Belmont, and removed to 
Michigan. 

Herbert A. Barney, M. D., son of Alvin C. Barney, was born in West 
Union, N. Y., December 1, 1865. He was educated at Alfred University and 
at the University of Michigan, and received his degree of M. D. from the 
Long Island College Hospital. March 9, 1888. After spending some time in 
the hospitals of Brooklyn and New York, he located in Belmont where he 
has since practiced his profession. He is a member of the Allegany County 
Medical Society and has twice been elected to the office of Coroner. In 1888 
he married Susie Evelyn, daughter of Daniel Ayers of Syracuse. 

William J. Hardy, M. D., born October 22, 1861, in New Germantown, N. 
J., graduated at N. Y. Homeopathic Medical College and Hospital in April, 
1889, and located in Belmont, June 10. 1889. 

Angelica. — When Capt. Philip Church made his settlement at Angelica 
the nearest physician was Doctor Niles away off in Steaben county, probably 
at Bath. So he brought along a medicine chest, and a copy of " Buchan's 
Family Medicine," and, occasionally after sjjecial reading, he would deal out 
remedies to his afflicted neighbors. But the settlement of Dr. Ebenezer 
Hyde at Belvidere in 1804 knocked out the captain's medicine chest. He of 
course was the first doctor who visited patients in the town. It is said that 
Dr. Ellis, whoever he may have been, was the first physician who made a 
permanent settlement here. Quite likely there were others who practiced 
in Angelica from the time of Dr. Ellis until the coming of Dr. Charles, but it 
has not been revealed to the writer who they were, except that one was Dr. 
Southwick, the son-in-law of Major Van Campen. 

The settlement of Dr. Richard Charles in Angelica in 1825 marked an 
era in the history of the medical profession in the county. He was so long, 
so generally and so favorably known by the many Alleganians to whom he 
became endeared by numberless acts of kindness, professionally and other- 
wise, that an extended sketch will be given. It is said that in hundreds of 
cases he made long journeys to visit families of poor pioneers, without the 
hope of fee or reward. His ears were never deaf to the appeals of the suffer- 
ing, nor his eyes closed to the visible wants of his fellow .men. For nearly 
half a century he was a successful practitioner, and an ornament to the pro- 
fession. Had he been less liberal and kind hearted he might have amassed 
great Avealth. His generous impulses prompted him to extend his aid and 
influence in support of those whom he deemed his friends, and twice he was 
compelled to commence tlie world anew, his means becoming exhausted in 
the payment of demands not his own, for which he had become holden. It 
was a satisfaction to his friends to know that, notwithstanding these reverses, 
his declining years were blessed with a competence. He was one of the 
founders, always a communicant, and for a long time a vestryman and 
warden of St. Paul's Church at Angelica. His death left a greatvoid in the 



218 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

ranks of the profession. " Dr. Richard Charles, M. D.* was a native of Bel- 
fast, Ireland, born May 24. 1800. He received his professional education at 
the medical departments of Dublin, Glasgow and New York City universities 
he took the deg-ree of Doctor of Medicine at Glasgow, and his attendance at 
lectures in New York city was for the purpose of studying the idiom of 
diseases in this country, as well as to acquire the practice adapted to their 
treatment. He had experience in hospital practice before coming to this 
country. He was surgeon of the vessel that brought him to Quebec in 1821. 
From Quebec he came to Buffalo where he was taken sick with a protracted 
and dangerous fever, and, upon his recovery, he settled in Almond, and 
practiced in company with Dr. Burnham and afterwards with Dr. Asal E. 
Davidson. After three years passed in these co-partnerships, he removed to 
Angelica in 1825. and took the practice of Dr. South wick. He remained in 
Angelica until his death in 1863 at 63 years of age. From the superiority of 
his professional acquirements he gained a large and extended practice, often 
being caUed to Buffalo to treat difficult cases of disease, and as far east as 
Elmira and Bath and to other neighboring and distant places in Western New 
York. His superior education and professional skill was a generally 
acknowledged fact. In his addresses and manners he was a typical gentle- 
man of the old school. He was a courageous and truthful practitioner, and 
had the admiration and confidence of his patients, as well as of the general 
public. He was a strong adherent of the code of ethics governing the moral 
conduct of his confreres to each other and to their patients, thereby main- 
taining a high standard for the scientific and philanthropic profession. He 
was a member of New York State Medical Society. He experienced the 
trials common to the near pioneer period of Western New York, but, with a 
strong physique and determined purj^ose, he was equal to the hard labor and 
dangers besetting men in that period of primitive forests, when the road- 
ways admitted of transportation on horseback only. He lived to see his 
adopted county of Allegany one of the foremost grazing counties in the state 
and an influential power in state and general politics, with several academies 
and a university of learning, dying at Angelica, April 24, 1863." 

Dr. Charles D. Robinson practiced for a while in Angelica removing to 
Almond about 1847- He was an accomplished physician, afterward settling 
in Hornellsville, where he died. 

Drs. Wallace and Bell were early physicians. Dr. Wm. S. Todd, home- 
opathist, was in practice here many years, and held in high esteem by 
many people. Drs. N. M. Smith, John Charles and Dr. Bemus later came, 
and Drs. Wm. B. AUey and E. M. Alba were here as long ago as 1854-5. Dr. 
Alley was elected county clerk in 1855, and he died in Nunda a few years 
ago, where he had later been in practice. Dr. Alba was a bright, energetic 
young man, who removed to Pennsylvania. Soon after the death of Dr 
Charles, Dr. Wm. M. Smith came to Angehca. 

* By J. S. Jamison, M. D. 



Medical Societies and Physicians. 219 

William M. Smith, M. D.. was born in Paterson, N. J., July 18, 1825. 
His father removed to Granger in 1830 and William, after graduating at 
"the peoples college" attended the old Middlebury Academy and the 
Genesee Wesleyan Seminary at Lima, N. Y. He taught school several 
terms, read medicine in Massachusetts and graduatedat Castleton, Vt., Med- 
ical College in 1840. He began practice at Short Tract, but in five years re- 
moved to Cayuga county, remaining two years, then returned to Short Tract. 
He was chosen supervisor of Granger in 1850. and in November, 1850, was 
elected to the Assembly and was again elected in 1859. He was a delegate 
to the Republican National Convention of 1800, and in 1801 he recruited a 
company which became Company E. of the 85th N. Y. He was commis- 
sioned surgeon of the 85th, with rank from Oct. 1, 1801, served with the 
Army of the-Potomac during McClellan's campaign, and May 2, 1803, was ap- 
pointed by the president to the regular army service. Imperative duties at 
home however compelled him to decline the appointment and resign his 
commission. Upon his return he removed to Angelica where he engaged in 
an extensive practice. January 1, 1873, he was commissioned surgeon gen- 
eral, with the rank of brigadier general, on the staif of Gov. Dix. March 24, 
1880, he was appointed by Gov. A. B. Cornell, health officer of the port of 
New York, which position he filled with great credit and for a longer term 
than any other incumbent, holding the office for 12 years. He is now resid- 
ing in Brooklyn. 

Dr. A. W. Smith a brother of Dr. Wm. M., was one of his immediate 
successors. A Dr. Van Dusen soon after practiced for a while, and a Dr. 
Mitchell, homeopathist, also Dr. W. K. Paul of the same school. 

Dr. William S. Todd was born in Hyde Park, Dutchess county, July 12, 
1819. He studied medicine with Drs. Coan and Bolton of Ovid. He was 
graduated at Hobart Medical College, Geneva, N. Y. , in 1849. He practiced 
his profession in Angelica and died July 20, 1887. Myron A. Todd. M. D. , 
son of Dr. William and Prances M. Todd, was born in Ovid, Feb. 11, 1847. 
He studied medicine with his father, was graduated from the Homeopathic 
Hospital College at Cleveland, Ohio, in 1870. He married Annie Ackerland, 
of Titusville, Pa., and now practices at Bradford, Pa. 

Benjamin C. Wakely, M. D. , son of H. H. Wakely, was born March 7, 
1854. He was educated at Genesee Valley Seminary, Belfast, and Ten 
Broeck Academy, Franklinville, and at Buffalo University Medical College, 
where he was graduated in 1870, and located that year in Angelica, where he 
was in practice until 1891, when he removed to Hornellsville.- 

About 1878-80 came Dr. Frank C. Davie, who was born in Bolivar in 
1850, and graduated June 22, 1870, from the Long Island Medical College 
Hospital, previously studying and graduating in medicine at the University 
of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Dr. Davie had a good practice, but two or three 
years ago removed to Oneonta. 



220 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

The three resident physicians of AngeUca at present are comparatively 
young men, well equipped for their j^rofessional work, they are: 

C. R. Spencer, M. D., who was born in Yates county, in 1861, re- 
ceived his education at the common schools and Genesee Wesleyan Seminary 
at Lima. He attended lectures at the medical department of the University 
at Buffalo, from which he graduated in 1891. and soon after located at An- 
gelica, where he has been physician to the county almshouse. 

C. N. Hammond, M. D., was born at Leroy, Pa., August 17. 1848, of Eng- 
lish and Scotch-Irish extraction. The celebrated Dr. Wm. A. Hammond is 
a member of the same large family. Educated at the village school, he be- 
gan teaching at 18 and taught for 13 terms. He studied medicine later while 
he was a travelling salesman, attended the College of Physicians and Sur- 
geons of Baltimore, finishing at the University of New York in 1887. He is 
now vice president of the Allegany County Medical Society. 

Halsey E. Cooley, M. D,, was born in East Fayette, Seneca county, 
June 3, 1867. He took an academic course and read medicine at Geneva, 
and with Dr. F. D. Pierce at Union Springs, and graduated from the med- 
ical department of the University of Buffalo, March 24, 1891. He began 
practice in Belfast and settled in Angelica in 1894. 

Andover. — It is said that Rev. Jabez Spicer who was also a physician, 
was the first to practice medicine here. The exact date of his settlement 
is not known, but it must have been very early. This is related of him: 
Receiving an urgent call to visit a patient, just as he was beginning his 
usual Sunday sermon he announced that the meeting would stand adjourned 
for two hours, and "straddling" his horse he went several miles, visited 
his patient, returned and resumed the services where they had been dropped. 
Succeeding Dr. Spicer came Dr. Joel French, and Thaddeus Baker, M. D., 
was the third. 

Thaddeus Baker, M. D. (son of Thaddeus Baker,) was born in Poultney, 
Rutland Co., Vt., 1806, and came with his father to Andover in 1807. Mr. 
Baker, Sen. , located 400 acres of land where the village of Andover now 
stands, and resided till his death, in 1845, where Dr. Baker always lived. 
Dr. Baker was justice of the peace sixteen years and several years school 
inspector and town clerk. In 1835 he married Miss Sarah Spicer, of Ando- 
ver. He was a physician for 50 years. 

Dr. John J. Harmon was the next. John J. Harmon, M. D. , was born 
May 6, 1817, in Almond. He attended Alfred University and studied medi- 
cine with Drs. Hartshorn -and Rider. He was graduated from the Geneva 
Medical College in 1844, and located in Andover. He married Eliza A. Clark 
of Geneseo. He practised fifteen years and then relinquished practice. 
He was supervisor of Andover for several terms. He died June 18. 1884. 
Of their 7 children, ail but 2, Ahce (Mrs. C. N. Dolson of Hornellsville) and 
Miles of Andover, died in infancy. Mrs. Harmondied in the spring of 1895. 

Dr. Harmon was succeeded by Dr. W. W. Crandall, who, after a few 
years of extensive and successful practice, removed to WellsviUe. In 1872-3, 



Medical Societies and Physicians. 221 

Dr. Daniel Lewis, now of New York, and president of the State Board of 
Health, was associated with Dr. Crandall. 

Next was Edwin M. Stillman, M. D. , son of Daniel P., who was born in 
Almond, Dec. 12, 1841. He attended school at Alfred University, studied 
medicine with Dr. C. D. Robinson and Dr. W. W. Crandall in Andover and 
was graduated from the Buffalo Medical College in 1865. He practiced his 
profession 6 months in his native town, then came to Andover and 
was with Dr. W. W. Crandall 4 years, then practiced 6 years and a half in 
Alfred. In the fall of 1874, he returned to Andover where he has been in 
practice, and since 1879 has been in the drug business. He is a member of 
the County Medical Society, and is licensed by the State Board of Pharmacy. 
Dr. Stillman was postmaster of Andover 3 years, and town clerk two terms. 
He married Eliza, daughter of Menzo Bundy, and has one child, Ada M. , the 
wife of A. B. Richardson. 

Albert Durand, M. D., located at Andover in 1855. He was surgeon of 
141st N. Y. S. V. He died in 1871. 

Norton P. Brainard, M. D.. son of Smith Brainard, was born June 14, 
1850, attended Richburg Academy, studied medicine with Dr. W. W. Cran- 
dall, was graduated from the medical department of the University of New 
York city in 1877, and commenced practice at Andover, where he is now 
located, in 1877. 

Francis E. Comstock, M. D., son of Martin L. Comstock, was born in 
Andover, Sept. 3, 1860. He studied with Dr. N. P. Brainard and was grad- 
uated from the University of New York and practiced 3 years in Andover. 
He passed the year 1886 in the London (Eng.) Hospital, then returned to 
Andover and in 1891 took apost-graduate course at Philadelphia, and has since 
practiced in Andover. In 1885, Dr. Comstock received a diploma from the 
State Pharmaceutical Association. He is a member of the County Medical 
Society, and Hornellsville Medical and Surgical Association, and of the lodge 
of F. & A. M., No. 558. Dr. Comstock married in 1883, Olive A., a daughter 
of Smith Brown of Wirt. Their children were. Rock L. and Mildred. Dr. 
Comstock married second. Miss Sarah E., daughter of Samuel F. Hanks of 
WeUsville, Nov. 27, 1895. 

C. W. O'Donnell, M. D., was born in Andover, Nov. 18, 1860. He at- 
tended Andover Union School, Alfred University, and in 1884 was graduated 
from the University of New York, and took a post graduate course at the 
New York Polytechnic Institute in 1890. He is a member of the County 
Medical Society, and Hornellsville Medical Association. In 1884 he formed 
a partnership with Dr. W. W. Crandall and was 3 years a student with him, 
and practiced nearly 3 years as his x^artner. Dr. O'Donnell is a member of 
the lodge of F. & A. M., No. 558. 

Alfred. — John Bowen CoUins was the third son of Stephen and Edith 
(Whaley) Collins, and grandson of John and Mehitabel Bowen Collins. Rhode 
Island Quakers. He was born in Brookfield, Madison county, July 30, 1794. 
With money earned by teaching, at an early age he entered the near- 



222 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

est academy, where he acquired the rudiments of Latin, algebra, natural 
philosophy, and astromony. He studied medicine with Dr. Eli S. Bailey of 
Brookfield, married Catharine Burdick in 1816, and removed to Alfred in 
1820, settling at Alfred Station. Dr. CoUins was the first to acquire a med- 
ical practice in the town, and as long as he lived he was the leading physi- 
cian of the section; his practice extending over a large territory. Although 
his work was done among the earliest settlers, all of whom were poor, he 
was prompt to respond to every call; the question of remuneration being the 
last one considered; yet, besides rearing and educating a large family, he 
acquired a fair competence. Dr. Collins was not only the chief physician 
but a leader in the affairs of the town and county. A promoter of the- first 
district schools of the town, and, for many years, school inspector. In 1831 
he, with Judge Clark Crandall and Joseph Goodrich, represented the town 
of Alfred in a movement which originated in Allegany county for the build- 
ing of the Erie Railway. In the years 1832 and 1833 he represented his 
county in the state legislature. He was one of the organizers of Alfred 
Academy and a member of its first board of trustees. He was the first to 
deliver a temperance lecture in Alfred, and organized its first temperance 
society. A man of large frame, rugged features, stern of mien, yet gentle 
in spirit, he had a passionfor literature and all learning, andwasa good writer 
not only of prose but also of verse. He died suddenly, August 27, 1851, 
universally respected and deeply mourned. His sons are Prof. John 
Collins of Dalton, Ga., AmosB., Esq., and Lorenzo D. of Alfred, and William of 
Missouri. His eldest daughter, Amorilla, became the wife of Dr. Daniel 
Babcock, and the youngest, Theresa, married Dr. Henry Oviatt, both of 
Wisconsin. 

Dr. John R. Hartshorn was born in Lebanon, Madison county, in Au- 
gust, 1813, and was graduated from Fairfield Medical College in 1834. In 
1835 he came here and formed a partnership with Dr. John B. Collins. 
After the death of Dr. Collins he was for many years the leading physician 
of the town, with an extensive and lucrative practice. He was a member of 
the legislature in 1852, and supervisor of Alfred in 1855. He was a trustee 
of Alfred Academy and University from 1841 until 1871. In later life he en- 
gaged successfully in real estate speculations. He married, first, Sophia, 
daughter of Samuel White of Whitesville, and second, Mrs. Lura A. Spencer 
Van Buskirk of Alfred. He died in Alfred June 12, 1871. 

William M. Truman, M. D., was born in Preston, Chenango county. May 
21, 1813. He began the study of medicine when sixteen, and received his 
diploma from the Fairfield Medical College on his 21st birthday. In the 
same year he married Miss Huldah L. Babcock of Scott. He practiced first 
at Otselic, afterwards at Scott, and in 1840 removed to Richburg, 
and from there in 1862 to Alfred. Dr. Truman at first was a partner of 
Dr. Hartshorn, but for many years carried on his practice alone. In his 
later years he divided the business of the town chiefly with Dr. H. P. 
Saunders. For nine years he was coroner. He died in 1885. 



Medical Societies and Physicians. 223 

Dr. Elisha C. Green was born in Lebanon, Conn., in 1817. His parents 
removed to Friendship in 1832. He received his education in the common 
schools, and jmssed four years in the study of medicine with Dr. Jonas 
Wellman, and in 1838 attended the Berkshire Medical Institution. He re- 
ceived a diploma from the Allegany County Medical Association in 1839, and 
then jDracticed with Dr. Wellman a short time. After about 12 years prac- 
tice out of the state, he located at Alfred Station in 1851 and has been in 
successful practice since. During the 44 years in Alfred he has not lost a 
day by reason of ill health, or failed to respond to a professional call. 

Henry P. Saunders, M. D., son of Clark Saunders, was born in Wester- 
ly, R. I., November 24, 1821. He w^as educated at the common schools, then 
studied medicine with Dr. W. H. Wilbur, of North Providence, and was 
graduated from the University of New York City in 1852. In 1853 he locat- 
ed at Little Genesee, and after a residence there of 3 years he settled at Al- 
fred Centre, where he has since practiced his profession. He married Mary 
A. Crandall, and has 4 children. 

Mark Sheppard, M. D., the son of William T. and Abigail Davis Shep- 
pard, was born at Shiloh, N. J., March 14, 1838. He was educated at Shiloh, 
DeRuyter, and Alfred Academy. He w^ent to Kansas in 1856 to engage in 
the struggle against the " Border Ruffians,'' and later returned to Alfred. 
In 1861 he enlisted in the 23d Regiment, and served one year. Resuming 
his studies in the University, he w^as graduated in 1863. He then taught 
some years, and engaged in the book and stationary business at Alfred. In 
1878 he graduated from the Medical Dei3artment of the University of the 
City of New York, and has since practiced medicine in Alfred. During 
several years he was a trustee of Alfred University, and part of the time 
secretary of the board. He married, first, Mary E. Coon, second, Edna L, 
Crandall. 

Henry Clark Coon, A. M., M. D., (see Alfred University.) 
Dr. Irving Truman, nephew of W. M. Truman, was in practice for 
a while. He is now located at Hornellsville. 

George E. Burdick, M. D., son of Rev. Stephen Burdick, was born 
Nov. 23, 1863, in Leonardsville. He was educated at Alfred University, 
where he was graduated. Ph. B. and C. E., in 1886. He studied medicine 
with Dr. Sheppard of Alfred and Dr. S. Carr Maxson of Utica, and was 
graduated from the University of New York in 1887, and in 1888 he located 
at Lawn Ridge, lU. In 1892 he came to Alfred Station. Dr. Burdick carries 
the honor of president of the County Medical Society. He was elected 
coroner in 1895. He married Nora J. Brown. 

Alma was one of the last towns to be settled, and its proximity to Wells- 
viUe, which has always been weU supplied with physicians, has evidently 
discouraged the settlement of resident physicians. A. W. Kahle, M. D., 
now of Lima, Ohio, was located here about six years. 



224 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Frank N. Smith, M. D., son of Orlin Smith, was born in Belmont, April 
23, 1829. He attended school at Alfred University and in 1852 went to 
Keokuk, Iowa, where he read medicine, and in 1856 was graduated from the 
Iowa Medical College and commenced practice at Fort Madison, where he 
received the appointment of physician to the Iowa Penitentiary. He served 
in the Civil War as surgeon in the 148th Illinois regiment with rank of major, 
and was honorably mustered out at the close of the war. He was then 
located for a short time at Peoria, then returned to Belmont where he prac- 
ticed several years, and established himself in Allentown about 1884. In 
1856 he married Lucy W. Peck of Lowell, Mass. Of their 6 children, 4 sur- 
vive. Dr. Smith is a member of the Allegany County Medical Society and 
has been a contributor to medical publications. He is a Free Mason, an 
Odd Fellow, belongs to the A. O. U. W.. has been twice a representative of 
its Grand Lodge, and is a member of the Knights of Labor. 

Almond. — A. L. Dawson was said to .be the first physician who lived in 
Almond, although Dr. Pease, who lived between Almond and Karr Valley, 
was one of the first. He afterwards moved to Friendship. Asa Lee David- 
son was one of the next physicians, and was a very prominent man. He was 
elected the seventh supervisor of the town and he was also member of 
assembly for Allegany county. Dr. Davidson sold out to Dr. Charles and 
also moved to Friendship. Dr. Charles moved to Angelica and died there 
eminent in his profession. Dr. Reed succeeded Dr. Charles and then came 
Dr. A. L. Cady, a graduate of Yale College and a most prominent physician. 
He built the house now occupied by Sylvanus Young, was nominated for 
Congress in 1844, on the Whig (Burney) ticket, ran against Martin Grover 
and was defeated by a small majority. He was an eminent advocate of tem- 
perance at an early day and a strong anti-slavery man. He died in 1846. 
Dr. Charles D. Robinson came from the eastern part of the state, settled in 
Angelica first, moved to Burns, and on the death of Dr. Cady, came to Al- 
mond in 1847, and in 1849 was elected state senator from Allegany and 
Wyoming counties. Dr. Robinson moved to Hornellsville and died about 
1874. Dr. William B. Alley lived and practiced here about the same time 
with Dr. Robinson. Dr. J. W. Black next practiced in Almond. He was 
supervisor several terms, moved to Bath and died a few years ago. Dr. 
Hagadorn married the daughter of J. M. Wetherby, practiced medicine here 
a few years and now is practicing near Buffalo. Dr. Zachariah Dildine was 
born at Hornellsville and came to Almond about 1878. About 1883 he sold 
to Dr. Bowen, moved West and died a. few years ago. He \vas a surgeon in 
the army. Dr. T. H. Lamonte was here for a number of years. He sold his 
practice to Dr. William C. Benjamin and now lives near Dansville. Dr. L. 
D. Farnum, born in West Almond about 1831, graduated at the Castleton, 
Vermont Medical College. He practiced medicine in West Almond and Bel- 
mont, and has lived and practiced medicine in Almond for the last twenty 
years. Dr. William C. Benjamin, born in Almond in 1859, graduated from 
the University Medical College of New York city, March 8, 1887, has prac- 



Medical Societies and Physicians. 225 

ticed medicine in Almond about eight years. He has been supervisor of 
the town two terms. 

Chauncey R. Bowen. M. D., son of Thomas Bowen, was born in vSouth 
Dansville, Steuben Co., March 4, 1858. He was educated at the common 
schools and Rogersville Union Seminary. He studied medicine with Dr. C. 
M. Ackley, attended the University of Bviffalo, and was graduated from the 
medical department in 1882, when he established himself as a physician at 
Fremont Centre. He settled at Almond in 1884, and has since been in prac- 
tice there. Dr. Bowen is aanember of the Medical and Surgical Association 
at Hornellsville, was president of the society in 1898 and 1894, and is a mem- 
ber of the Board of Pension Examiners which meets at Wellsville. In 1884 
he married Ella, daughter of Darius White of Hornellsville, and has three 
children, Cecil, Byron W. and Lucile M. 

Belfast. — Early physicians here were Drs. Davis and James D. Norton. 
Dr. E. E. Hyde was at Belfast for a time. In 1848 Dr. John H. Saunders, 
who had been two years at Burrville in Caneadea located in Belfast, and was 
in practice there the rest of his life. Since his settlement in town the sub- 
ject will be completely covered by the following sketches: 

Dr. John Hanford Saunders was born in Norwalk, Conn., Nov. 6, 1820. 
His father removed to Pranklinville, N. Y., in 1821. John H. attended 
Sx^ringville Academy, read medicine there with Dr. Emmons, and later with 
his uncle Dr. William Smith of Rushford. attended Geneva Medical College, 
later graduating from the Medical Department of the University of New 
York. Soon after receiving his degree he located in Burrville in 1846. In 
1848 he removed to Belfast and made there his permanent home. About 
1865 he married Miss Annie Westbrook of Caneadea, who died in April, 1873, 
leaving two daughters, Mrs. Edwin E. Grady of Elmira, and Mrs. Charles 
A. Ackerly of Cuba. He married, second, Mrs Robert Smith of Cuba, a 
daughter of William W. Windsor. Dr. John H. Saunders was skillful, intel- 
ligent, exercised a sound judgment and was full of care for his patients. He 
was in touch with all improvements in practice, in remedies, and methods. 
If in fact he was not " the first by whom the new was tried," he certainly 
" was not the last to throw the old aside." He was greatly interested in the 
State Medical Society, and it was while in Albany as a Allegany delegate to 
the annual meeting of that society that he contracted the cold which ended 
fatally in typhoid pneumonia, Feb. 24. 1883. 

Charles M. Crandall, M. D., was son of Benjamin G. Crandall and grand- 
son of Samuel Van Campen of Amity. He was reared by the latter, and by 
his own exertions acquired a medical education and was graduated from 
Castleton (Vt.) Medical dAlege in 1850. He began practice at once in Bel- 
fast, and in 1854 married a daughter of Alvah Wood of Independence. He 
soon attained prominence as a i)hysician, and, after being treasurer and 
president of the County Medical Society, he was frequently a delegate to 
the State Medical Society, and in 1859 was elected a permanent member of 
that body. He was chosen supervisor of Belfast in 1859 and 1860, and was 



226 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

ardently in favor of the cause of the Union, giving his services as a surgeon 
for some months in the Army of the Potomac. In October, 1862, he was 
made examining surgeon for Allegany county. Through resolutions of his 
introduced to the State Medical Society the state legislature passed special 
laws and made liberal appropriations for the care of sick and wounded sol- 
diers "at the front." In 1864 he was for some time in attendance in Louis- 
viUe and Nashville hospitals, and was "unanimously" chosen surgeon of 
the 141st N. Y., but as he was then representing the First District of his 
county in the assembly, and had been re-nominated, he declined this honor. 
He was re-elected to the assembly in 1865, and in 1866 chosen to represent 
the whole county of Allegany. He was an influential legislator and import- 
ant enactments owed existence to him. In 1865 he was " military agent " 
of the state and " visiting agent of military hospitals. " Among other offices 
filled by him were tmstee of the Binghamton Inebriate Asylum, and State 
Commissioner of Public Charities. His death, which occurred Oct. 4, 1867, 
was felt as a public calamity. His son, Floyd M., is a physician of New 
York city. 

Charles W. Saunders, M. D., son of Harvey and Sallie (Hanford) Saun- 
ders, was born in Franklin ville, N. Y., June 27, 1833. He was educated at 
Rushford Academy and Chamberlain Institute, Randolph, his medical edu- 
cation being at the University of New York, where he graduated in 1857, 
the "honor man " of his class. He located at Belfast, acquired a large and 
lucrative practice, was a life-long member of the County Medical Society, 
a leading physician of Western New York, and a member of the board of 
curators of the University of Buffalo for many years. He was one of the 
promoters of the Genesee Valley Seminary and for years an active member 
of the board of trustees. With his brother he was owner of a large mercan- 
tile establishment, and a stockholder and vice president of the Bank of Bel- 
fast. Republican in politics he was 14 years supervisor of Belfast. He was 
one of the first appointed pension examiners, which post he filled with credit 
from the close of the Rebellion until his death, Jan. 7, 1891. He married, 
first, Nettie, daughter of Col. John Renwick, of Warsaw, who died in 1865; 
second, in October, 1870, EHza Armstrong of Oramel. Their children are: 
Catharine, preceptress of Park Place School, Elmira, and Frederic Charles. 

William S. Todd, M. D., son of Dr. W. S. Todd, was born April 12. 1851, 
in Angelica, studied medicine with his father, in 1876 was graduated from 
the Cleveland, Ohio, Homeopathic Hospital College and located in Belfast, 
where he is now in practice. He married Julia, daughter of James and 
Polly Hooker, of Angelica. Children, Nellie A. and George H. 

Joseph H. Chamberlain, M. D., son of Calvin Tibbetts Chamberlain, 2d, 
was born in 1858. He was graduated from the New York Homeopathic Col- 
lege in 1878, and from the University of New York in 1879. He has prac- 
ticed in Belfast since 1884, and in 1893 was made pension examiner. 

Eugene E. Caswell, M, D., son of Charles CasweU, was born Aug. 6, 



Medical Societies and Physicians. 227 

1870, in Ischua. His father was a farmer and Eugene lived on a farm until 
he was 17 years of age. In 1890 he was graduated from Cuba Union School 
and taught school one year. In 1894 he was graduated from the medical 
department of the University of Buffalo and established himself as a physi- 
cian here. He is a member of Cuba Lodge, No. 306, P. & A. M. , of K. O. T. 
M. Tent, No. 47, of Belfast, is its medical examiner, also medical examiner 
for the New York Life Insurance Co., and for the Massachusetts Mutual, is 
health officer of the village of Belfast, and a member of the Allegany County 
Medical Society. 

Clark M. Pord, M. D.. was born in Belfast in 1862, studied medicine 
with Dr. Willis E. Hunt of Utica, in 1888 was graduated from the University 
of New York City, and has since been in practice in thatcity 

Bolivar. — Dr. William Thomas, the first physician of Bolivar, early 
located at Richburg when that place was in Bolivar. He moved to Mt. 
Morris, and by an accidental discharge of his gun while hunting lost the 
sight of both eyes, but kept up his practice when totally bhnd. The first 
physician of the present town of Bolivar was a Dr. Lyman who came about 
1831 and practiced some years. Dr. Warren Wellman came about 1836, was 
here some years. Dr. E. C. Poole was here in the thirties. In 1840 he built 
a house on Main St. A Dr. Burdick was here for a year. Dr. Samuel 
Sturges was here in practice for several years. 

Joseph L. Cutler, M. D., was born Pebruary 15, 1829, at Moravia, N. Y. 
He studied medicine with Dr. Cyrus Powers and was graduated from the 
University of New York City in 1850, and located in Bolivar the same year, 
where he has since practiced. In March, 1863, he was commissioned assist- 
ant surgeon of the 134th Regiment, was with the regiment 10 months, and 
acted as surgeon most of the time. He was pension examiner 8 years, 
resigning in 1894. He has made a specialty of surgery, and was in the drug 
business for 8 years. Dr. Cutler has been thrice elected supervisor of Boli- 
var, and twice town superintendent of schools. In 1849, he married Janet, 
daughter of Jeremiah Mellen of Moravia. Their children were Mary A. 
(Mrs. George Parker) and Pannie (Mrs. J. E. Partridge) The doctor married 
for his second wife. Harriet Cleveland, of Borodino. They had a daughter, 
Janet, who died ini very early life. Dr. Cutler is a member of Macedonia 
Lodge, P. & A. M. No. 258. 

Dr. Dorr Cutler was born at Moravia, Aug. 29, 1836. He studied medi- 
cine with his brother Joseph L., was graduated from the University of New 
York in 1869. In 1870 he located at Ceres where he practiced four years 
and a half when he returned to Bolivar where he has since practiced. 

Ora N. Latham, M. D., son of Rev. Joseph Latham, was born Aug. 6, 
1855, at Porter. He attended school at Ten Broeck Academy of Pranklin- 
ville, studied medicine with Dr. H. D. Walker, and March, 1882, was grad- 
uated from the Maryland University and School of Medicine, and located at 
Bolivar, where he has pursued his profession. In 1887 he married Lizzie 
Weiler of Bolivar. They have 2 children, Joseph and Karl Henry. Dr. 



228 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Latham has been appointed health officer several times, is a member of 
Allegany County Medical Society, of Franklin ville Lodge, No. 626 F. & A. M., 
also of Bolivar Chapter, and St. Johns Commandery of Olean. 

Charles F. Hoffman, M. D. James Hoffman was born in Peterboro in 
1826. He was a second cousin of Gerritt Smith. He married Mary Curtis 
of Cazenovia. About 1850 he settled in Belmont and engaged in farming. 
Of his 4 children. 2 are living, Carrie A. and Charles F. James Hoffman 
died Feb. 8, 1888, his wife, March 15, 1891. Charles F. Hoffman, M. D., son 
of James and Mary (Curtis) Hoffman, was born in Belmont, July 31, 1860. 
He was educated at Alfred University, and was graduated from the Univer- 
sity of New York in 1881, and in 1885 from the College of Physicians and 
Surgeons. He then jjassed 4 years professionally at the New York City 
Insane Asylum and 9 months at the Charity Hospital. In 1891 he located at 
Bolivar, where he has since practised. In 1891 he married Mira Green of 
Wellsville. They have two sons, Charles Curtis and James Percy. 

Burns. — Doubtless the local historian of Burns has been able to deter- 
mine who was the pioneer physician of this town, but as yet it is not revealed 
to the writer by any printed record or facts gathered during the recent in- 
quiry for data for this chapter who should be awarded that distinguished 
honor. The few accompaning sketches are all that we have concerning 
the doctors of the town. 

WiUiam H. Harris, M. D., was born June 15, 1832, in Sparta, N. Y. He 
studied medicine with Drs. Prior and Dominick, and in 1879, was graduated 
from the American Medical College of Cincinnati. Aug. 27, 1862, he enlisted 
in Co. B. 136th New York, and May 28, 1863, he joined the regular army as 
hospital steward, and was discharged May 3, 1866. He was five years com- 
mander of Seth H. Weed Post, No. 296, G. A. R. He estabhshed the Cana- 
saraga Advertiser and published it several years. He has been justice of the 
X^eace for four years, and a pension attorney since 1887. 

James G. A. Davies, M. D., of Canaseraga, born April 16, 1838, at Blaen- 
porth, Co. Cardigan, Great Britain, landed in the United States, March 1, 
1870. His academic record published in 1866 in the British directories is: 

" Educated at Glynarthen School and Adpar Academy, up to 1857; Lampeter Grammar School, 1857—8; 
Examiner's Prize (second class), June, 1857; Head Master's Prize (first class), Easter, 1858; the Bishop of St. 
David's Prize (first class), June, 1858; St. David's College, October, 1858— June, 1861; Simonburn Scholar, 
October, igsS; Phillips Scholar, February, 1859; Senior Scholar, February, i860: History Prize, June, i86o- 
B. A., June, 186=;." 

His record in the United States Medical and Surgical Register of 1893, is: 

" A. B. St. David's College, 1H65; A. M. Hobart College, 1873; M. D. of various institutions in the 
United States, 1876-7—1882-3; M. D. British, 1878. Indorsed in New York. 1883; Phar. D., British, 1878; 
Phar. Licence, New York, 1888; Author of works on Archaeology, Music and the Antiquities of Med- 
icine. 

Dr. Davies commenced the study of medicine at the age of 15, and has 
continued in his devotion to that science to the present time. He was Sec- 
ond Master of Lampeter Grammar School during his stay there; Classical 



Medical Societies and Physicians. 229 

Master of Hoddesdon Grammar School near London, in 1866; Vice-Principal 
of West Kent College, London, 1873-4; Professor of Chemistry at the Medi- 
cal College, Lewiston. Me., 1882-3; Professor of Anatomy and Physiology 
at the Medical and Surgical College of New Jersey, 1888-9. In the medical 
curriculum he studied three years under a preceptor, and four terms under 
a faculty. In 1871 was conferred on him the title {nom-de-plume) of Ap-Ke- 
dora, according to the ancient custom of the Druids. This was superseded 
in 1871 by the title of Goravar, which in 1877 became Goi^avar Amerig. Prom 
the latter date, the latter title has been incorporated in his name by the 
initials G. A. 

Oscar S. Pratt born in Burdette, N. Y., in 1836, studied medicine in 
Onondaga county, was graduated from the University of Buifalo in 1871. He 
located in Canaseraga in 1875. He was twice coroner of Livingston county, 
and 2 terms in this county. 

Albert T. Bacon, M. D., son of Theodore S. and Lucinda (Dunning) Ba- 
con, was born in the town of Burns, Jan. 22, 1855. He was educated at the 
common schools, Rogersville Seminary and the University of Buifalo, from 
the medical dejDartment of which he was graduated, and soon opened an 
office in Canaseraga and has also kept a drug store. He has been supervi- 
sor of Burns three times and three times elected coroner. He married 
Elizabeth Francis Love of Rochester in 1880; childred: living, Lloyd, Lester 
Faulkner, Bessie; dead, Clifford, aged 2 years and 6 months. 

Caneadea. — On the authority of Amos R. Smith, Esq., it is stated that 
the first physician to practice here was Dr. Ebenezer Hyde, and that he 
boarded with Major Burr at Burrville. Tliis was in 1838-39. Mr. Smith 
says he was succeeded by Dr. Gilmore about 1840, who did not stay long, and 
in all probability was the same one who for awhile was located in Ellicott- 
ville, where he was known as " the almanac maker," from his making cal- 
culations for almanacs. He was of a scientific turn of mind, and was at one 
time at Warsaw. In 1841 Dr. Porter settled in town. He once performed 
an operation, removing a goitre from the neck of a daughter of Rev. Ziba 
Huft". from the effects of which she died. Dr. Porter was indicted and tried 
for malpractice. It was proven that the patient removed the bandage in the 
absence of the doctor and bled to death, so he was acquitted. Dr. John H. 
Saunders located at Burrville in 1846. He soon removed to Belfast. 
Dr. Pulling, a brother of lawyer David J., was at Oramel for a while about 
1850. He was a brother-in-law of A. P. Laning. After he left the town had 
no physician for several years. Dr. J. B. Miller from Alexander, Genesee 
Co., came about 1874 or 5, remaining some ten or twelve years, and was suc- 
ceeded by Dr. A. H. Lyman, about 1886 or 7, who remained until 1892. 

J. C. Earle, M. D., graduated from the medical department of the Uni- 
versity of Buffalo in 1883, soon after was in practice at Oramel, later at 
Rochester, then at Olean, and is now at Belmont. 

In 1891 Dr. Erly H. Madison from New Hudson, located in Oramel, where 
he is in practice. He was born in New Hudson, Oct. 29, 1869, educated in 



230 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

the common schools and Houghton Seminary, and graduated from the medi- 
cal department of the University of Buffalo in 1891. 

Centekville. — The precise time at which Dr. Calvin Cass came to 
Centerville cannot be determined. He however preceded Dr. Wm. A. Stacy 
who came in 1828. The fact of his being the first resident physician is thought 
to be undisputed. Nothing is told of him by which he has been remembered 
by our immediate predecessors, yet all the same he was the pioneer physi- 
cian of Centerville. Dr. Weld succeeded Dr. Cass. 

Dr. Wm. A. Stacy, a native of Rochester, Vermont, settled here about 
1828, and his practice covered thirty years. He received his diploma from 
Castleton Medical College, Vermont, and settled in Boston, Erie county, but 
soon removed to Centerville, where he practiced until 1856, when he removed 
to Rushford, where he died. He had an extensive practice, was a man of 
ability, successful in practice, and possessed high social qualities. 

A Dr. Stewart was here from 1840 to 1845. Dr. John Stacy succeeded 
Wm. A. So far it is believed the physicians of Centerville were all " regu- 
lars." Then came one Kibbe, a " botanical "or " eclectic, " and one Haskins, 
William Ware and Crang. Some of whom, if not all, were regarded as 
" irregular " by the profession. Dr. Porter Hanks, who read medicine with 
Dr. H. H. Lyman of Hume and graduated from the medical department of 
the University of Buffalo, practiced here for a few years, then removed to 
Wellsville and from thence to Florida. He married Maria, daughter of E. E. 
Harding, Esq., of Hume. Of Dr. Wm. Boddy who succeeded Dr. Hanks no 
particulars have been gathered . 

Dr. Elbert I. Pish came next. He was born in Hume in 1853; educated 
at the district schools in Centerville, Olean academy and Pike seminary. In 
1875 he commenced medical study with Dr. A. B. Stewart of Hume, attended 
lectures at the Cincinnati Eclectic Medical Institute, and soon after began 
practice in Centerville. In 1879 he removed to West Valley, Cattaraugus 
county. 

Dr. Lucius G. Waterman, the only physician here at present, was born 
in China (now Arcade) in 1849; educated at the University of Suffield, Conn., 
read medicine with Dr. Lusk of Eagle, and was graduated from the medical 
department of the University of Buffalo in 1883. He has been in Centerville 
since 1878. 

Cuba. — Dr. Gilbert B. Champlain was the first physician of any note 
who located permanently, and practiced in Cuba. This was in 1822. A Dr. 
Sprague came not long after. Dr. Enos Palmer settled in 1830, followed 
by Dr. Stephen Maxson in 1833. Dr. HoUenbeck from Albany appeared soon 
after, remaining only a short time. A Dr. Thomas came about 1834, and 
Dr. C. J. Reynolds began practice in 1836. The old doctors, Champlain, Max- 
son and Reynolds, held on pretty well, and judging from the record Cuba 
was not the best place in the world for a young practitioner to locate. Pre- 
vious to 1868 Drs. J. J. Ashley, Forbes, and Alfred Griffin had secured a 
foothold in this stronghold of strong doctors. Dr. Seneca Allen settled here 



Medical Societies and Ph^ sicians. 231 



in 1868, Dr. Otis AUen in 1872, and Dr. John C. Young in 1873. In 1879 there 
were also reported in Cuba, Drs. Learned and J. B. Hatch. In 1881, Dr. H. 
F. Gillette made his appearance, and then for a while there was no importation 
of medical talent. In 1890 began another influx of medical men, with Dr. H. 
M. Champney, followed by Drs. W. T. Mortimer and T. S. Thomas in 1894, 
and Dr. William O. Congdon in 1895. Cuba has always had a high order of 
professional talent among her physicians. The fame of Drs. Champlain 
and Maxson extended over a good part of Western New York. 

In 1845 Dr. Gilbert B. Champlain erected a wooden building of consid- 
erable size near a mineral spring east of his residence, which he intended 
rather as a resort for pleasure-seekers than a sanitarium. R. B. Gleason, 
M. D., of the Elmira water-cure, conducted this as a water-cure for two 
years. He was followed in succession by one Hayes, a Dr. Perry, who took 
as a partner a Dr. Acorn. Two years after they assumed management the 
building burned. Perry soon went away, but Acorn remained and "hung 
out his shingle " as an " eclectic " physician. After four or five years he 
removed to the oil country. 

Gilbert B. Champlain, M. D., was a lineal descendant of the discoverer of 
Lake Champlain. He was born at New London, Conn., Jan. 27, 1792. At 
the age of 20 he received a diploma as physician and surgeon, and two years 
later was appointed surgeon's mate in the 25th regiment of the first brigade 
of infantry of the United States army. He was in active service upon the 
frontier in the war of 1812, and was present at the battles of Chippewa and 
Lundy's Lane, and the sortie of Fort Erie. He settled in Cuba in 1822, and 
had an extensive practice, gaining a wide reputation as a skillful physician. 
He was an earnest temperance advocate, and was an active member of the 
Sons of Temperance. He died in Cuba of cholera, Sept. 1, 1852. 

Dr. Enos Palmer was born in Bennington, Vt., March 18, 1805, studied 
medicine at Auburn, N. Y., came to Cuba in 1830, soon established a drug 
store and practiced till nearly up to the time of his death, March 1, 1860. 

Stephen Maxson, M. D., was born in Hopkinton, R. I., in 1810. He 
came to this county when seventeen, and the next year became a student of 
Dr. Champlain. He later studied with Dr. Valentine Mott in New York 
city and was graduated in 1832. He was resident physician at the Chambers 
street cholera hospital during the fearful scourge of cholera which visited 
that city. In 1832-3 he returned to Cuba, became a partner of Dr. Cham- 
plain and soon married his daughter. In 1853 he was made inspector of med 
icine in the New York custom house. He entered the army as surgeon in 
1862, and was in service during the war. He was a successful practictioner 
and skillful surgeon and was long the oldest member of the County Medical 
Society, and filled all its offices. He was killed by a railroad train at Cuba. 

Dr. C. J. Reynolds was born July 6, 1806. In 1826 he moved to Granger, 
and soon after to Cuba. He attended the Castleton Medical College, Ver- 
mont, in 1834-35, and was practicing in Cuba as late as 1878. 

J. J. Ashley, M. D., was born in Richmond, Ohio, May 6, 1830. He was 



232 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

a wellknown physician and surgeon, and was in 1863 appointed examining 
surgeon in his district for the enrollment and draft of soldiers. 

Seneca Allen, M. D., was born in Black Creek, New Hudson, April 23, 
1840. His father, Dr. Calvin L., came to that place in 1835 and died June 
9, 1872. Dr. Seneca Allen was graduated from the Buffalo Medical College in 
1868. In 1861 he enlisted, was commissioned captain of Co. F, 85th N. Y. 
Vols., and served until March 26, 1865, when he was paroled from Libby 
Prison. April 20. 1864 he was taken prisoner at Plymouth, N. C, and con- 
fined at Andersonville, Macon, Savannah, Charleston. Columbia, Augusta, 
Charlotte, Payette ville, and Raleigh, N. C, and in Libby Prison. Imme- 
diately after graduating Dr. Allen came to Cuba, where he practiced until 
his death Nov. 14, 1893, conducting also a drug business with his brother. 
Dr. Otis Allen. Dr. Allen was commissioned lieutenant colonel when in 
service but as he was a prisoner he was never mustered in command. He 
was a member of St. Johns Commandery, No. 24, K. T.. of Olean. March 
14, 1866, he married Hannah M., daughter of Rev. C. D. Swift of Belfast. 

Otis AUen, M. D., son of Dr. Calvin L. and Minerva (Rogers) Allen, was 
born in New Hudson, Oct. 13, 1838. He studied medicine with his father 
and attended the Buffalo Medical College, and was graduated in February, 
1871, He practiced in New Hudson a year and in 1872 came to Cuba. He 
has been county coroner. 

John C. Young, M. D., (Buffalo, 1871), M. R. C. S. (England, 1892), L. R. 
C. P. and L. M. (Edinburgh, 1893), now of Elmira, was born in Little Genesee 
in 1845, studied medicine with Dr. C. H. Bartlett of Olean, and received the- 
degree of M. D. from the University of Buffalo in 1871. H'3 married in 1873 
Miss Comstockof Portville. They have two living children. Dr. Young in 
18731ocated in Cubawherohe practiced until the autumn of 1894. He Vv^as coro- 
ner of this county for two terms. Since 1878 he has passed three and a half 
years in Europe, where for three years he was connected with The Children's 
Hospital and Hospital for Diseases of the Skin in London. He received a 
degree in "Science, Letters and Art," and subsequently the diploma of 
Member of the (England) Royal College of Surgeons, England. He was then 
made senior assistant surgeon to the Hospital for Diseases of Women, and 
for six months was connected with the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. 
While there he received two diplomas from the Royal College of Physicians 
of Edinburgh, one a special diploma for proficiency and merit in midwifery, 
the first ever granted by that institution to an American. He has been a 
member of Cattaraugus County Medical Society, Allegany County Medical 
Society, now a member of the Chemung County Medical Society and the 
Elmira Academy of Medicine. At the trial of Henry Hendricks in this 
county for the murder of his wife. Dr. Young pointed out by diagrams and 
casts that the wounds on the prisoner must have been self-inflicted. That 
very important fact was the connecting link in the chain of evidence. The 
honors conferred upon Dr. Young fall to the lot of very few, and so far as 
known he is the only physician born in Allegany that ever received them. 



Medical Societies and Physicians. 233 



Dr. Young was a ruling elder of the Presbyterian church of Cuba for twenty- 
years. 

Dr. Herbert Fremont Gillette, son of Theodore D. and Emily J. (Jud- 
son) Gillette, was born March 18, 1856, at Prattsburgh, Steuben county. 
After attending Franklin Academy and teaching school 3 years he com- 
menced studying medicine in 1875 with Dr. W. G. Wixon of Italy, and in 
1880 began practice at West Bloomfield under county license. In February, 
1881, he graduated at Buffalo. In October, 1881, he located in Cuba and has 
built up a fine practice. Dr. Gillette has been an active worker in the Re- 
publican party, was county coroner two terms, health officer of Cuba vil- 
lage, is a member (and was secretary several years) of Cuba Lodge, No. 306, 
F. & A. M., and is an active member of the County Medical Society. He 
married June 14, 1883, Mary S., daughter of Emmett Taylor of Dundee, 
N. Y. They had one child, Arthur Taylor Gillette. Mrs. Gillette died July 
25, 1885. and Sept. 2. 1886, the doctor married Ahce C. daughter of Levi 
Robie of Bath. Dr. Gillette Avas appointed, Aug. 26, 1892, a member of the 
first board of pension examiners appointed in Allegany county, and he was 
made secretary. In 1894 he took a post-graduate course at the Polyclinic 
Hospital in New York city. 

Horace M. Champney, M. D.. son of Horace A. and Emily (Marion) 
Champney. was born at Minerva. N. Y., March 10, 1864. He was graduated 
from Long Island College Hospital in June, 1885, and after a few years' 
l^ractice came to Cuba in 1890, remaining but a few years. 

W. G. Mortimer, M.. D., was born in New York city where he was grad- 
uated from the University of New York city in 1883. He is a specialist in 
surgery. He located in Cuba in June, 1894. 

T. S. Thomas, M. D., studied with Dr. A. E. Willard and was graduated 
from the Buftalo University of Medicine in 1882. After remaining at Black 
Creek, until 1892, in 1894 he came to Cuba, and formed a partnership with 
Dr. Otis Allen as Allen & Thomas in the drug store and practice of medicine. 
He has been coroner six years. 

William O. Congdon, M. D., son of Anson, was born in Clarksville, April 
10, 1849. He was educated at Friendship Academy, studied medicine at the 
University of Buftalo, and was graduated from the American Eclectic Medi- 
cal College of Cincinnati, Ohio, June 5, 1895, and is now in practice in Cuba. 
In 1870 he married Amanda M. McDougal and has one child, Roscoe. Mrs. 
Congdon was graduated from the medical department of the University of 
Buffalo in 1892 and has since practiced in Cuba. 

Friendship. — The old, tried and reliable medical practitioner wins our 
esteem and love, and it is well that the memory of such men should be 
cherished in the history of the county where their laborious lives were 
passed. Timothy Pease, M. D., one of this class was born in revolutionary 
days in Bristol, R. I., in 1774, and died in Friendship in the fifties. He was 
a graduate of Yale College, and made a specialty of surgery. He was the 
first physician of this town, coming here when the country was a wilder- 



234 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

ness, and had a large practice extending many miles. His daughters, Mrs. 
Francis Graves, and Mrs. Rev. Nathaniel Hammond, widows, reside in 
FriendshijD. (See history of town.) Dr. Dana was another of the old-time 
physicians. 

Dr. Jonas Wellman was born Oct. 29, 1799, at Brookline, Vt., was gradu- 
ated as M. D. at Berkshire (Mass.) Medical College in 1826, and married 
Keziah Joslyn, Feb. 27, 1827, at Bolivar. He soon thereafter located at 
Friendship as a physician and surgeon, and won an extensive practice which 
he retained until failing health caused him to retire from the profession. 
For a time he was in mercantile trade at Friendship with his brothers, 
Warren and Arba. During the last years of his life he suffered greatly 
from disease brought on by his extensive rides and arduous labors in his 
profession. He died March 31, 1844. His children were Mary J. (Mrs. I. 
G. LeSeur), Washington I., Minerva (Mrs. David Wentworth), Warren W., 
Abijah J., Jonas G., Laura M. (Mrs. David Barber). 

Dr. Brayton Babcock w^as born at Leyden, Mass., Oct. 31, 1814. He 
came to Friendship about 1840 and practiced here and was one of the 
leading physicians in Allegany county many years. He married first Eunice 
Smith, second Julia D. Major of Hornellsville. Dr. Babcock died in Friend- 
ship in 1887. 

E. H. Willard, M. D., was born in Brattleboro, Vt., in 1808, graduated 
from the Medical College at Castle ton, Vt., about 1835, his studies being 
pursued with Dr. Dana of Friendship. He began his practice in Philipsville 
(Belmont) and removed to Friendship in 1841-2, continuing his practice 
there until his death in July, 1886. He was member of assembly in 1849. 

A. E. Willard, M. D., son of the preceding, was born in Cuba in 1831, 
received a common school and academic education, read medicine with his 
father, and graduated from the medical department of the University of 
Buffalo in 1864. He practiced a year in Friendship with his father, then 
removed to Hinsdale, where he remained until 1872; since then he has prac- 
ticed in Friendship. 

W. I. Hewitt, M. D.. oldest son of John W. and Adaline (Paine) Hewitt, 
was born in Sherman, Aug. 21, 1848. In 1877 he went to the American 
Health College of Cincinnati, Ohio, and graduated therefrom in 1889. He 
also graduated from the Medical Department of Niagara University of Buf- 
falo. With the exception of 5 years practice in South Dakota previous to 
1884. he practiced his profession in Friendship until 1894 when he removed 
to Olean, where he still resides. Dr. Hewitt is a successful physician giv- 
ing sjiecial attention to chronic diseases and employs electricity from a 
medical standpoint in the treatment of such. He was elected coroner for 
McPherson county, Dakota, when residing there. He is a member of the 
Allegany County Medical Society and was appointed physician to the board 
of health in 1893. The doctor married Frances V. Clarke of Friendship, 
July 1, 1869. She died in Olean in 1894. Their only son bears the name of 
Irving Paine Hewitt. The doctor is a Universalist. 



Medical Societies and Physicians. 235 

John W. Hewitt, son of Lott and Mary (Levant) Hewitt, was born April 
30, 18:20, in Connecticut. In 1826 his jiarents came to Sherman, Chautauqua 
county. In 1846 John W. married Adeline, daughter of Rev. Linus Paine 
of Sherman. In 1865 they came to Friendship where they still reside. 

Bemsley Williamson, M. D., son of John D. and .Betsey M. (Smith) 
Williamson, was born at Bath, June 21, 1851. He was educated at the pub- 
lic schools of B:ith and Haverling Academy. He studied medicine 4 years 
with Dr. B. F. Grant, and was graduated from Cleveland Homeopathic Hos- 
pital College (now Cleveland University of Medicine and Surgery) in 1876, 
and also took a special course there in 1878, and attended medical lectures 
in New York, Philadelphia and Chicago. In 1876 he commenced practice in 
Prattsburgh. remained there until July, 1881, when he came to Friendship 
where he is now in practice as physician and surgeon. He was one of the 
organizers of the Allegany County Homeopathic Medical Society, and was 
the first secretary and treasurer, was once vice president and treasurer 
of Steuben County Homeopathic Medical Society, and is a member of the 
New York State Homeopathic Society, the Homeo]3athic Medical Society 
of Western New York and the Southern Tier Homeopathic Medical Asso 
elation. Dr. Williamson married in 1881, Catharine, daughter of Aaron 
and Sophronia Pinney. They have one son, William Hann The family 
are members of the First Baptist Church of Friendship. 

Charles C. Deming, M. D., son of Lyman and Cynthia Deming, was born 
in Andover in 1844. In 1863 he enlisted and served 2 years. In 1869 he 
was graduated from the University of New York and has practiced here 
since. He is a member of the Allegany County Medical Society. 

Genesee, — Evidently the people of this town have been supphed with 
medical treatment by the physicians of neighboring towns. It is easily 
reached by the doctors of Bolivar, Portville, Cuba and Olean, and few physi- 
cians have ever located here, 

H, A. Place, M. D.. was born in Alfred in 1850, attended Alfred Univer- 
sity and was graduated from the University of New York in 1878 and com- 
menced practice at Ceres, Pa. He is a member of the Allegany Medical 
Society and has been president of the society. 

Ormond E. Burdick. M. D., son of Benjamin P., was born October 21, 
1850, in Genesee. He attended school at Alfred University and studied 
medicine with Dr. H, A, Place of Ceres. In 1892 he was graduated from the 
University of New York and has since practiced his profession at Ceres and 
at Little Genesee where he now resides. 

Dr. W. S. Hamilton came to Genesee in 1883, and established an opium 
cure and carried on the business until his death in 1886, when his son, Dr. 
Eugene Hamilton, conducted it until 1891, then removed to Baltimore, 

Hume, — Joseph Balcom born in Providence, R. I., was the pioneer phy- 
sician of Hume, settling here in 1823. He came from New Berlin, Chenango 
Co., where he had secured an enviable reputation in the practice of the 



236 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

" healing- art." Dr. Simeon Cajun, who came to Pike in 1817, was then the 
nearest physician. Dr. Balcom had for many years an extensive practice 
and died in 1851 aged 81. He was considered a man of more than ordinary 
abihty, of sound judgment and a well-read physician. 

Dr. Seth H. Pratt came after Dr. Balcom. He was born in Northampton, 
Mass., in 1796, was a graduate of Hamilton College and died in 1846. He 
married a daughter of Dr. Balcom, and from 1830 to 1845 was very promi- 
nent not only as a physician, but in town, county and public affairs. He was 
supervisor of Hume from 1833 to 1837 inclusive, and in 1838 and 1839 was 
member of assembly. He was a good speaker. His children were: VaDelia 
Ette Van Bergen, Eleximina McCleen, Harden DeValson, Augusta Ann, 
Lycurgus DeCoster, Abigail Alcidena, Marie Antoinette. 

Before Dr. Pratt left Hume a Dr. Randall was a while in practice, and a 
Dr. Morse came from somewhere east and removed to Bath. Dr. Emerson 
early in the forties was here for a short time, perhaps identical with Isaac 
B. Emerson early in Franklinville. 

About 1847 or 8 Dr. Isaac Minard left Pike, where he had settled in 1831, 
and located in Hume village. He was for a while at Fillmore. He was 
appointed postmaster while at Hume. He was a graduate of Castleton Med- 
ical College, Vermont. He soon returned to Pike, where he died in 1875. He 
was a successful physician and had an extensive practice. He was a mem- 
ber of the first County Medical Society. Dr. Morse was in Hume for a while, 
removing to Bath. Dr. L. B. Johnson was in Hume as late as 1850, after- 
ward went west. Dr. Baker also for a short time early in the fifties after- 
wards in Bradford. Dr. E. A. Finn was located at Fillmore for a short time 
about 1850. 

Dr. H. H. Lyman of Puritan ancestry, was born in Hume Feb. 17, 
1827. His grandfather was a physician in Wilbraham, Mass., whence his 
father, Henry D. Lyman, came in 1820 to Rochester, and worked on the first 
Erie canal acqueduct over the Genesee river which was built of brick. In 
1824 he came to Portage, then Nunda, where he married in 1825 Sophia, 
daughter of Capt. Ira Buckman, a Revolutionary soldier. Children: Phebe 
A., Henry H., Charles P., Ira, Edwin, George and Martin Van Buren. Henry 
H. attended Alfred Academy from 1845 to 1848, and attended lectures in the 
medical department of the University of New York in 1850 and 1851. (His 
work in New York was interrupted by the death of a brother.) That institu- 
tion gave him a license to practice. He settled at once in Hume, and in 1860 
received his M. D. at Buffalo University. Now, in his 45th year of profess- 
ional work, no other physician in the county has so long a record. He mar- 
ried, in 1852, Cornelia C, daughter of Warren Cowing of Hume. Children: 
Jennie M. (Mrs. George W. Harding of Hume), Almon H., Valentine Mott, a 
commercial traveler, and Mary E., a teacher in Illinois. Dr. Lyman belongs 
to the County Medical Society, and is surgeon for the W. N. Y. & P. railroad. 
He was master of Pike Lodge F. & A. M. 11 years, and High Priest of 
Wyoming Chapter 12 years. 



Medical Societies and Physicians. 237 

Wlien Dr. Lyman settled in Hume he found there Dr. A. B. Stewart, 
then a young man possessed of man}^ quahfications necessary to a success- 
ful physician, but who had received no diploma. His natural adaptation and 
tact however in the minds of many more than made up for lack of certificate 
from medical school, and he had for twenty-five or thirty years quite an 
extensive practice, and some years before his death, which occurred early 
in the eighties, obtained the degree of M. D. " Blanche Stewart, " as he 
was familiarly called, will long be remembered. He and Dr. Lyman if not 
associated in business practiced together for many years. 

Dr. Nathan Haskins was located at Fillmore about 1850. and practiced 
for a few years. He was a Irind of botanical physician, not a '■ regular." 

About 1859 or 60 Dr. David L. Barrows located at Fillmore coming 
directly from Rochester. He was a well-read and well-qualified physician 
and remained ten or twelve years. 

Charles M. Stewart. M. D.. son of Dr. A. B. Stewart, was born in Hume 
April 19. 1850. He read medicine with Dr. H. H. Ljmian and with 
his father, and was graduated from the medical department of the Univer- 
sity of Buffalo, in the spring of 1^^71. With the exception of two years at 
Belfast, and a year or two in Buffalo, in a '"Keeley sanitarium. "" he has prac- 
ticed in Hume. 

Charles J. Tucker. M. D., born in Caneadea in 1859. graduated at Buffalo 
in 1883. soon settled in Fillmore. In a short time removed to Batavia. and a 
year or two later returned to Fillmore. He is now in Topeka, Kan. 

Arthur B. Harding. M. D., was born at Hume June 7. 1859, educated in 
the village school and at the medical department of the University of Buffalo. 
from which he graduated Feb. 26, 1884. After practicing a while in Hume 
he removed to Castile, where he now has an extensiA^e ride. His brother, 
Dr. John Harding, the writer thinks practiced a short time in Hume before 
removing to Perry where he is now. 

Almond H. Lyman, M. D.. son of Dr. H. H. and Cornelia (Cowing) Lyman, 
was born in Hume April 9. 1861. He attended the village school at Hume, 
and the Geneseo Normal School. He read medicine with his father, and was 
graduated from the medical department of the University of Buffalo in 1884. 
Soon after he was resident physician to the Erie county jail, and was elected 
by the Erie county board of supervisors physician to the penitentiary in the 
faU of 1884. He has practiced in Hume, Caneadea and in Fillmore, where he 
is now located. He passed the fall and winter of 1894 and 5 in Philadelphia 
at the University of Pennsylvania, receiving there the degree of M. D. In 
1893 he was elected supervisor of Hume on the Democratic ticket. He was 
two years master of Lodge 359 F. & A. M. and belongs to Genesee River 
Chapter No. 152, R. A. M. and DeMolay commandery No. 22 K. T. He mar- 
ried Miss Josie Whalen of Caneadea. 

Perrie C. Soule, M. D., has been in practice in Rossburg since 1880. See 
extended sketch in town history of Hume. 



238 ■ History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Ralph White, son of Alexander, read medicine with Dr. Gish, was grad- 
uated from the Cleveland Homeopathic College, practiced at Hume a 
short time, and died there in 1884. 

Francis J. Redmond, M. D., of Fillmore, was born in Mt. Morris Jan 1, 
1866, son of Peter and Catharine (Van Middlesworth) Redmond, whose chil- 
dren were: Edney, Harriet, Francis J. and Alida. Francis attended Geneseo 
Normal School, and was a graduate of the Nunda union graded school. He 
read medicine with Drs. Preston of Dansville, Hill of Dalton, and Harding of 
Nunda, and attended lectures at the Cincinnati Eclectic Medical Institute, 
where he received his degree of M. D. in 1891. After a few month's prac- 
tice at Dalton with Dr. Hill, he settled in Fillmore in 1892. April 25, 1892, 
he married Mrs. Marian (Lyon) Spring, daughter of P. D. Lyon of Nunda. 
Mrs. Redmond has one child, Myra Blanch, by her first husband Lee T. 
Spring of Franklinville. 

Granger. — With occasional visits from Dr. Parmalee of Hunts Hollow 
(then called Hog Hollow) and Dr. Charles of Angelica, the pioneers of Granger 
succeeded in getting along tolerably well. If afflicted with toothache, they 
usually resorted to Capt. Isaac Van Nostrand, who had a pair of turnkeys 
and in pulling teeth was considered "expert." He also had a lancet and 
practiced venesection, many of the people believing in being bled regularly 
once a year and attended to that as regularly as in taking the customary 
dose of "picra " on Sunday morning. It is positively asserted that given 
the age of a person when first bled, one could tell to a year the age of many 
people by inspecting the arm and counting the scars. Dr. Reuben H. Smith 
was the first practicing physician. He was a native of Massachusetts and 
came to Granger about 1830. In connection with his practice he did some 
surveying. He was a man of a hardy constitution, well fitted for the arduous 
duties of the pioneer country doctor, and is still pleasantly remembered by 
the older inhabitants. 

Succeeding Dr. Reuben H. Smith came Dr. Gray, who settled on the 
state road. Dr. Wm. M. Smith was the next. He was a son of Dr. Reuben 
H. He began practice at Short Tract, about 1826, and later removed to 
Angelica. Dr. Matthew Burton came about the same time as Dr. W. M. 
Smith. Opinion is divided as to which settled first. Dr. Wm. H. DeCamp 
began practice on the state road not far from 1850. Dr. Daniels also settled 
on the state road. Dr. Wallace Byrns practiced for a while in this town, 
and then Dr. Wm. Fenno. Dr. Charles G. Anderson was at Short Tract for 
a while. Dr. Myron Miller practiced for several years at Short Tract, and 
after him came Drs. E. H. Hungerford, Peck and Hamilton. Andrew W. 
Smith, a brother of Dr. Wm. M., after practicing at Angelica settled here 
about 1882-3, and practiced nearly ten years. He died abroad some time in 
1884. Dr. Cyrus Haskins at one time practiced in Granger and Dr. C. A. 
Doolittle, for a short time only, in 1895. 

Dr. George St. John is the only resident physician at this time. He was 
born in Middletown, N. Y., in 1841. He read medicine in 1863 with Dr. C. 



Medical Societies and Physicians. 239 



G. Anderson and was graduated at the medical department of the University 
of Buifalo in 1866. He first settled in Yorkshire, Cattaraugus Co., practiced 
in Canasaraga from 1871 to 1890, and since then in Granger. 

Independence. — The writer has discovered no record of the settlement 
of any physician prior to Dr. Anthony Barney who was born in Bristol Co., 
Mass., in 1801. He studied medicine at Fairfield Medical College, and, in- 
March, 1825, located at Green's Corners, where for over fifty years he was a 
successful practitioner. He was two years supervisor of his town and was 
brigade surgeon under the old state militia laws. 

JohnH. Clark, M.D., son of Peleg, was born March 30, 1827, and in 1856 
became a student of Dr. O. Barnes of Wellsville and was also with Dr. Purple. 
He attended Buffalo Medical College, and in 1859 commenced medical prac- 
tice at Westfield, Pa., and in Dec, 1860, located at Hallsport. In 1862 he en- 
listed in Co. I. 160th New York Vols., ancl was discharged in 1864 for disa- 
bility. He was graduated from Buffalo Medical College in 1875. Prom 1871 
to 1876 he was at Canaseraga. Allegany Co., and Wyoming, Wyoming Co., as 
a practicing physician. Since then he has been in practice in Pulmer VaUey. 
August 14, 1853, he married Zeruviah Pulmer. Children, Manfred, Herbert 
G., Clarence E. Is a member of Rolph Post, G. A. R. 

J. G. Horton, M. D., was born in Herkimer county in 1837; came to 
Whites ville in 1843; in 1846 graduated from the Castleton, Vt., Medical Col- 
lege and began"practice at his home in Whites ville. From 1854 to 1862 he 
was in California. He served one year as surgeon in the 189th N. Y., and 
has acted as pension examiner for several years. 

Dr. George H. Bennett, born in Bath in 1818, began practice at Whites- 
ville in 1860. 

Asher J. Remington, M. D., born Nov. 27, 1853, at Ashford, Cattaraugus 
Co., studied with Dr. J. L. Cutler of Bolivar, in 1882 was graduated from the 
Buffalo University of Medicine, commenced practice at Shingle House, Pa., 
and in 1886 located at Whites ville. 

Eugene B. Burdick, M. D., was born in Wirt Aug. 30, 1856, graduated 
at Friendship Academy June 17, 1880, and received his diploma from the 
Medical DejDartment of the University of New York. March 8, 1886, and be- 
gan practice at Whitesville. In July, 1887, he removed to Olean. 

Milton B. Titus, M. D., son of Dr. Lewis F. and Lois R. (Smith) Titus, 
was born April 9, 1858, in Croton, Delaware Co. He graduated at Corning 
Free Academy in 1876, studied medicine with Dr. John Mitchell at Addison, 
was graduated from the University of the City of New York in 1881, and lo- 
cated for practice at Allentown. In 1888 he removed to Whitesville, where 
he is in practice. He married in 1882, Jessie, daughter of George and Han- 
nah Palmer Weed Sheffield, has one son George B. Dr. Titus was coroner 
in 1884 and 1885, and in 1885 president of the Allegany Co. Medical Society. 

Rushford. — In all probability Dr. Dyer Strong, who was elected super- 
visor upon the organization of the town in 1816, was the first practicing 
physician in town. That he was there some years before 1816, follows from 



240 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

his election. Nothing more is learned of him. In succession, as near as the 
oldest inhabitants can remember and place them, came Drs. Horatio Smith, 
Wm. M. Smith about 1840, whose practice in Caneadea was quite extensive. 
Wm. McCall, H. H. Smith, Dr. Stewart, Wm. J. Burr, L. B. Johnson, John 
Pitts and James M. Ward, Jesse P. Bixby came in 1853. He was born in 
Mt. Holly Vt., in 1822, graduated at Castleton Medical College, Vt., in 1852 
and the next year settled in Rushford where he is still in practice. Dr. Wm. 
A. Stacy settled in Rushford in 1856 or 7. 

Dr. Orrin T. Stacy is next on the list. He was a son of Dr. Wm. A. and 
was born in Centerville in 1835. He was a student at Rushford Academy, 
taught school, read medicine, receiving his diploma from the Buffalo Medi- 
cal College in 1860 and settled in Rushford, where he was a physician until 
1885, when he removed to Rochester. He represented Allegany in the As- 
sembly for two terms. (See sketcfi in Rushford.) 

Dr. John P. Colegrove practiced in Rushford along in the sixties for four 
or five years. He was born in Hornellsville, April 19, 1833, and educated at 
Alfred University. He pursued his medical studies under his uncle. Dr. 
James Pitts, and at the College of Medicine and Surgery at Cincinnati and 
practiced in Ohio. In 1866 removed to Clearwater, Minn. In 1874 he took 
lectures at Buffalo, graduating there Feb. 23, 1875. He has since practiced 
at Salamanca. Dr. James Pitts, was in Rushford for a while. Dr. Wm. B. 
Alley was settled in Rushford about 1847. He was afterward county clerk, 
practiced in Angelica and later at Nunda, where he died a few years ago. 
Dr. Robert Y. Charles practiced in Rushford for a few years. Dr. Burt 
Grover was here also for a time. 

Wm. Fletcher Wells came to Rushford about 1880-81; read medicine with 
Dr. O. T, Stacy and was graduated from the medical department of the Uni- 
versity of Buffalo in 1883, and immediately commenced practice in Rush- 
ford where he is now. (See sketch in Rushford.) 

Charles Oakley Sayres, the youngest physician and last to locate in 
town, was born in New Hudson in 1869. He was brought up on a farm, edu. 
cated at the common schools, and Geneseo Normal School, read medicine 
with Dr. E. B. Burdick of Olean and graduated at Buffalo in 1892, and soon 
after settled in Rushford his present residence. 

New Hudson. — This town was especially favored in having had for 
many years as one of its residents the able and distinguished physician 
Calvin L. Allen, M. D. , who, except a few years residence in Hume during the 
forties, made his home here from an early date until his death sometime in 
the seventies. He stood high in medical circles and societies, had many stu- 
dents who became leading physicians, among them his sons, Seneca and Otis 
of Cuba. Dr. Allen had an extensive practice and was of prominence in civil 
as well as in medical aifairs. No one has since filled his place as an "all 
around ' ' man, physician and legislator. Was the first physician locating at 
Black Creek Corners, it is thought early in the thirties. He was born in 
Surrey, Mass., and was graduated from the Casteleton Medical College, Vt., 



Medical Societies and Physicians. 241 

but information as to the date of either events, is wanting. Practicing a 
few years in New Hudson, he went to Hume where he remained 5 years, 
and then returned to New Hudson, resuming his practice there and continu- 
ing until his death in June, 1875. He held the office of supervisor of New 
Hudson. He married Minerva Rogers, and had two children. Dr. Otis 
Allen of Cuba and Dr. Seneca Allen, deceased, of same place. He had an 
extensive practice, which covered a large territory, and is well, and favor- 
ably remembered by all the older long resident people of that part of the 
county. 

Dr. Austin Taylor, on the authority of Mr. H. P. Ricker, was the next, 
but particulars as to him are lacking, as also of Dr. Harry Taylor. Dr. Ens- 
worth is another of whom also no sketch has been received, and Dr. Thomas, 
who practiced at Black Creek a short time, will be found under head of 
Cuba, where he is associated in business and practice with Dr. Otis Allen. 

Scio. — The early settlers resorted to roots and herbs for the relief of 
diseases common to all households, sometimes seeking aid of a wandering 
Indian or squaw, in more severe or surgical cases trusting to Angelica and 
Belmont physicians. In 1850 Dr. Ebenezer E. Hyde located here (see Amity) 
and in 185'4 Dr. J. A. Stephenson. 

James A. Stephenson, M. D., was born in London, England, in 1828. 
His father, Dr. John Stephenson, was surgeon in the British army. James 
studied with his father, passed 4 years at the Madras Medical College and 
was graduated therefrom in 1850. He then went board ship as a surgeon 
and remained 4 years. In 1854 he settled at Scio where he has since prac- 
ticed his profession. He is a member of the County Medical Society, an 
Original Fellow of the State Medical Association, and has held the office of 
supervisor. He married Emma L. Luther in 1860, and has 3 children, Mrs. 
Fred Howe, Mrs. Bert Wilkins and James A. 

Thomas F. Major, M. D., was born inHornellsvillein 1851. He attended 
school at Almond Academy and Alfred University, and was graduated from 
the medical department of the University of Buffalo in 1874. After 1 year's 
practice in Hornellsville with Dr. N. Sweet, he located in Scio in 1875, and 
has continued there as a physician with the exception of 4 years in Michi- 
gan. The doctor makes a specialty of surgery and was pension examiner 
for 2 years. He married Ina White, who died May 19, 1893. He has one 
son, Charlie. Dec. 12, 1894, Dr. Major married Miss Laura J. Barnard of 
Buffalo. A Democrat he was elected supervisor in Scio in 1885, overcoming 
a normal Republican majority of 90. 

West Almond.— Sandwiched in between Angelica and old Almond, 
which places have been well supplied with physicians, this town has not 
held out many inducements for physicians to settle. Dr. Orange Sabin 
came here a good many years ago, and still remains, though an aged man. 
He was born in Stephentown, Rensselaer county, in 1808. He began the 
study of medicine in Pittstown, N. Y., with Dr. L. H. T. Maxson. After 



242 History of Allegany County, N. Y. • 

graduating he attended lectures at Pittsfield, Mass., and then came to West 
Almond. 

Grove. — Grove has not been much of a town for doctors, the medical 
business being done principally by Nunda and Short Tract physicians. W. 
D. Clark, M. D., settled at Swains in 1878. He came from Castile, his native 
place being Leicester, Livingston county. He was engaged in mercantile 
business in Grove and had a good practice. 

Clarksville is so located that the physicians of Cuba and Olean have 
attended to the need of its people. I cannot learn of any physician ever 
being a resident of Allen or Birdsall. 

Wellsville.— Dr. George B. Jones is said to be the first to jjractice 
medicine in this town, locating in 1832. He was followed by Doctors Bab- 
cock, Purple, Whitney (first homeopathist), M. Macken, Pelton, Merriam, 
Allen, Doty, Truman, Gena, Randall Reed, Arvis A. Elliott, L. A. Penny, 
Gish, H. H. Nye, Van Antwerp, Witter, Hanks, Coller, Crandall and Koyle, 
in the order named as near as those who are acquainted with the succession 
can give it. 

Horace H. Nye, M. D., born in 1820, came with his father, Benjamin B. 
Nye, to Genesee in 1830. In 1840 he attended Alfred University where he 
was graduated in 1844. He there first met Elizabeth, daughter of George 
King, Esq., of Bath, whom he married in 1856. Commencing the study of 
medicine with Dr. Hartshorn of Alfred, he was graduated as M. D. at the 
Cleveland Medical College, Ohio, in 1849. He practiced in Alfred and Al- 
mond until 1855, when he located in Wellsville, and until his death, Aug. 28, 
1892, was a leading practitioner and successful business man. He was 
prominent in medical councils and societies, in local matters and in his 
(Republican) political party. He was at one time president of Wellsville 
village. " Under a cold exterior he carried a warm heart for his patients and 
friends, and a sympathizing nature for those deserving symjjathy. " He 
was an active, bold and -indefatigable worker in all the fields he entered. He 
had an adopted son, George Marion Nye, now a practicing physician of 
Buifalo. 

Hon. William Wells Crandall, M. D., youngest son of Ezekiel was 
born in Genesee, March 23, 1828, educated at Alfred and Brown Uni- 
versities and was a teacher in the public schools of Rhode' Island for several 
years. He read medicine with Dr. H. P. Saunders of Alfred, and was grad- 
uated from the University of New York in 1858, and also from the New 
York Opthalmic Hospital. He practiced 28 years in Andover and came to 
Wellsville in 1886. He has been member of the Elmira and the Hornells- 
ville Academies of Medicine, is member of AUegany County Medical Society, 
and of the New York State Medical Society, of which he was made a perma- 
nent member in 1881, and vice president in 1891. He was elected member 
of assembly in 1872 and 1873. Dr. CrandaU married Euphemia Potter, 
daughter of Ehsha. Their only child Susie M. is married to Stetson A. 
Sherman of Eau Claire, Wis. Dr. Crandall's father, Major Ezekiel Crandall, 



Medical Societies and Physicians. 243 

was a native of Rhode Island, who held the office of major in the war of 1812, 
and in 1825 came to Genesee, bought 150 acres of wild land where he built 
a log house, cleared a farm and was also a lumberman. His wife was Susan 
Wells. They had 7 children. 

Porter Hanks, M. D., was born in Center ville, in 1834, studied medicine 
at Rushford. He was graduated from the University of Buffalo in 1860. 
He has practiced in Centerville, and various places, and is now located in 
WeUsville. 

Merritt H. Macken, M. D., born in Ontario county in 1840, came to WeUs- 
ville in 1853. In 1858 he entered the drug store of E. B. Hall as a clerk and 
studied medicine with Dr. H. H. Nye. He attended lectures at Bellevue 
New York City, and was graduatedt here in March, 1865, and soon began 
practice in WeUsville where he is now located. 

George H. Witter, M. D., is a son of Daniel P. and Betsey (Foster) Witter, 
and was born at Willing. He acquired his medical education at the College 
of Physicians and Surgeons. Baltimore, Md. , and received his degree of M. 
D. in 1885, when he established himself at WeUsville, where he has a success- 
ful practice. He is a member of the Allegany County Medical Society of 
which he is an ex-j)resident, of Hornellsville Medical and Surgical Associa- 
tion, and of the New York State Medical Society. Dr. Witter married Maud 
Bingham in July, 1889, and has a daughter Grace. He has represented 
WeUsville for several years on the board of supervisors. 

Jasper W. CoUer, M. D., was born in Cuba Sept. 24, 1852. He descends 
from Reuben CoUer, an Englishman, whose son John was born in 1775 in 
New Jersey. John came to Cuba in June, 1829, with wife Hannah Rynearson, 
born in 1780 in New Jersey, articled 150 acres in the s. w. corner of lot 9 
Holland Purchase, made a permanent home, and died February, 1860, aged 
85, on the two acre lot first cleared by him where he built his log house. His 
wife died about 1850. They were Free-will Baptists. Their children were 
Isaac R.. Rachel (Mrs. John Belcher), Hannah (Mrs. U. McKinster), James 
Van N. and William. The latter, born in Susquehanna county, Pa., Oct. 25, 
1816, died in Cuba in 1888, married Angeline German, born at Ovid, N. Y., 
May 16, 1821, died in Cuba in January, 1881. Their children were George 
W. (deceased) and Jasper W. Jasper W. CoUer graduated at the head of his 
class at Friendship academy in June, 1875, married Aug. 26, 1875, Ardo Ette, 
daughter of WiUiam and Almira Gardiner of Nile, passed some years teach- 
ing schools in Wirt, Belvidere, Richburg and Angelica. In 1877 he began to 
study medicine with C. C. Deming, M. D., of Friendship and was graduated 
from Long Island College Hospital, Brooklyn, June 23, 1880, and located as a 
physician in WeUsville, Sept. 6, 1880. He bought a house and lot on Mill 
St. in 1888 which has since been his residence and office. Mrs. CoUer was 
educated at Alfred University and Milton, Wis., College and was a success- 
ful teacher. 

Frederick T. Koyle, M. D., was born in Athens, Ont., Jan. 12, 1860. He 
received his medical degree at Kingston, Ont. , in 1882, and practiced 13 



244 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

years in Minnesota. He established himself at Wellsville in May, 1895. He 
belongs to the State Medical Association of Minnesota, and the Allegany 
County Medical Association. 

Charles E. Wilcox, M. D., son of Clark Wilcox, read medicine with Dr. 
C. L. Gish. He was graduated from the New York Homeopathic College in 
1889 and located at Scottsville where he practiced for a year and died. 

Dr. John M. Gena, botanic physician, was born in Germany Sept, 29, 
1808, studied and practiced medicine in the German schools before he came 
to this country in 1839. In 1866 he located in Wellsville. 

Charles L. Gish, M. D., born in Pennsylvania in 1852, was graduated in 
1874 from the Bennett Medical College of Chicago. Practiced 4 years in Wis - 
consin, located in Wellsville in 1878. He is a homeopathist. 

Wirt. — Wedged in between Friendship on the north, and Bolivar on the 
south, with Wellsville on the east, this town has not been sought by young 
physicians in quest of places to locate. It has managed to get along very 
weU however. We give a sketch of the physician most identified with the 
town. 

Sheffield W. Greene, M. D., son of Rev. John Greene, was born 
in Hopkinton, R. I., July 15, 1814. In 1825 his father, a minister of the Sev- 
enth Day Baptist faith, brought his family to Friendship where he preached 
some years. Dr. Greene read medicine with Dr. J. C. Sibley, attended 
Geneva Medical College in 1845 and 6, and, after being a partner of Dr. L. 
Whitney at Glean for a year, he came to Little Genesee and soon to Richburg 
where he lived seven years, then afterashort residence inPennsylvaniahe en- 
listed, in 1863, inCo. D. 15th N. Y. Cav., and January 1, 1864, was commissioned 
assistant surgeon of the 147th N. Y. Inf t. He w^as acting surgeon of the reg- 
iment during the Appomattox campaign. After the war he came to Frank. 
linville but soon made his home in Wellsville where he lived until 1893, the 
time of his coming to Richburg his present home. He married in 1837 
Keziah Noble. They have had five children. The doctor for 40 years has 
given arduous and unspared labors for the relief of human suffering, and 
can look back along an honest and diligent life wdth a consciousness of doing 
well all duties falling to his lot. 

Willing. — Quite distinctively a rural township Willing has not encour- 
aged to any great extent the settlement of the disciples of Galen and Hippoc- 
rates. It is a "healthy " town, and then Wellsville is conveniently access- 
able. We can only mention Drs. Barney and Elliott. 

Orville L. Barney, M. D., son of Dr. Anthony Barney, born in Independ- 
ence, March 28, 1843, after two years' attendance at Alfred University, en- 
hsted in 1861 in Co. C. 85th N. Y. Vols., and served until July 26, 1862. He 
then studied medicine with his father, was a student of the medical depart- 
ment of the University of the City of New York in 1873, 4 and 5, was gradu- 
ated there in 1865 and located in Shongo. 

Arvis A. Elliott, M. D., son of Luman B. and Eliza (Adams) Elliott, was 
born June 17, 1846 in West Almond. He attended Alfred University, 



Medical Societies and Physicians. 245 

studied medicine with Dr. C. G. Anderson of Belmont, was graduated from 
Cleveland Medical College, Ohio, in the class of lb79 and located in Shongo 
in October, 1879, where he has since resided. 

Homeopathy in Allegany* has had a constantly increasing patronage 
since about 1850. and each of the larger towns have generally had from one 
to three regularly qualified practitioners, each of whom have a good share 
of the voluntary compliment from the people as well as the appointments to 
offices of trust at the hands of local authorities. In 1883 a society was formed 
regularly incorporated under the laws of the state, known as the "Homeo- 
pathic Medical Society of Allegany County." The first meeting was called 
at the ofice of Dr. B. Williamson in Friendship, where committees were ap- 
jDointed to frame a constitution and by laws. A second meeting was held at 
the court house in Belmont to effect a permanent 'organization, at which time 
Dr. I. P. Truman was elected president and Dr. B. Williamson secretary 
and treasurer,— also a vice president, " Board of Censors," and delegates to 
the state and other meetings were chosen. With eleven members quarterly 
meetings were held alternately at towns in the county for three or four 
years when, without apparent cause, the meetings not being well attended, 
the society ceased to be known and no meeting has been held for at least five 
years. The records and all papers (of which there were many) were burned 
together with the office and contents, including library of the secretary. 
The record of organization is in the county clerk's office. It is expected that 
the society will soon revive. 

Among the earliest homeopaths to attain prominence were Dr. Pelton of 
Wellsville, about 1850 to 60, and also Dr. W. S. Todd of Angelica, who was 
graduated from Hobart College, Geneva, in 1849, and located in Angelica the 
same year. After a few years of practice, he made public announcement by 
a hand-bill, that he should thereafter follow the homeopathic methods in his 
practice, which he did do until his death, July, 26, 1887. A remarkable in- 
cident occurred at his death bed, he being aware of his condition announced 
his own dissolution. With his finger on his pulse, when the heart ceased to 
beat, he clearly said, " It has ceased to beat," and was dead. 

Dr. Hilon Doty located in WellsviUe some time in the seventies, well ad- 
vanced in years. He had attained some prominence with the physicians 
throughout the state, having conducted a hospital for mental invalids on 
homeopathy principles at MargaretviUe, N. Y. He died in Wellsville after 
two or three years' residence there. Some have said, with some degree of 
probability, that out of his suggestion grew the great Middletown hospital 
for the insane. There is evidence of the work of homeopathic practitioners 
in nearly every town of the county before 1860. Most of whom were not 
known to the writer. 

We give a partial list of those known to have practiced homeopathy in 
the county. Aiigelica, Drs. Wm. S. Todd, M. A. Todd, Wm. S. Todd, Jr., 

* Contributed by Bemsley Williamson, M. D. 



246 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Harvey, W. K. Paul, E. C. Cutler, E. B. Guile; Alfred, H. C. Coon; BelmonU 
I. P. Truman, L. A. Simons, F. C. Hardy; Belfast, W. S. Todd, Chamberlain; 
Cuba, Learned, Acomb; Friendship, Stillman Potter, Washington Irving 
Wellman. Bemsley Williamson; Bichburg, Cheesman; WellsviUe, Pelton, Whit- 
ney and partner, C. L. Gish, Hilon Doty. There have been many more in 
the county whose names are not at hand at this writing. 

The Allegany County Dental Society. — October 15, 1894, Drs. G. 
Whipple, Cuba; P. W. Warner, Angehca; W. L. Smith, Friendship; B. W. 
Alexander, Cuba; E. V. Sheerar, Percy Green, and F. H. Ellsworth, Wells- 
viUe, and W. W. Coon of Alfred, met at Dr. Whipple's office to organize The 
Allegany County Dental Society, for the purpose, as is set forth in the by- 
laws adopted, " of scientific, professional, business and social betterment." 
These officers were elected for the first year: President, Dr. G. Whipple; 
Vice President, Dr. F. W.Warner; Secretary, Dr. W. W. Coon; Treasurer, 
Dr. W. L. Smith. The by-laws provide a business committee appointed by 
the president to look after all matters pertaining to the success of the soci- 
ety's meetings which occur quarterly. This committee for the first year 
consisted of Drs. E. V. Sheerar (chairman), F. H. Ellsworth, and V. W. 
Alexander. 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

COURTS AND LAWYERS. 



THE first " court of general sessions of the peace," which was held at the 
house of Evart Van Wickle in Angelica, was an event of much import- 
ance to the people of the new county. By the act of April 7, 1806, forming 
the county of Allegany, it was provided that '' a court should be held on the 
2d day of June, 1807, at such place in the village of Angelica as should be 
designated by the sheriff. ' ' For some reason, however, probably owing to 
delay in perfecting the organization or in securing the appointment of the 
officers and judges of the court, the session was deferred until November 
10th. The following constituted this pioneer court: Moses Van Campen and 
Evart Van Wickle "Esqrs." judges, and Joseph Taylor and William Higgins 
'•Esqrs." assistant justices. They were all appointed by Gov. Morgan 
Lewis. The institution of this court was hailed with great delight and satis- 
faction by the sparse population, as it obviated the necessity of long journeys 
to Batavia over bad roads, as had been the case since 1802. Before that time 
the pioneers were compelled to go to Canandaigua, to sit as jurors, as wit- 
nesses, or to conduct all litigation, however trivial, to which they might be 
subjected. 



Courts and Lawyers. 247 



The composition of that first court of our county was in some respects 
remarli:able. The leading figure was Major Moses Van Campen, a noted 
border man of the revolution, a famous scout and Indian fighter of New York 
and Pennsylvania, and a surveyor of no mean attainments. Evart Van 
Wickle, the agent of Philip Church in the transaction of his extensive land 
sales, a fine scholar and a competent surveyor, was jDrobably next in import- 
ance. Of Joseph Taylor and William Higgins the writer has been able to 
learn but little, but their names so frequently occur in the record of early 
business and legal transactions, that they must have been men considerably 
above the average Allegany citizen in judgment and intelligence. Van Cam- 
pen and Van Wickle were certainly men of much more than ordinary ability, 
possessing extensive acquaintance and great experience in affairs, and so 
brought to the discharge of their duties some, at least, of the qualities so 
essential in a judge. Another feature of this primitive court, which perhaps 
is worthy of notice, is the fact that two of its members were keepers of 
public houses and dispensers of ardent spirits, something which would 
hardly conform to the exacting requirements of modern ethics. 

The record says " court opened by usual proclamation. Grand Jurors 
sworn. James Wliiting foreman. Reuben Riggs, George Otto, William 
Barney, Timothy Hyde, John Irwin, Wm. L. Heydon, Elice Pierce, William 
Wilson, Elisha Strong, Benjamin V. Pelt, John Higgins, Moses Johnson, 
Ransom Higgins, Benj. Chambers, Christian Burns, Elish Chamberlain, 
Philo Ingraham, Nathaniel Reynolds, Ezra Bacon, Asahel FranMin, Sanders 
Rogers. John Freeman, Augustus D'Autremont. Grand Jury charged by 
his honor Judge Van Campen and retired. Court adjourned until 1 o'clock 
P. M." As no charges were preferred the jurors were the next day dis- 
charged by the court. The only business transacted at this term of court 
was to order a seal in the following words: '' The Court further orders that 
the Clerk, as soon as convenient, and before the next session of this court, 
cause to be made a plain Coper or Brass seal, with the County round the 
edges, and on the face an Anchor engraved." The quotation is literal, both 
as to spelling and capitals. We are left in doubt as to who the clerk of this 
court was, the records not revealing his name, though it was probably Jacob 
S. Holt, the first county clerk. This court "adjourned to the second Tues- 
day of June next." 

At the next session, in June 1808, was tried the first case in the county. 
" The People vs. Abraham Baker." For what offense this man Baker was 
tried, does not by the record appear. The records for the first year or two 
are sadly deficient in detail, in many cases not giving even the offense for 
which parties were indicted. At this term "Daniel Abbit and Frederick 
Cavort, grand jurors who did not answer nor give sufficient excuse, were 
fined $2.50 each. "' At the January term, 1809, it appears that " Mr. Clark " 
was district attorney, the first mention of that important official in the 
records. Up to 1809 the records fail to show for what offenses indictments 
were found. 



248 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Court of General Sessions op the Peace and Court of Common 
Pleas. — These courts were composed of judges and assistant judges, the 
number in the various counties differing widely. By an act passed March 
27. 1818, the office of assistant judge was abohshed, and the number of judges 
was hmited to five, including the " first judge. " The court of common pleas 
was continued from 1817 to July, 1847, when, by the adoption of the constitu- 
tion of 1846, it was abolished and the county court took its place. The court 
of common pleas was evidently a popular court with the people; indeed it was, 
so to speak, "the people's court," its members being selected from the 
body of the people. Its jurisdiction in original and appellate cases was 
ample. The terms were limited by statute to five days, and judgments could 
not be entered in vacation. All the parties, witnesses and attorneys were 
thus required to remain until their business was done, and so "going to 
court " attained the magnitude of an event, as well as an important matter 
of business. 

The court of general sessions of the peace had jurisdiction in criminal 
cases, but not in capital crimes. It had a grand jury, and when indictments 
were found for the graver offences, they were sent to the Oyer and Terminer 
for trial. The composition of these two courts was the same, and usually a 
session or sessions of both courts was held at the same term. Following are 
the names of those who from time to time down to 1847, helped to constitute 
these two courts, with the year of their first appearance as a member of the 
court: Moses Van Campen, Evart Van Wickle, Joseph Taylor, and William 
Higgins, 1808; Thaddeus Bennett, Alexander V. P. Mills, Tarbell Whitney, 
John T. Hyde, and George Renwick, 1808; Benjamin Riggs, Jedadiah Nobles, 
Philip Church, and Thatcher Hyde, 1809; John Higgins, Matthew McHenry, 
Elisha Mills, Loring Francis, and Thomas Dole. 1810; Eli Griffith and 
Richard W. Porter, 1811; William Brown and Thaddeus Baker, 1812; Sylva- 
nus Merriman, 1813; Clark Crandall and Jacob Griftith, 1815; Samuel Van 
Campen and Crandall Burnett, 1816; James McCall and Alexander D'Autre- 
mont, 1817; Philip Langdon, Cromwell Bennett and Asa Coon, 1818; L. L. 
Littlejohn, 1819; Isaac Sanford and Benjamin Blanchard, 1820; John Grifiin, 
1821; Roswell W. Knight, 1822; Vial Thomas, 1823; Anson Hinman, 1825; 
Amos Thatcher, 1826; Zephaniah Z. Caswell and George Williams, 1828; 
Samuel S. Haight, 1829; Josiah Utter, 1830; Asa S. Allen, 1831; A. C. Hull, 
D. L. Gilman and Alvin Burr, 1833; Jeremiah B. Willard, Horace Abbott and 
Calvin T. Chamberlain, 1834; John Collins, Wittel Larrabee, D. L. Gibson and 
Elijah Horton, 1835; Samuel C. Wilson, 1837; Ransom Lloyd and Wm. Hicks, 
1838; Abram J. Lyon, 1840. The "first judges" covering this period of 
time (with the date of their appointment) were: Philip Church, June 8, 1807; 
John Grifiin, January 24, 1823; Andrew C. Holt, April 26, 1838; Ransom 
Lloyd, April 18, 1838; Samuel C. Wilson, April 18, 1843. The members of 
these courts held their offices by appointment. 

Surrogate's Court.— When Allegany county was organized, and from 
that time down to the adoption of the constitution of 1846, surrogates were 



Courts and Lawyers. 249 

appointed, at first and until 1822 by the council of appointment, and from 
1822 to 1847 by the governor and senate. During- the first period the 
appointments were for such a term as suited the pleasure of the appointing 
power, but during the latter for a term of four years. An appeal lay from 
their decisions during the first period to the judge of the court of i:>robates 
of the state, during the second period to the chancellor. Luke Goodspeed 
was the first surrogate of the county, his appointment bearing date April 7, 
1807. He resided at Angelica and had, during the time Angelica (and for 
that matter all Allegany) formed a part of Genesee county, represented the 
town on the Genesee county board of supervisors. Farther than that the 
writer can say nothing of him save that he held the oflice for over five years, 
when Alexander D'Autremont was appointed, June 6, 1812. Mr. D'Autre- 
mont was a Frenchman who came to Angelica in 1806. He was soon engaged 
in business, at one time keeping a public house. He was also an early mer- 
chant. His term was short, as his successor Daniel Lawrence was appointed 
March 23, 1813. Mr. Lawrence, of whom the most the writer has been able 
to learn is that he was an early lawyer, held the office for two years, and 
stepped aside for Ebenezer Hyde, who was appointed April 8, 1815. Dr. 
Hyde probably found that the duties of surrogate did not exactly comport 
with the practice of medicine, or it may be that some political '"pull " soon 
excused him from the discharge of the surrogate's duties, for the record 
shows Samuel Southworth to have taken the oath as surrogate June 13, 1815, 
and Zephaniah Z. Caswell was " ai^pointed " on the 27th of June of the same 
year. Mr. Caswell's term was a long one, holding the oflice nearly 16 years. 
He was one of the pioneer lawyers, and his name occurs quite frequently on 
the court records. He was also clerk of the board of supervisors for one or 
more terms. SamuelC. Wilson was appointed April 12, 1831, and held the office 
till his successor, John G. Collins, was appointed January 24, 1840. "'' Mr. Col- 
lins was siicceeded February 14, 1844, by Mr. Wilson who was again appointed 
and continued to discharge its duties until, under the constitution of 1846, 
William G. Angel was elected county judge in June, 1847, and, by the pro- 
visions of the new constitution, assumed also the duties of the surrogate. 
No need exists for tracing the history of the surrogate's court further, as 
from the administration of Judge Angel the duties of the two offices have 
been discharged by the same person. 

County and Surrogates' Court and Judges. — The constitution of 
1846 made provision for the election in each of the counties of one county 
judge " who shall hold his office for four years." In addition to holding the 
county courts he was required to discharge the duties of the office of surro- 
gate, except in counties whose population exceeded 40,000. With two justices 
of the peace to be elected as the legislature should prescribe, he was auth- 

* Samuel C. Wilson was born in Montrose, Susquehanna Co. , Penn., April lo, 1803. From 1836-7 to 
1841 he was editor of the Angelica Reporter and Allegany Republican. He was surrogate from 1831 to 1840, 
and from 1844 to 1847, and was judge of the court of common pleas for several years ending with the second 
constitution. Belfast was his residence for many years and he died there about ten )ears ago. 



250 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

orized to hold courts of sessions. The justices of the peace elected for this 
office were called justices of sessions. The legislature was also authorized 
to confer upon the county judge equity jurisdiction in special cases. In 1869 
the term of the ofQce of county judge was extended to six years by an amend- 
ment of the constitution, and the jurisdiction of the court in all actions where 
the defendant was a resident of the county was limited to cases wherein the 
damages claimed did not exceed $1,000 (since made $2,000). The civil busi- 
ness of the county court is principally confined to cases on appeal from jus- 
tices' courts, quite a share of the criminal business being transacted at the 
oyer and terminer. By the constitution of 1846 county judges, as well as 
all other judges, were made elective by the people. The first man to be 
invested with that ofiice by the voice of the people of Allegany was William 
G. Angel, elected in June, 1847. He was for years a leading and especially 
marked character in Allegany. 

Hon. William G. Angel was born on Block Island, July 17, 1790. His 
ancestry emigrated from Warwick, England. They belonged to the Society 
of Friends, and accompanied Roger Williams to Rhode Island. When he 
was two years of age his father removed to Richfield, Otsego county. His 
eldest sister taught him the alphabet. At an early age he paid in work on a 
farm for a |2 share in a circulating library, and, book in pocket, pursued 
his study of the classics seated on the plowbeam, while the team was resting. 
In 1807 and 8, by dint of the strictest economy, he was enabled to attend a 
grammar school taught by Dr. Buckingham, a Yale College graduate. In 
1809 he entered the employ, and very soon after the office of William Dowse, 
Esq. , of Cooperstown. In 1817 he was admitted to the bar, in 1821 elected 
surrogate of Otsego county, in 1824 elected to congress as a Democrat, and 
was continued in congress, his last election being in" 1830. In 1833 he 
removed to Hammondsport. Martin Grover, who had been his student at 
Cooperstown, came with him to Hammondsport, was admitted to the bar, 
and located in Angelica. In 1835 Grover succeeded in persuading his pre- 
ceptor to remove to Angelica, where the law office of Angel and Grover was 
at once opened, which partnership continued until 1843, when he took as 
partner his son Wilkes. In 1846 Mr. Angel was elected to the constitutional 
convention, in Avhich he bore a conspicuous and very useful part, and in 1847 
became the first elected county judge of Allegany. He held the office until 
January 1, 1852. His death occurred August 13, 1858, at his home in 
Angelica. He was a well-read man of extensive information, thoroughly 
honest in the discharge of all his duties. During his active professional and 
official life he was more generally known throughout the county than any 
other man, and none was held in higher esteem. 

Lucien P. Wetherby was the successor of Judge Angel, being elected 
in November, 1851. Judge Wetherby read law with Angel and Grover be- 
ginning about 1842. After his admission to the bar he was for a while a 
partner with Emery E. Norton, and when Gen. Diven left for Elmira he 
succeeded to his business. He was the first district attorney elected after 



Courts and Lawyers. 251 



the adoption of the constitution of 1846, being chosen in June. 1847. Mr. 
Wetherby had a good practice, but removed to Hudson. Wis., in 1856, and 
the people of that state elected him justice of the Supreme Court. 

Tlie next county judge was Hon. John G. Collins, who was of English 
descent and born at Geneva, April 24, 1809. He was educated at Hobart 
College, a classmate of Horatio Seymour and Silas Wright. He came with 
his father to Angelica in 1825. Reading law with Judge Welles of Penn 
Yan, he was admitted to the bar and at once commenced x^ractice. He dis- 
charged the office of surrogate of Allegany from 1840 to 1844, and in 1845 
and 1846, was elected member of the assembly. He was elected county 
judge in November, 1855, serving one term of four years- He died April 
20, 1877. 

Succeeding John G. Collins came Hon. Wolcott Hatch who was elected 
in November, 1H59. Judge Hatch was born in Norwich, Vt., in 1811, and 
came to Cuba in this county in 1834, where he engaged in the practice of 
law, soon being elected justice of the peace, which office he held for a long 
time. He was elected county judge and surrogate in 1859, and was three 
times re-elected, to say which is better than a page of fulsome flattery. He 
died at his residence in Belmont October 6, 1878. 

Hon. James S. Green succeeded Judge Hatch, being elected in 1870. He 
was twice re-elected. He was born in Jerusalem, Yates county, December 
3, 1823. He settled in Angelica in 1846, and was soon after elected justice of 
the peace. He was also school commissioner for the northern district. His 
death occurred at Angelica September 20, 1882. This occasioned a vacancy 
in the office which was supplied by the Governor appointing Harlan J. Swift 
of Cuba to fill out the term until the next January.* 

Hon. Clarence A. Parnum of Wells ville was born in the village of Wells- 
ville, N. Y., October 7, 1850. In April, 1862, he moved with his parents to 
Michigan, and lived with them upon a farm until October, 1870. October 7, 
1870, he returned to Wellsville, where his residence has since been. His 
school days were passed in the district schools except a short period while 
at the Michigan State Normal School at Ypsilanti, Mich., in 1869-70. From 
October 10, 1870. to January 15, 1872, he was a clerk and book-keeper in the 
store of W. E. Stewart & Co. (clothiers) of Wellsville. In January, 1872. he 
entered the law office of Wm. P. Jones, Esq., of Wellsville, as clerk and stu- 
dent, and was admitted to practice in all the courts of the state at the Roch- 
ester General Term held in April, 1875. He at once commenced practice as 
a lawyer at WeUsville and remained alone until February, 1876, when he 
formed a partnership with Henry L. Jones. January, 1881, this partnership 
was dissolved, and Judge Parnum has since had no i3artner. January 24, 1883, 
he was appointed county judge and surrogate of Allegany county by Govern- 
or Cleveland to fill a vacancy. In the fall of 1883 he received the nomina- 
tion from the Democratic party for the same office and was elected in Novem- 

* Mr. Swift took the oath of office October 12, 1882. 



252 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

ber for a term of 6 years commencing January 1, 1884. The vote was for 
Swift, Republican, 3,062; Jones, Prohibition. 1,147; Farnnm. Democrat, 
5,049. He performed the duties of his office as surrogate and county judge 
until January 1, 1890. 

Hon. Sheridan McArthur Norton succeeded Judge Farnum. He was 
born in Belmont, May 1, 1848. His father, Joseph B. Norton, was a native 
of this state, born in 1800, settled in Belmont in 1831, and died in Friend- 
ship in 1882. His mother. Prudence A. Hall, was born in New Hamj)shire 
in 1807, of good old Puritan stock, and is still living. Sheridan McArthur 
was the fifth child in a family of six children, all of whom are living. His 
first seventeen years were passed on a farm. He then began varying his 
work and disciplining his mind by judicious study, reading and teaching 
school, and before he was twenty-one he was made president of the Allegany 
County Teachers' Association, an event over which he was probably more 
elated than any other circumstance of his deservedly successful career. In 
1871 he made choice of the law as his profession and commenced his studies 
with Judge James S. Green and Hon. D. P. Richardson at Angelica. Com- 
pleting his legal education with Hon. Hamilton Ward and General Rufus 
Scott at Belmont, he was admitted to the bar in January, 1874. He immedi- 
ately began practice in Friendship and soon acquired a valuable clientage, ob- 
taining an extended reputation for advising settlement of disputes and keep- 
ing his clients from litigation, but winning their cases when necessary to be 
tried. He was popular as a referee, and from the time of his admission to 
the bar until the present has had an extensive business in hearing references. 
In 1879-80 and 81 he was supervisor of Friendship, and for the last two 
years was chairman of the board. He has been president of the Citizens 
National Bank of Friendship from its organization in 1882, was for a number 
years member and president of the board of education, has always taken 
great interest in town and county affairs, although the practice of his pro- 
fession claims his principal attention. He owns and personally superin- 
tends a fine farm in Friendship, to which he turns for relief from the ex- 
hausting labors of his law business. He was interested in the first Rich- 
burg oil well, and during the period of the oil development in Richburg and 
vicinity he paid much attention to it, being interested in many of the large 
operations, and he showed rare good judgment in withdrawing at the right 
time. He also evinced a commendable spirit of enterprise in active work 
toward the building of the railroad from Friendship to Bolivar during that 
period, being one of the directors and active managers, and again showed 
sound judgment in stepping out of that enterprise at the right time. In 
1880 Mr. Norton married Mae, youngest daughter of the late Gen. George 
W. Robinson. They have one son, George Robinson Norton. In 1889 Mr. 
Norton was elected county judge, and since that time he has faithfully dis- 
charged the duties of that office, and of the surrogate's court of the county. 
His decisions are characterized by strict integrity and judicial fairness. His 
thorough knowledge of the law enables him to determine correctly those 




^- - ^s>-5^^ 




Courts and Lawyers. 253 



intricate questions which challenge the abilities of the most learned judges, 
as instanced in his decision in the notable Miner will case, which, under the 
advice of some of our most able lawyers and ex-judges, was carried to the 
Court of Appeals, which sustained Judge Norton's decision. In the fall of 
1895 he presided for Judge Nash at Geneseo during the protracted and 
fiercely-contested Father Flaherty case, winning many expressions of ap- 
proval and admiration for his judicial cax)acity and acquirements. Judge 
Norton is a pleasant, forcible and -entertaining speaker, and is in great de- 
mand to address societies of various kinds, for Fourth of July and Decora- 
tion Day efforts, etc. In November, 1895, he was re-elected county judge. 

District Attorneys. — The office of district attorney was erected by 
act of April 4, 1801, and the state was divided into seven districts. What is 
now Allegany was in the seventh district. On the 21st of April, 1818, a law 
was passed making each county a separate district. Under the law and ap- 
portionment of 1801, William Stuart, 1802, Daniel W. Lewis, 1810, Vincent 
Matthews, 1813, and Daniel Cruger, 1815, appeared as district attorneys in 
the courts in this county. It would also seem from the record that these 
offices had power to appoint a substitute as a " Mr. Clark " appeared as that 
officer at the June term, 1809, and, at the January term, 1813, of General 
Sessions of the Peace, " Mr. Clark appeared in behalf of Mr. Stuart, district 
attorney." It seems also that the court had the power to appoint a district 
attorney in certain cases, as, at the October term, 1818, "T. H. Porter was 
appointed by the court " and in February, 1819, Henry Wells " for the time 
being was the district attorney." Under the law of 1818, and up to the adop- 
tion of the constitution of 1846, these persons were appointed to this office: 
James Cochran April 17, 1820, Samuel S. Haight November 13, 1820, John 
Cook 1827, George Miles 1836, Alexander S. Diven, 1841, though by the 
records he appears to have acted in that ca^Dacity as early as June, 1837, 
Wilkes Angel, 1843, Marshall B. Champlain, 1845. Since the office became 
elective the succession has been: Lucien P. Wetherby elected in June, 1847; 
Augustus L. Davison elected in November, 1850; William A. Stewart 1853; 
Hamilton Ward 1856; Milo H. Wygant 1859; Hamilton Ward 1862; James S. 
Green 1868; Rufus Scott 1871; C. N. Flenagin 1874; O. A. Fuller 1883; C. H. 
Brown (^Dresent incumbent) 1889. 

The Circuit and Supreme Court Judges who have from time to time 
held court in this country, form a list of names of which any state, nation, or 
government might well be proud. In general they have been men of great 
legal acquirements, possessing minds of a superior order, as well as of 
great integrity of character and wisdom of judgment, and so have adorned 
the bench by their ability and added luster to the judicial urmine by 
their decisions. In some instances they have been promoted to higher po- 
sitions by the franchises of their fellow citizens. 

Judge Joseph C. Yates appears by the record of the Oyer and Terminer 
to have been the first holding court at Angelica, the session being opened 



254 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

June 13, 1815. Associated with him in constituting this court were Moses 
Van Campen and Thomas Dale. It was the only court at which Judge Yates 
presided in this county. He was born in Schenectady in 1768 and died 
there in 1837. He gained great eminence as a lawyer, and was a judge of the 
supreme court from. 1803 till 1822. He helped to found Union College in 
1795; was mayor of Schenectady in 1798; state senator in 1806-7, and gover- 
nor of the state in 1823-24, then retired to private life. 

From 1815 to 1819 the records do not show any courts of oyer and 
terminer or circuit courts to have been held. In June of the latter year 
Hon. John Wood worth presided at oyer and terminer, associated with 
Philip Church, Moses Van Campen and Clark Crandall. Judge Woodworth 
was a leading Albany lawyer and was appointed supreme court justice in 
1819. L. B. Proctor, in his "Lives of Eminent Lawyers of New York", says 
of him, that "distinguished for his profundity of learning and judicial ac- 
complishments he was one of those who gave to the old supreme court that 
eminence which commanded the respect of the nation." 

June 12, 1820, " Hon. Ambrose Spencer Chief Justice, with Philip Church, 
Moses Van Campen, Thomas Dole and Clark Crandall, Judges" (quoted from 
the record) held a court of oyer and terminer. At this court the celebrated 
case of The People ve. Medad McKay was tried. Daniel Cruger was ap- 
pointed district attorney, but some how the case was brought on "on motion 
of John A. Collier, Esq., who prosecuted for the people. A protracted trial 
followed during which 23 witnesses for the people and 4 for the prisoner 
were sworn. In the usual order of things the jury " returned into court and 
say they find the prisoner guilty." McKay was charged with murder, pois- 
oning his wife. Immediately after this trial which ended with sentence ' ' to 
be hanged " being pronounced by the court, it was discovered that the 
venire which the officer used in summoning the jury was minus the seal of 
the court. Stay of execution was secured, the matter was carried to a 
higher court, to which meantime Judge Spencer had been appointed, and that 
court, by its opinion given by Judge Spencer in which all concurred, ordered 
a new trial which was had at the June term, 1821, Wm. W. VanNess being the 
circuit judge, Philip Church first judge and Moses Van Campen and Thomas 
Dole judges."* On this trial, which was also quite protracted, the jury re- 
turned a verdict of " not guilty." 

Judge Ambrose Spencer was born in Salisbury, Conn., December 18, 
1765, and died at Lyons, N. Y., March i3, 1848. He was a graduate of Har- 
vard, studied law and commenced practice in Hudson, N. Y. In 1793 he was 
a member of the state assembly and from 1795 for seven years was a state 
senator. In 1802 he was appointed attorney general, in 1804 made a justice 
of the supreme court and in 1819 chief justice. He was a member of the 
constitutional convention of 1821. Resigning the office of chief justice he re- 

*This was the only court Judge Van Ness held in this county. 



Courts and Lawyers. 255 



sumed his law practice at Albany in 1823. He was mayor of Albany for 
some years, and represented the Albany district in congress. 

Of Judge Wm. W. VanNess the writer has been able to learn but little. 
He was a contemporary of Daniel Cady, Thomas Addis Emmett and D. C. 
Golden, all eminent judges and lawyers, and his name used in connection 
with them by Mr. Proctor is a good guarantee of his ability and prominence. 

The next jtidge to hold circuit or oyer and terminer court at Angelica 
was Wm. B. Rochester, who presided at the July term, 1823. Judge 
Rochester had lately taken up his residence at Angelica. He presided 
at all the circuits and oyer and terminer terms held at Angelica in 1823, 
182'! and 1825, and presided at the February term 1824, with John Griffin, 
Thomas Dole, Clark Crandall, Vial Thomas and Sylvanus Merriman as 
associates. At this term occurred the trial of David D. How for murder. 

Judge Wm. B. Rochester was born at Hagerstown, Md., January 29, 
1789, the eldest child of Col. Nathaniel Rochester, the founder of the city of 
Rochester. In 1808 he with his father's family located at Dansville. Livings- 
ton county. He was graduated at Charlotte Hall, Md., and studied law with 
his uncle Judge Adam Beatty in Marysville. Ky. , and with Henry Clay at 
Lexington, Ky. In 1818 he was elected to the legislature from Steuben 
county, was presidential elector for James Monroe in 1821, and a member of 
the XVII. congress. In 1823, possibly in 1822, he made his home in Angelica, 
and in 1823 was appointed judge of the 8th circuit. He made the welcoming 
speech at Rochester on the occasion of La Fayette's visit in 1825. In 1826 
he was the " Bucktail " candidate for governor, but was defeated by DeWitt 
Clinton, the vote standing Clinton 99,785, Rochester 96,135. Pres. John 
Adams appointed him secretary of legation to the congress of the North 
and South American States proposed to be held at Panama, and in 1827 was 
appointed charge' cV affaires to the Federation of Central America. In 1828 a 
branch of the Bank of the United States was established at Buffalo, and 
Judge Rochester was appointed its president and held the position until the 
bank was abolished. In 1837 he went to Pensacola, Pla., where he became 
president of the Bank of Pensacola, and director of the Alabama. Georgia 
and Florida railroad. In June, 1838, he embarked on the steamer Pulaski to 
return north. When off the North Carolina coast one of her boilers exploded 
and the vessel was lost. The boat in which Judge Rochester sought the 
shore was capsized and he was drowned only a few rods from land. 

At the January term, 1826, Judge John Birdsall made his first appear- 
ance as presiding judge, the other judges being Anson Hinman, Vial Thomas 
and Sylvanus Merriman. From this time until, and including the May 
term, 1828, no other circuit judge held court in the country. The writer 
has been able to get but little information of Judge Birdsall but concludes, 
from the fact that one of our towns is named after him, that he was fully up 
to the average, in popularity with the people at least. 

Addison Gardiner was the next circuit judge who visited Allegany to 
hold court, appearing first at the October term 1829, and holding all the courts 



256 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

with one exception till and including the March term, 1836. At his tirst 
term S. S. Haight and Anson Hinman were the associates. Judge Gardi- 
ner began law practice in Rochester in 1822, and was the first justice of the 
peace there. He was twice elected lieutenant governor, was district attor- 
ney for Monroe county, and ex-offlcio vice chancellor. On the organization of 
the court of appeals in 1847 he was elected one of the judges, served one 
term of eight years and declined a re-nomination. He died in Rochester in 
1883. He was regarded as an able and impartial judge who was greatly re- 
spected by bar and clientage, and the older members of the bar remember 
with what delight the lawyers, who were old when they were young, spoke 
his name and recalled his memory. 

From the October term, 1831, to the March term, 1833, there appears no 
record of courts of oyer terminer, which must be taken as evidence either 
of a paucity of crime highly creditable to our people, or of carelessness on 
the part of the county clerk. Hon. Charles H. Ruggles presided at the 
September term, 1836. Of him the writer has been unable to inform him- 
self . It was his only appearance as a judge in Allegany county. 

Hon. Daniel Mosely presided at the September term 1836. The local 
judges were Andrew C. Hull, John Collins and Calvin T. Chamberlain. The 
writer has not learned anything about Judge Mosely only that he was ap- 
pointed a special prosecuting officer in the case of the abduction of Morgan 
in 1826, and held the position until 1829, when he was jDromoted to be circuit 
judge. He presided at only one term in Allegany. 

The next in order comes Robert Monell, who held the July term, 1837. 
The local or county judges at this term were Andrew C. Hull, John Collins 
and Josiah Utter. Judge Monell held all the courts (circuit and oyer and 
terminer) down to 1844, He was a Chenango county man, for a part of his 
life at least having represented that county in the state legislature, was a 
man of great legal attainments, distinguished for fairness of judgment and 
impartial decisions, also a man of high social qualities, enjoying immensely 
a good story or a joke on occasions of relaxation from business. The circuit 
court records say that Bowen Whiting held the October, 1844, circuit court, 
and Monell appears by the records to have presided at the oyer and termi- 
ner at the same term. This is the only appearance of Judge Whiting in 
Allegany courts as justice. 

Philo Gridley was the next circuit judge who appeared, holding a term 
October, 1845, and also presiding at the oyer and terminer. At the June, 
1846, Judge Hiram Gray appeared, presided at oyer and terminer, with S. 
C. Wilson, WiUiam Hicks, Jazaniah Emerson and George B. Jones, associates. 
He held courts through 1846-7. He was an Elmira man, but more than this 
the writer has not learned. 

Hon. Richard P. Marvin appeared at the January term, 1848, being the 
first of the circuit judges elected under the new constitution to hold court 
here. Up to this time the judges ihad all been appointed by the governor 
and senate. From this time down to the November term, 1870, Judge Mar- 



Courts and Lawyers. 



vin frequently held courts here. At the oyer and terminer in 1848 his 
associates were Wm. G. Angel, Wolcott Hatch, Robert H. Renwick, and 
during the long time in which he administered justice in Allegany he became 
quite familiar with our people. He was born in Fairfield, Herkimer county, 
December 23, 1803. He worked on a farm until he was 19 years old, he 
taught a district school to obtain the means to complete his legal studies, 
which he for a while pursued under the renowned Mark H. Sibley, was ad- 
mitted to the bar of the supreme court in 1829, and ten years later, on mo- 
tion of Daniel Webster, was admitted as attorney and counsellor in the su- 
preme court of the United States. He was one of the early promoters of 
the Erie railroad, addressing in 1831 the first public meeting held in its be 
half. In 1835 he was elected to the legislature, and in 1836 to congress and 
re-elected in 1838. He was a warm friend and supporter of Henry Clay in 
1844. In 1846 was a member of the constitutional convention, and in 1847 
was the first one nominated at the judicial convention at Buffalo for justice 
of the suj^reme court, for the Eighth Judicial District, under the new 
order. Horace Greeley who was opposed to the elective system for judges 
said. ''It was no wonder that the Eighth District favored it, when it had 
such pure and able judges as Marvin, and his associates," and " that the 
Eighth Judicial District had the ablest judges in the state." Mr. Marvin 
held the position 24 years, and was regarded by the public and by suitors at 
law as one of the ablest and best equipped of judges in a district especially 
noted for the high character of its judiciary. He died January 11, 1892. 

Hon. James Mullett's first appearance to hold court in Allegany was in 
August, 1848. At the oyer and terminer Wm. G. Angel as county judge and 
John Wheeler and W. H. King as justices of sessions were associated with 
him. Judge MuUett continued for five years to visit Allegany as a circuit 
judge. He had few advantages of schools, and late in life began to study 
law. But his industry and ability were more than an offset for his lack of 
early opportunity. By persistent study he acquired the power of exx)ress- 
ing himself in strong, original and vv^ell-chosen language. He was also 
celebrated for his great fund of wit, and his skill at repartee. He was re- 
garded as one of the soundest judges of the Eighth Judicial District. He 
removed to Buffalo in 1843. He represented Chautauqua county in the 
assembly, 1823-4, and was appointed district attorney of that county in 1826. 

The record says that in December, 1848, a " General term of supreme 
court, and special term of supreme court and suj^reme court in equity," 
was held at the court house in Angelica by Samuel L. Selden, one of the 
justices of the supreme court. A court of oyer and terminer was also then 
held, Wolcott Hatch and John Wheeler being the justices of sessions, at 
which John Allen was tried for stealing horses from the Seneca Indians on 
. their reservation near Buft'alo. Allen was sent to state prison for four 
years, and thus was broken up a confederacy of horse thieves and gamblers 
which had for some years infested northwestern Allegany. It was a nota- 



258 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

ble trial, Lucien P. Wetherby was the district attorney, and M. B. Champ- 
lain and Martin Grover defended Allen. This was the only time Judge 
Selden held court here. He was a remarkable man, " his own architect. " 
He -resided in Rochester, was elected first judge of the court of common 
pleas of Monroe county in 1831, was clerk of the Eighth Chancery Circuit, 
elected justice of the supreme court in 1847, and in 1856 of the court of 
appeals. It is said of him '' that he was elected to both of the latter offices 
before he had appeared at the bar of either courts." 

Hon. Moses Taggart of Batavia was the next in order of appearance, 
at the January term, 1849. The record omits stating who were associated 
with him as justices of sessions. Mr. Taggart, though perhaps not as 
brilliant as some of the other judges, was a man of good knowledge of law, 
and his decisions were sound and very seldom disturbed by appeals. 

Hon. Seth E. SiU came next to Angelica, holding the September, 1849, 
term. He was born in Saratoga county in 1809, finished his legal education 
in the office of Thomas T. Sherwood, Buffalo, and was admitted in 1836. He 
was one of the many judges elected in 1847, and died in 1851. He was known 
and esteemed throughout the state as a learned and able jurist, and distin- 
guished for his unblemished and unbending integrity. 

The December term, 1850, was held by Hon. James G. Hoyt. At the 
oyer and terminer Wm. G. Angel county judge and Henry Stevens and A. 
A. Norton justices of sessions, were associated with him. Judge Hoyt was 
in every sense a self-made man, winning his way step by step from one 
position to another with great professional learning and eminent ability. 
He was particularly distinguished for his uniform courtesy, his purity of 
life, and entire conscientiousness in the discharge of official duties. He died 
in Buffalo in 1863. 

Hon. Levi F. Bowen presided at the December term, 1853. Wm. H. 
King and Hiram Boorn were associated in the oyer and terminer. Bowen 
held courts here until 1856. 

At the March term, 1854, Hon. Richard F. Green presided, Wm. H. 
King and Levi Foster being the justices of sessions. This and the July 
term, 1854, were the only courts at which he presided in the county. 

Hon. Benjamin F. Green presided at the July term of 1855. Reuben 
Weed and Chas. W. Wood worth were his associates in the oyer and termi- 
ner. Mr. Green held courts here until and including the July term, 1858. 
He lived at Fredonia, was elected justice of the supreme court in 1853, and 
died in 1860. He was a man of eminent ability as a lawyer, and a high order 
of excellence as a judge. 

Hon. Noah Davis first appeared at the Allegany courts at the March 
term, 1858. E. E. Harding and J. W. Deuel were his associates in the oyer 
and terminer. His last appearance was at the September term, 1867. He 
was one of the ablest judges who ever held court in Allegany, and for that 
matter in the state. He later removed to New York City and his abilities 
as a judge have been properly recognized in the American metropolis. 



^^sfe ^»®>»^ 





c^ ytM^^-tyy^ 



Courts and Lawyers. 259 



Hon. Martin Grover was the next in order, holding- his first term in 
December, lb5b. He continued to hold courts in Allegany until about 1870. 
He was born in Hartwick, Otsego county, in 1811. His father was a farmer 
of limited means, but possessed of great energy of character and a man of 
the strictest integrity, traits which the son inherited in a marked degree. 
He had advantage only of an academic course of study, not having the means 
required to take a college course. He had however qualities which greatly 
compensated for his lack of scholastic acquirements, and forcibly illustrated 
the saying of Gibbon, that a liberal education was but little avail, except to 
him who did not need it. While engaged in teaching he pursued the study 
of law with the Hon. Wm. G. Angel, and he accompanied him to Hammonds- 
port, there completed his studies and was admitted to the bar. Locating 
in Angelica, he soon induced'Mr. Angel to come thither and the well-remem- 
bered law firm of Angel & Grover was established. Mr. Grover's rare 
qualities of mind, his wonderful perceptive faculties, blended with a marvel- 
lous memory and untiring industry, soon gave him a commanding position 
at the bar of Western New York. As a public speaker he was earnest, im- 
pressive, singularly apt in his presentation, and strong in his statements of 
facts or propositions. His language was plain, it might be said blunt, and 
his peculiar voice, tuned to a high key, which once heard was never forgot- 
ten, penetrated to the remotest parts of his audience on occasions of political 
meetings, and. combined with rare ingenuity, was sure to make an abiding 
impression on a jury. His careless habits of dress, which it has been said 
was more from lack of means over and above his expenses and the sum he 
felt constrained to put into books than from slovenly propensities, gained 
for him in the early years of his practice the sobriquet of " the ragged law- 
yer, " or " the ragged lawyer from Allegany, ' " and it has also been claimed 
that this appellation actually contributed to his fame as a lawyer, as an ad- 
vocate and as a political speaker. Mr. Grover was a Democrat until 1848, 
when he took part in the famous Buffalo convention. He was elected to con- 
gress in 1844, and took an active part in discussing the questions relating to 
slavery extension, supporting Hon. David Wilmot in his advocacy of the 
"Wilmot proviso." In 1852 he supported Franklin Pierce for the x^resi- 
dency, was found in the Republican party upon its formation in 1854, where 
he continued until about 1863, when he allied himself again with the Demo- 
crats, and remained with them thereafter. In 1857 a vacancy occurring on 
the bench of the supreme court, occasioned by the death of Judge Sill, he 
was appointed to the place, and, in 1859. was elected to the same office. In 
1870 he was elected one of the justices of the court of appeals, and was con- 
tinued in that position until his death in 1875. He was one of the ablest 
jurists of the court, and discharged the duties of the position with dignity, 
dispatch, fidelity and honor. In 1845 he married Miss Emily Whitmore, a 
niece of Hon. Wm. G. Angel, who survived him eighteen years. They had 
no children. 

In this connection we introduce the foUowing from Hon. Wm. F. Jones: 



260 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

"When I came to Allegany in 1852 I think the lawyers who frequented the 
bar at Angelica were perhaps the ablest, taken as a whole, of any in its his- 
tory . Martin Grover was then in his prime, and. it was before he went upon 
the bench. A. P. Laning and Marshall B. Champlain were among the 
younger, but shining lights, and then the circuits were regularly attended 
by Luther C. Peck of Nunda, William Barnes of Bath, and Diven, Hathaway 
and Woods of Elmira; a strong array for untried aspirants like Hamilton 
Ward and myself to meet. By the way I was a delegate to the judicial con- 
vention held at Buffalo which gave Martin Grover his nomination for 
supreme court judge, and we had a lively time of it. The Erie county dele- 
gation was solid against him, objecting to his want of dignity in demeanor 
and careless habits of dress, and made some hot speeches on the subject, 
saying that Grover 's ' slouch hat, calf boots and homespun pants ' were not 
compatible with judicial dignity. I had to talk for Allegany. I said that 
the plain people up our way cared more about the quality of a man's brains 
than they did about the style of his hat or cut of his pants, and if they would 
give us Martin Grover for judge, we should all know that we had one man 
with a judicial capacity and we would take the risk of dress reform, and 
even if reform did not follow, Avhenever they saw the judge enter the Erie 
county court house under his old slouch hat they might console themselves 
with the comforting reflection that it covered more brains than any ' shining 
silk ' in Buffalo. Grover was nominated and my prediction was, I think, 
fully verified." 

In the order of first appearance Hon. Henry Wells was next, holding the 
October term, 1862. Wolcott Hatch county judge, and Freeman Atwood and 
John F. Olney were the associates in the oyer and terminer. Judge Henry 
Wells was born at Kinderhook, October 13, 1794. He studied law with Gen. 
Vincent Matthews at Bath, and was admitted to the bar in the same class 
with the late Hon. John B. Skinner. In October, 1824, he was appointed 
district attorney for Steuben county, in 1847 was elected justice of the 
supreme court for the Seventh District, the duties of which he discharged 
for nearly 21 years. His decisions were distinguished by clearness, steadi- 
ness, justice and right, deriving their strength from that fairness, rectitude 
and simplicity which entered so largely into his personality. He died at 
Penn Yan, March 7, 1868. 

Hon. Charles Daniels. In answer to a request for a sketch, or data for 
one. Judge Daniels wrote a long and exceedingly interesting letter, which 
wiU be placed in the archives of the Allegany County Histoi'ical Society. 
From this letter the following sketch is drawn, which covers his occupation 
of the bench of the supreme court. He was first elected in November, 1863, 
and Governor Seymour appointed him to fill out the term of the Hon. James 
G. Hoyt, deceased. The last year of his first term he was in the court of 
appeals. In 1869 he was elected for another term of eight years, and then 
he was elected without a contestant for a term of fourteen years. During 
the last year of this term the objection was made that his age would not per- 



Courts and Lawyers. 261 

mit him to hold the office for another full term, and he might after that, if 
again elected, be entitled to draw the salary without rendering any service. 
This resulted in a contest for the office, and he declined to be a candidate. 
He served as judge over 28 years. In 1892 he was elected to congress for 
the Thirty-third District, receiving a plurality of about 5,000 votes, and in 
1894 was re-elected by a plurality of about 12,000 votes. During his judicial 
career he never failed to hold all courts assigned to him, except when he 
was appointed to hold extraordinary courts in other parts of the state. That 
was the case in the trial of Greenfield in Syracuse for killing his wife, which 
consumed more than six weeks' time. He also presided in New York City 
in the celebrated trial of Senator Genet, one of the Tweed Ring, for obtain- 
ing money on false vouchers for materials for the Harlem court house. 
Genet was convicted, but was permitted to escape. After being a wanderer 
for over a year Genet gave himself up, and his case was taken to the supreme 
court and court of appeals, and the verdict affirmed. He was then sentenced 
to the penitentiary for nearly a year, and to pay a fine of .^10,000, being the 
amount he had obtained, with interest. He suffered the imprisonment and 
paid the fine, which it is believed was the only money refunded on the con- 
viction of the members of the infamous "Tweed Ring. "' Judge Daniels also 
wrote the decision affirming the order to hold Tweed to bail, in a suit brought 
to recover money appropriated by him. That decision was affirmed by the 
court of ai^i^eals, and resulted in the detention of Tweed in prison until his 
death. Judge Daniels was by assignments of the different governors a 
member of the appellate division of the supreme court in New York City for 
20 years, holding at least four terms of that court each year. The period 
covered by his judicial career was one of constant labor and responsibility, 
and gained for him great eminence as a judge and placed him on the list of 
distinguished self-made men. Judge Daniels says: "It has been my lot 
from boyhood to employ my time in unremitting labor, and the present 
forms no exception in my favor. My schooling was less than a year, and 
what was afterwards acquired resulted from persistent study, during 
short intervals devoted to manual labor on farms and in mechanical ]mr- 
suits." 

Hon. George Barker was next, holding the October term, 1868, Anson C. 
Hall and Merritt B. Dake were justices of sessions. He was born in Venice, 
Cayuga Co., November 6, 1823, studied law with David Wright, Esq., of 
Auburn, and located in Fredonia in January. 1848. just after his admission 
to the bar. In 1853 he was elected district attorney for Chautauqua county, 
serving one term. Again elected in 1862, he soon resigned on account of his 
large practice. In 1867 he was a member of the constitutional convention 
and was the same year elected justice of the supreme court for the Eighth 
Judicial District, without opposition. In 1875 he was again elected for a term 
of 14 years, a large part of this term he was a member of the general term 
for the Fourth Judicial Department and for the last years was its presiding 
judge. He was a member of the constitutional commission to propose 



262 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

amendments to the judicial article of the constitution. He is now enjoying- 
a well-earned and happy retirement. His long service on the bench has 
made him known as one of our most able and distinguished jurists. 

Hon. George D. Lament held his first term in Allegany in February, 
1869. Washington Moses and Merritt B. Dake were the justices of sessions. 
For five or six years Judge Lament as often as any other of the judges held 
circuits in Allegany. 

The records show Hon. David Rumsey as holding court in February, 
1875, the only term which it appears he held here. He had previously been 
a member of congress, and was a man very highly esteemed, not only as a 
lawyer and judge but as a citizen. As he was a resident of Bath, in another 
judicial district, he was no doubt sent to hold this term in some emergency. 

Hon. Wm. H. Henderson was the next judge in order of appearance, 
holding the June term, 1876. John T. Wright and Stephen Thomas were 
justices of sessions. The records show no other term held by Judge Hender- 
son. He is still living at Randolph, Cattaraugus county. He was admitted 
to the bar in 1852, having studied with Alexander Sheldon and Joseph E. 
Weeden, of Randolph. He was appointed by Governor Tilden to serve in 
place of Hon. George D. Lament, deceased, in 1876, and the same year was 
nominated by the Democrats for a full term, but was defeated by Albert 
Haight. His legal ability and general worth as a citizen are fully recognized 
by the people of Western New York. 

As it is thought all other judges who have held courts in this county 
are (with one exception) now living, their names only will (as a general thing) 
be given and the time of their first appearance. Our people meet them from 
time to time in various capacities and have their own opinions in regard to 
them. It is safe however to say that the reputation of the judges of the 
Eighth Judicial District is fully up to the average of other districts of the 
state in learning and ability, and in possession of all the necessary qualities 
for an exalted judiciary. 

Hon. Albert Haight of Buffalo held his first term in Allegany in June, 
1877. Hon. Loran L. Lewis, another Buffalo man, first appeared in October, 
1883. Hon. Henry A. Childs held the June term, 1884. He is a resident of 
Albion, Orleans county. Hon. Thomas Corlett, (deceased) held his first 
court here in January, 1885. He had formerly lived in Attica, but was re- 
siding in Buffalo when he died. Hon. John S. Lambert, a Chautauqua man, 
held his first court in Allegany in January, 1890. Hon. Hamilton Ward 
appeared first in June, 1892. 

Judge Hamilton Ward was born in Salisbury, Herkimer county, July 3, 
1829. In 1849 he entered the law office of A. & W. P. Konkle, of Elmira. as a 
student and applied himself with such assiduity that he was admitted to the 
bar in 1851. In September, 1851, he settled in Belmont and soon took a prom- 
inent position in the Allegany bar. In 1856 he was elected district attorney 
and again elected in 1862. In 1864 he was elected to congress, and was 
twice re-elected, serving six years continuously, during a very important 



Courts and Lawyers. 263 



period in the administration of the government. In congress he was a 
member of the committee on claims, of the committee on reconstruction and 
of the committee appointed to impeach President Johnson. For a few years 
subsequent to 1871 he devoted himself entirely to the j^ractice of law and 
was considered as one of the most successful lawyers of the state. In 1879 
he was elected attorney general of the state, and May. 1891. he was appointed 
to fill the vacancy on the bench of the supreme court made by the death of 
Judge Thomas Corlett. In the fall of 1891 he was elected justice of the 
supreme court, which high office he now holds, discharging its duties with 
ability of a high order. While in practice he was connected with many of 
the important cases in Western New York, among them that of The People 
vs. Hendryx for the murder of his wife. He was the successful attorney in 
the Angelica andCaneadea railroad bond cases, in the great Whitney divorce 
case and in other hotly contested causes. While attorney general he was as- 
signed by the governor to prosecute Barney Hughes for the murder of W. 
J. Hadley, a distinguished criminal law^yer of Albany. The case • attracted 
state-wide attention, and Mr. Ward's summing up was very highly com- 
mended. As a member of the capitol commission he caused to be abrogated 
a contract for the purchase of granite at a saving to the state of $200,000. He 
was appointed by Gov. Hill a member of the commission to revise the con- 
stitution, and was one of those who opposed the final action of the commis- 
sion, which resulted in its rejection by the legislature. 

Although Judge Hatch has not held any terms of court in Allegany as 
yet, he is one of our own sons, and as we expect that he will visit us in his 
judicial capacity, we take pleasure in giving a sketch of him here. Hon. 
Edward W. Hatch, one of the justices of the supreme court of this state, was 
born in Friendship, November 26, 1852. His father, Jeremiah Hatch, a de- 
scendant of Capt. Jeremiah Hatch who served in the Revolutionary War, was 
educated at Middlebury College, Vt. , became a tutor inNewberne, N. C, and 
subsequently was principal of Friendship Academy. In 1856 Judge Hatch's 
father became canal collector on the Genesee Valley Canal, and read law in 
the office of A. P. Laning. At the breaking out of the war he raised a com- 
pany and went out as captain in the 130th N. Y., and died of disease at Suf- 
folk, Va., in December, 1862. Judge Hatch's mother was a daughter of Sid- 
ney Rigdon. After the death of Captain Hatch the family removed to 
Friendship, where Judge Hatch attended the Academy in the autumn and 
winter months, until he was sixteen years old. He then learned the black- 
smith trade, working at it in this county, and in the lumber woods of Penn- 
sylvania, and at Attica, Wyoming county, until December, 1872. During all 
these years, however, he had a latent ambition to become a lawyer. An op- 
portunity came in 1872, when he began to read law in the office of Hon. 
Andrew J. Lorish, the present county judge of Wyoming county, then post- 
master at Attica, and at the same time he was made a clerk in the postoffice. 
In 1874 he came to Buffalo, and entered the law office of Corlett & Tabor, 
the former of whom afterw^ards became a justice of the supreme court and 



264 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

the latter attorney general of the state. This firm dissolved in 1875, Judge 
Hatch remaining with Judge Corlett until admitted to the bar in June, 1876. 
He then practiced law alone until 1878, when he formed a partnership with 
his former preceptor, Judge Corlett, which continued until the latter went 
upon the bench in 1883. In 1880 and 1883 Judge Hatch was nominated by 
acclamation by the Republican party for the office of district attorney of 
Erie county, and was elected each time by a large vote. In January, 1884, he 
entered the firm thereafter known as Box, Hatch & Norton and there contin- 
ued until January, 1887, when he was elected one of the judges of the superior 
court of Buffalo, a court having equal jurisdiction with the supreme court 
of the state. The superior court of Buffalo was abolished on December 31, 
1895, and its judges were transferred into the supreme court for the re- 
mainder of their terms. Judge Hatch had still five years to serve, but in 
the autumn of 1894 he was unanimously nominated as a supreme court 
justice in the Eighth Judicial District embracing the counties of Western 
New York, for the full fourteen year term, and elected by a large and flatter- 
ing vote, whereupon he formally resigned as judge of the superior court for 
the unexpired term. All of his promotions have been the result of increas- 
ing majorities. As a lawyer in private practice, as district attorney and on 
the bench. Judge Hatch has been conspicuous for his ability, industry, per- 
sistence, courage, sound judgment and high sense of honor. He has also, at 
all times, taken an active interest in public affairs and reforms, is at present 
a member of the faculty of the Buifalo Law School, and lectures frequently 
in Buffalo and elsewhere on social, ethical and economic subjects. Though 
still comparatively a young man his progress has been rapid, but based on 
unflagging energy, honest endeavor and substantial merit. By appointment 
of Governor Morton he is now a member of the appellate court of the sec- 
ond division, 

Hon. Manley C. Green held the June term, 1894, and the June term, 1895, 
Vv^as held by Hon. Alfred Spring. 

Judge Spring was born at Franklin ville, N. Y., Feb. 19, 1851, son of 
Hon. Samuel S. Spring. He was educated at Ten Broeck Free Academy, 
graduating in June, 1870. Reading law with his father, he was admitted to 
practice in October, 1875, and in 1879 was elected surrogate of Cattaraugus 
county, holding by re-election the office 12 years and with decided ability. 
He has since been in practice in Franklinville with his brother George C, 
until in the beginning of 1895 he was appointed justice of the supreme court 
to fill the existing vacancy, and in November following was elected to the 
same iDosition. 

QuAJNT Records and Notable Trials. — The first indictment by a 
grand jury in Allegany county was found at the June term, 1809, and David 
Sanford, presumably of Caneadea, was the party indicted. The offense 
charged was assault and battery, but the record does not show upon whom. 
He was tried at that term and ''found not guilty. " Another and similar in- 



Courts and Lawyers. 265 



dictment was found against him. upon which he was tried, found guilty and 
lined ^5. Stephen Waterman for a like offense was fined Jf^lO. By scanning 
the records it would seem that from 1H09 to 1H2') assault and battery was 
epidemic with our population, the instances of indictments for that offense 
being almost innumerable. Many when tried were found not guilty, and 
where convicted the lines ran from -^1 to '^2o, the latter sum of course im- 
posed in aggravated cases. The hrst trial for grand larceny was at the 
October term, 1809. Ebenezer Slawson being tried and found not guilty, the 
jui-y not leaving their seats. At the October term, 1810, Daniel Graham was 
tried and found "guilty of the felony whereof he stands indicted, and so say 
they all." He was '• committed to states prison for four years." For what 
crime he was punished does not appear, but Mr. Graham enjoys the distinc- 
tion of being the first representative of Allegany county in the state prison. 
At the June term, 1811, Jasher Clark was indicted for "intent to murder,' 
Ammi Holt for forgery and Ebenezer Griffith for libel. Mr. G. was tried at 
the next term, found guilty and fined 5^20, At the June term, 1814, the 
record reveals this. 

The People (^ Indicted for felony 

eu * ' TV/, -ii C Pleads euilty 

Sherman Manville ) ^ ■' 

tried and " the jury return to the bar and find him not guilty." 
At the October term, 1818, John Radley and Jotham CamiDbell were in- 
dicted for horse-racing. At the October term, 1819, Medad McKay was in- 
dicted for murder in poisoning his wife. This was the first of its kind in 
the county. But as the years pass the catalogue of crime increases. 

At the February term, 1824, David D. How was indicted for the murder 
of Othello Church on December 30, 1823, by a grand jury which consisted of 
Moses Van Camioen, foreman, William Bennett, Elijah Osgood, Wm. Gray, 
Hiram Gray, Eleazar Burbank, Freeman S. Wilson, Charles Swift, Horatio 
Smith, Levi Benjamin, Matthew P. Cady, Daniel Woods, Solomon Chamber- 
lain, Nathaniel H. Fordice, Walter Bennett, Azel Fitch, Ebenezer Pettis, 
Stephen Merrils, John Hammond and Jeremiah Fuller. On the 4th and 5th 
of February How was tried by a jury consisting of Daniel Scott, Isaac Smith, 
Amasa Hall, Peter Bacon, William Rose, Luke Maxon, George G. Patterson, 
Joseph Haynes, Ephraim Rowley, Joseph H. Root, Simon Williams 
and Horace Whitney. The court was held in a room over the first jail 
which stood on the site of the present Catholic church in Angelica. 
Samuel S. Haight was the district attorney. He was assisted by John C. 
Spencer, son of Judge Ambrose Spencer, (to whom the court ordered 
the payment of it^lOO or his services), and Daniel Cruger. For the prisoner 
appeared Fletcher M. Haight, Alvin Burr and Felix Tracy. Forty-one 
witnesses were sworn on the part of the people, and fifteen for the defense. 

William B. Rochester was the circuit judge and associated with him 
were John Griffin, Thos. Dole, Clark Crandall, Vial Thomas and Sylvanus 
Merriman, judges. Great interest was manifested in the case, and during 



266 History of Allegany County, N. Y 



the trial, which was ably conducted on both sides, a military guard was 
stationed around the jail. Public sympathy was largely in favor of the pris- 
oner. The jury rendered a verdict of guilty and How immediately confessed 
his guilt. He was sentenced to be hung on the third Friday of the following 
March. So much sympathy for How was expressed by the people that the 
authorities placed a guard about the jail and the house of Sheriff Wilson for 
several days previous to the execution, fearing that an attempt might be 
made to rescue him. How was publicly executed as the sentence directed, 
and people came to witness the execution from Cayuga, Steuben, Livingston, 
Genesee and Cattiiraugus counties and from Potter county. Pa. Half a 
hundred Indians from the reservation at Caneadea were present. The gal- 
lows stood just west of where the Charles Hotel now stands. No other exe- 
cution in this county has excited anything like the degree of interest that 
prevailed on this memorable occasion. 

At the May term, 1827, Henry W. Tracy was indicted for " Blasphema." 
He was tried and the court imposed a fine of $25, defendant to stand 
committed until paid. There must have been some violent and extravagant 
language used in those days, for at the May term of oyer and terminer, 1830, 
Gilbert B. Champlain was indicted for blasphemy. 

The record-maker for the September term, 1834, opens his account thus: 
" At a court of oyer and terminer * * * Present Adison Great Judge " 
etc. Judge Addison Gardiner presided. As late as October, 1838, "court 
adjourned to house kept by Warner Hastings, in Angelica," for what reason 
is not stated; perhaps some repairs to the court house were in progress. 

At the June term, 1840, Robert Monell circuit judge, presiding, Patrick 
Brien was indicted for murder, arraigned, pleaded not guilty and demanded 
trial and was released on $500 bail, but nothing further appears concerning 
the case. At the same term William Casey was indicted for murder, pleaded 
not guilty, was tried, convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to four years 
in state prison. James Welch and Michael Linch were the same year 
indicted for kilhng Patrick Linch, but the records do not show a trial. 
Patrick Kelly was indicted in October, 1841, for the murder of his wife at 
Andover. He was tried at the next June term, Hon. Robert Monell presid- 
ing. Hon. Wilkes Angel appeared for the people, and William G. Angel and 
Martin Grover for the defendant. The case was submitted, and, after the 
jury had been out a short time, the judge sent for them, and asked them if 
they had agreed upon a verdict. They answered "no," and he promptly 
discharged them. The case had been made much stronger against the pris- 
oner than was expected, and the judge took this way of forewarning the 
counsel for the prisoner. Another trial was had, a more vigorous defense 
was interposed and a verdict of acquittal resulted. Henry Sheffield was 
tried in June, 1842, before Judge Monell for killing Wm. Boyle of Amity, 
convicted of manslaughter in the third degree, and sent to state prison for 
two years. 

The years during which the construction of the Erie railroad and the 



Courts and Lawyers. 267 



Genesee Valley canal was prosecuted afforded more than the average num- 
ber of cases of homicide, though but one conviction was secured, that of 
Matthew Carrigan for shooting David Romer. He was indicted in April, 
1851. and tried before Hon. Richard P. Marvin the June following, and was 
executed in due time. Lewis Stanch in July, 1854, was indicted for poison- 
ing Samuel Lentz. tried in March, 1855, and acquitted. Erastus Smith was 
indicted for the murder of Martin Van Buren, and was tried in December of 
the same year, and acquitted. At the October term, 1861, Charles W. 
Brooks and Arnold W. Hazzard were indicted for murdering Matthew Seeley 
in March, 1862, a plea of manslaughter in the first degree was entered, and 
they were sent to states prison, Brooks for eight years and one month, and 
Hazzard seven years and one month. Thomas Burns and Mark Costello 
were indicted in July, 1862, for murder. Costello was tried in October and 
convicted of manslaughter in the third degree, and Burns plead guilty to the 
same and both were sentenced to two years in state prison. 

Jane Brooks w^as indicted for the murder of Mary Lacelle by poisoning, 
at the July term. 1863, and was tried the next October before Hon. Martin 
Grover. Hon. Hamilton Ward was the prosecuting attorney and Hon. Wilkes 
Angel and Col. A. J. McNett defended. The case from its nature and cir- 
cumstances was invested with unusual interest; the trial resulting in con- 
viction, and sentence to be hanged on the 18th of December, 1863, but the 
Governor interposed and commuted her sentence to imprisonment for 
life. Jerome Curtis of Granger was indicted in 1865 for murdering his 
wife by poisoning. The case was tried in 1866 and resulted in a verdict of 
acquittal. 

A notable trial was that of David H. Carpenter in February, 1869, for 
the murder of his brother. Hon. M. B. Champiain assisted the district 
attorney Gen. Rufus Scott, and Hon. Wilkes Angel and A. P. Laning 
defended the prisoner. No motive for the crime could be shown. The son 
of the prisoner was instrumental in securing his conviction, and he was 
executed in April, 1869. 

Probably the most notable trial for murder in this county was that of 
Henry C. Hendryx for the murder of his wife by shooting on July 7, 1876. 
He was tried in October before Judge Barker at Belmont, and the jury, fail- 
ing to agree, was discharged. The following June at Angelica he was again 
tried, and the jury returned a verdict of murder in the second degree, and 
he was sentenced to imprisonment in the state prison for life. 

At the January term, 1882, Edwin Whipple was indicted for murder, 
tried, found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to states prison for 19 
years. John McCarthy was at the same term tried for murder, found guilty 
and was hung the 24th of the next March. In January, 1886, Isaac Griffin 
was indicted for murder, afterward convicted of manslaughter and sent to 
state prison for life. Charles Gilbert and Henry Smith have each been 
sent to prison for life, each being indicted for murder. 



268 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Attorneys and Counsellors. — It is to be regretted that more can- 
not be learned of the lawyers who attended our very earliest courts. The 
record of their oaths as attorneys and counsellors affords, in many cases, 
even of prominent lawyers, the only thing we can give concerning them. 
By the list it appears that at the opening of the first court five attorneys 
were sworn in. Of that five a sketch of Daniel Cruger only appears. Three 
more were sworn at the next term. S. S. Haight and Zephania Z. Caswell 
being two, and of them, though very prominent, but little is known. John 
Mastick, an early lawyer of Rochester, was sworn in at the January term, 
1809, though then of course from some other place. Timothy H. Porter took 
the oath in June, 1809. He resided in this county for a while, probably at 
Angelica, was senator from Allegany and Steuben 1816-1829, inclusive, and 
then removing to Olean was the first presiding judge of the court of common 
pleas in Cattaraugus county. He died in Olean about 1840, after a very busy 
and useful life. Wm. B. Rochester appeared in our courts as early as 1811. 
Henry Wells afterward Judge Wells appeared first in June, 1818, and Charles 
H. Carroll in February, 1820. Luther C. Peck took the oath in June, 1826. 
He was then living in Pike, where he was supervisor six years and justice 
of the peace ten years. He was elected to congress in 1836 and re-elected in 
1838. For nearly 50 years he attended the Allegany courts. He was a very 
able man, a great master of sarcasm, and an eloquent advocate. Ransom 
Lloyd afterward county judge first appeared in our courts in February, 1827. 
At the same court John Young of Geneseo also appeared. Mr. Young was 
for years frequent in his attendance at our courts. He was an able lawyer, a 
powerful advocate and successful attorney, and afterward governor. John 
C. Spencer's name does not appear, though it is well known that he was 
engaged on the How trial in 1824. So it seems there must have been some 
exceptions. Nor does the name of Dudley Marvin appear, though for years 
he attended our courts. He was a great criminal lawyer and one of the most 
remarkable men of the state. He was formerly of Canandaigua, New York 
and Brooklyn, and later became a resident of Chautauqua county. He ' ' rode 
the circuit"' in his earlier and more active days. John G. Collins took the 
oath as an attorney June 23, 1830, The first appearance of Alexander S. 
Diven was February 12. 1834. The late Samuel M. Russell put in his first 
appearance at the June term, 1830. William G. Angel and Martin Grover 
appeared and took the oath June 23, 1835. The late Benjamin F. Angell of 
Geneseo was sworn February 11, 1836, and Miles Moffatt of Portage ville 
October 6, 1836. Wilkes Angel and his brother WiUiam P., Dec. 10, 1836 
Wm. A. Stewart afterward district attorney for Allegany, was sworn as 
attorney and counsellor October 5, 1837. Wolcott Hatch, afterward county 
judge, October 2, 1838, and Marshall B. Champlain February 8, 1839. Samuel 
C. Wilson took the oath June 2, 1840, and I. N. Stoddard June 7, 1841. Mr. 
Stoddard was quite a prominent lawyer from Genesee county. Gideon L. 
Walker first appeared at the February term, 1843, and David J. PuUing and 
Lucien P. Wetherby at the June term same year. Albert P. Laning was 



Courts and Lawyers. 269 



sworn as attorney and counsellor June 6, 1844, and James R. Doolittle Feb- 
ruary 3, 1845. Mr. Doolittle was one of the briii'ht and shining stars in the 
legal firmament of those days. Weathersfield, Wyoming Co., -was his native 
place. About 1850 he removed to Wisconsin and soon after became United 
States senator from that state. E. E. Harding first appeared at our courts 
June 3, 1845, and so has rounded out o\'er half a century of successful prac- 
tice, being now the oldest attorney and counsellor, both in age and practice, 
in the county. Scott Lord appeared February 2, 184(1 Mr. Lord has since 
achieved great eminence as a lawyer in New York City. 

This list has been " sifted over " down to fifty years ago. The absence 
of some distinguished names is no more noticeable than the appearance of 
others. John B. Skinner was an almost constant attendant upon the Alle- 
gany courts for a great many years, and was one of the leading lawyers of 
Western New York, yet we fail to find his name; while the names of Reuben 
Weed, Jazaniah Emerson, Peter S. Norris and others, who were never known 
as lawyers do appear. The list discontinues with February, 1847. Quite 
likely new provisions were made under the new constitution for the admis- 
sion of lawyers to practice. 

That historic old court house at Angelica has been the scene of many a 
legal encounter, many a battle of intellectual giants, and, on occasion, has 
been crowded to the doorways to listen to the forensic efforts of John B. 
Skinner, George Barker, Luther C. Peck, James R. Doolittle, Alexander S. 
Diven, Martin Grover, Dudley Marvin, John Young, Marshall B. Champlain 
and others, not to speak of those of the present day. Intense was the 
excitement of the crowd, and more especially of the clients, when, after the 
case was "summed up" and the judge "charged" the jury, the latter 
retired, and with what suspense and breathless anxiety was awaited their 
return with a verdict, which the late Luther C . Peck said was ' ' out of, and 
beyond all human calculation, and would challenge the omniscience of Deity 
to forecast." And those displays of eloquence, those engagements of the 
lighter arms and the heavy artillery of the bar of Western New York were 
given for a mere pittance compared with the fees of successful practitioners 
of to-day. One of the older members of the Allegany bar told the writer he 
had known Martin Grover in his early years of practice to drive over from 
Angelica to Cuba and " pettifog " a case before a justice for the insignificant 
sum of two dollars, and, repeating this to an old resident of Hume, this man 
declared that he had known him to come to Hume on a like errand for A 
DOLLAR AND A HALF! Of course the lYdy of the lawyers of those days when 
engaged in the higher courts was only proportionately larger, but would the 
merest tyro in the profession to-day travel twenty miles and back, and 
" fogg a suit " before a justice for the pay that Martin Grover received? 
Reminiscences, anecdotes, jokes and peculiar episodes without number of 
Allegany's early courts and lawyers might be recited did time and space 
permit, and it is to be hoped that some competent member of the profession, 
may deem it a labor of love to rescue them from oblivion and preserve them 



270 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



in a volume entirely devoted to this subject. We will now present the "oath 
list ■■ of early lawyers, and follow it with personal sketches. 

"OATH LIST" OF ATTORNEYS AND COUNSELORS. 

1807. C. T. Harrison, Daniel Cruger, Horatio Waterhouse, J. Clark, Phineas L. Ely, Nov. 10. 

1808. S. S. Haight, Jan. 28, Z. Z. Caswell, John S. Daly, Oct. 25. 

1809. John Mastick, Jan. 18, William Wiesman, Daniel W. Lewis, Timothy H. Porter, June 27. 

1810. Reuben Smith 2d, Oct. 23. 

1811. William B. Rochester, J. J. Haight, June 25, Josiah Robinson, Oct. 27. 

1814. William Woods, June 28, R. Bunner, Oct. 25. 

1815. David Hudson, David Woods, David Higgins, Jr., Oct. 21. 

1S17. Alvin Burr, Jan. 21, John Collins, Jan 22, Mayhew Safford, June 24, Felix Tracy, Oct. 28. 

1818. Henry Wells, Jacob R. Everstow, Lewis L. Littlejohn, June 24. 

1819. James Cochrane, Oct. 26, James Crocker, Edward Howell, Oct. 27. 

1820. Charles H. Carroll, Feb 8, Anson Gibbs, June 27. 

1821. George H. Green. Fletcher M. Haight, Feb. 13, George Miles, Oct. 6. 

1822. Ziba A. Leland, Oct. 21. 

1823. Russell Day, Oct. 23, William Hyslop, Oct. 24. 

1824. John D. Safford, Feb. 11. 

1825. Mr. Cook, Feb. 8. 

1826. John G. Hallett, Arthur Herrick, June 7, Luther C. Peck, C. H. Beyong, June 28. 

1827. Ransom Lloyd, L. Waldron, John Young, Feb. 15, Levi Warner Ruggles, Ambrose Bennett, 
June 26, Henry W. Rogers, Oct. 23, Joseph Wilson, Oct. 25. 

1828. Elijah Griswold, Feb. 12. 

1830. Henry Bryan, Dudley C. Bryan, June 22, John G. Collins, June 23. 

1831. James Smith, Benjamin C. Cook, John B. Cooley, June 28, Frederick Carter, Bronson Owen, 
Oct. 25. 

1832. Francis Storms, Feb. 15, James Proudiit, Feb. 14, Anthony S. Chew, Robert Haight, June 27, 
Lyman Sherwood, June 25, Robert S. Wilson, June 28. 

1834. A. C. Chipman, Alexander S. Diven, Samuel M. Russell, Feb. 12, William R. Smith, June 30, 
William M. Hawley, Oct. 31, Wittel Larabee, Nov. 8. 

1835. William G. Angel, John E. Niles, Martin Grover, B. Bagley, June 23, J. B. Goodwin, June 26, 
Isaac L. Endress, June 28. 

1836. Benjamin F. Angell, Andrew Mead, Feb. 11, Miles Moffat, Oct. 6, C. T. Chamberlain, Wilkes 
Angel, Charles Collins, William P. Angel, Dec. 10. 

1837. Addison M. Crane, June 6, Nathan Osborne, Dexter Straight, Oct. 4, William A. Stewart, J. K. 
Hale, Oct. 5. 

1838. Alvan Peck, James L. Loop, Feb. 7, Marvin Trail, June 6, Wolcott Hatch, Oct. 2. 

1839. Marshall B. Champlain, Feb. 8. 

1840. Reuben P. Wisner, Feb. 5, David B. Johnson, E. B. Pottle, June 2, Samuel C. Wilson, June 6, 
Harvey F. Smith, Oct. 6. 

1841. Roderick White, Feb. 10, Laurens B. Hull, I. N. Stoddard, J. B. Hamilton, O. C. Pratt, June 7, 
O. W. Hewitt, L. D. Simons, William Hicks, A. J. Lyon, Josiah Utter, Andrew C. Hull, Oct. 12. 

1842. R. L. Brundage, Feb. 10, Samuel J. Mills, Feb. 19, Robert Flint, June 7, C. R. Monell, Emery E. 
Norton, June 8, A. S. Nye, Hiram Bennett, Oct. 5. 

1843. Thomas I. Reynolds, Feb. 9, Gideon L. Walker, Feb. 10, George W. Elmer, Thomas H. Gibbs, 
Feb. 14, Kimball H. Dimmick, June 7, David J. Pulling, June 9, L. P. Wetherby, June 13, E. Horton, 
Oct. 20 

1844. A. L. W. Dougall, Feb. 7, James Burt, Feb. 9, Nelson Cobb, Feb. 17, A. P. Laning, June 6, 
Elias Hull, June 12, Thomas C. Rogers, Oct. 8. 

1845. James R. Doolittle, Feb. 3, Grover Leavens, Feb. 5, W. L. Storke, Feb. 7, John Wilkinson, M. 
H. Wygant, Floyd Kelly, J. H. Windsor, Feb. 11, E. E. Harding, June 3, Alexander Storrs, June 10, Buel 
Town, W. A. Bly, Oct. 7. 

1846. H. Chalker, Linus Jones Peck, Scott Lord, Eldad O'Brian, Feb. 2, I. T. Walker, Truman Hub- 
bard, Feb. 10, George Bishop, May 22, William M. Crozier, Warren B. Cutler, May 26, M. H. Hann, Oct. 14, 
Z. H. Jones, Richard C. Bushnell, R. W. Scott, Oct. 15. 

1847. William H. H. Griffin, L. L. Strong, Feb. 6, Lewis Foster, William Windsor, Reuben Weed, 
John Wheeler, Feb. 10, Jazaniah Emerson, Feb. 12, George B. Jones, R. H. Renwick, Feb. 13, Morris S. 
Chase, Anson G. Chase, May 20, James L. Common, May 21, B. C. Brundage, J. S. Green, Peter S. Norris 
May 22. 



Courts and Lawyers. 271 



February 3. 1841, one Cyrus M. Harmon's name appears as having taken 
the oath, but a line is drawn over the name and. opposite appears "Thrown 
over the Bar." Just what that means perhaps some of the older members 
of the bar may know. Whatever it may have been however, the record 
shows no other such instance. 

Vincent Matthews, born in Orange county, June 29, 1766, was sent to 
school at Middletown, N. Y., at an early age, but instead of entering college, 
he finished his classical studies under the instruction of Noah Webster. In 
1786 he began reading law in the office of Robert Troup in New York, and in 
1790 was admitted to practice. He was chosen to represent the western 
senatorial district in 1796. In 1809 he was elected to congress. In 1816 he 
removed to Bath, Steuben county, thence in 1821 to Rochester. He was one 
of the great lawyers of his day, and was in frequent attendance at the courts 
at Angelica. He practiced law for over half a century, 

Daniel Cruger was born in Sunbury, Pa., December 22, 1780. At the 
age of thirteen was apprenticed to learn the printer's trade. He afterward 
studied law with S. S. Haight at Bath, and was admitted to the bar and be- 
came his partner in 1806. He was elected member of assembly from Alle- 
gany and Steuben in 1813-14 and 15, was district attorney for the counties 
of Tioga, Steuben and Allegany as early as 1809, and was elected to the as- 
sembly again in 1825. He died in Wheeling, Va. , in 1843. 

Judge John Collins, son of John, was born in Litchfield, Conn. In 1825 
he came to Angelica and was engaged with others in the sale of land in Alle- 
gany. He was admitted to the bar in 1807, and died in 1863. 

John C. Spencer, who assisted district attorney Haight in the trial of 
D. D. How in 1824, is worthy of more than passing notice. He was the son 
of Ambrose, and was born in Hudson, N. Y., January 8, 1788, and died in Al- 
bany, May 18, 1855. He was graduated from Union College in 1806, and in 
1807 was private secretary to Gov. Tompkins. He was admitted to the bar 
in 1809, was master in chancery and district attorney, member of congress 
1817-19, and served several terms in state assembly and senate. In 1827 
he was one of the revisers of the statutes of the state, and in 1839, secre- 
tary of state of New York. He was United States Secretary of Wai-, and 
then Secretary of the Treasury in Mr. Tyler's cabinet, 1841-43. 

John Baldwin was a native of Lebanon, Conn., and when young located 
in Geneseo for a permanent residence. However he soon after determined 
to prepare himself for the law, and entered the ofiice of Samuel M. Hopkins at 
Moscow, Livingston county, remaining with his preceptor until admitted to 
the bar, when he commenced practice in Moscow, and after a year or two 
he located at Dansville. In 1835 he formed a copartnership with the late 
Wm. M. Hawley of Hornellsville, and removed to that place. The firm soon 
became distinguished for ability and fidelity to its clients, and was very 
successful and while it continued had the entire confidence of the public. 
Mr. Baldwin remained in Hornellsville until 1842, and then removed to Al- 
mond, where he resided until his death in 1843. Mr. Baldwin possessed 



272 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

rare faculties of mind, and a remarkable memory. He had an exalted taste 
for literature, reading the most eminent of ancient and modern authors, had 
a great fund of wit, which at times was irrepressible, was an eloquent advo- 
cate, but on many an occasion invoked the displeasure of the court by his 
blunt expressions; at heart however he was honest and true as steel to his 
clients. He will long be remembered for his quaint sayings and extrava- 
gant expressions. L. B. Proctor says of him, "He was one whose faults 
lay on the exterior of his character, who never attempted to pass for anything 
better than he really was. " An old resident of Almond informed the writer 
that when on his death bed a friend said to him " Baldwin, do you know you 
are dying? " Baldwin said, "No, am I? " "You are," said his friend. " Then " 
— said Baldwin — "I suppose we shall have to let her flicker ," an expres- 
sion much used at the time. These were his last words. 

Gen. Alexander S. Diven was born in Watkins, February 10, 1809, edu- 
cated at Penn Yan and Ovid academies, taught school and at 21 years of age 
he began the study of law in the ofiice of Judge Hiram Gray at Elmira. He 
was for a time also in the office of Fletcher M. Haight at Rochester; after- 
ward was in the county clerk's office at Owego, then became a resident of 
Angelica, where he was admitted to the bar of the court of common 
pleas. At the court of oyer and terminer held in Angelica in July, 1837, 
he became district attorney, in which capacity he served 5 or 6 years. He 
practiced law in Angelica 11 years, li years being a partner of Geo. Miles. 
In 1845 he removed to Elmira where he has since resided. He was state 
senator in 1858-9, and a member of the 37th congress. He was a gallant 
soldier during the Civil War, attained the rank of major and was afterward 
brevetted brigadier general. A sound lawyer of extensive practice, he was 
eloquent and persuasive, and is ranked among the foremost in the profession 
in the state. 

William M. Hawley was born in Delaware county, February 13, 1802, and 
came to Almond in 1828. He studied law with George Miles; could not de- 
vote all his time to study, so took books home with him, and when relieved 
of other duties, applied himself industriously to them, and in due time was 
admitted and established an office in Almond, where he had a good practice, 
removing to Hornellsville in 1837. He died some years ago. 

Samuel M. Russell was born in Canajoharie, N. Y., February 14, 1808. 
In 1810 the family removed to Hume. He attended the first school in Hume 
(his sister Caroline the teacher), during the war of 1812. The common 
school, and about 3 years at the Middlebury academy, w^ere his only educa- 
tional advantages. He taught school a few years, then entered the law office 
of Timothy H. Porter at Olean, but Mr. Porter soon being elected to con- 
gress, Mr. Russell resumed his studies with George Miles of Angelica. 
January 13, 1837, he was admitted to the bar of the supreme court by Chief 
Justice Nelson. October 29, 1841, he was admitted as counsellor at law by 
Judge Nelson. January 14, 1837, he was examined and admitted as solicitor 
in chancery by R. Hyde Walworth, chancellor of the state. On the 27th 



^-^" 





AaauticftjliUsliuiS &£iijra«n^ Co ■S6\jToi'k 



Courts and Lawyers. 273 



of September, 1867, he was admitted and licensed in the United States 
courts. He held by appointments by the Governor, several offices, supreme 
court commissioner and master and examiner in chancery. He was post- 
master at Cuba eig^ht years. He was a life-long Democrat, and for years 
the oldest member of the Allegany bar. 

Wilkes Angel, of English and Society of Friends' ancestry, son of Wm. 
G. Angel, was born February 26, 1815, in Exeter, Otsego county. The com- 
mon schools of his day and Hartwick academy, were his only educational 
advantages. With the family he removed to Hammondsport in Steuben 
county in 1833, thence to Angelica in 1835. Prosecuting his law studies 
with Angel & Grover he was admitted to the bar in 1837, commencing prac- 
tice in Cuba in 1838. In 1844 he removed to Angelica and from thence to 
Belmont in 1866. In 1841 he was appointed district attorney of Allegany 
county, and Gov. Silas Wright made him master in chancery in 1844. He 
w^as supervisor of Angelica and of A mity . and was chairman of the board of 
supervisors. In 1860 he was elected to the assembly and 1861 and 1863 to 
the senate. A lawyer of large and successful practice, he was also a leg- 
islator of marked ability. 

Marshall B. Champlain was born in Stafford, Genesee county, Decem- 
ber 22, 1820. His father was Gilbert B. Champlain, M.D., a lineal descend- 
ant of the eminent French navigator, and first governor of New France, or 
Low^er Canada. His mother's family were of Irish extraction, and the blend- 
ing of the two nationalities may account for the ease and affability, the ardor 
and ready wit for which Mr. Champlain was distinguished. The family in 
Marshall's early years removed to Cuba, where he ever afterward resided. 
With the exception of a short period at the Middlebury academy, Mr. Cham- 
plain's education so far as institutions of learning had to do with it, w^as con- 
fined to the common schools. Whatever he may have lacked in academic 
and collegiate advantages, he made up by determination and persistence in 
the pursuit of knowledge. Making choice of the law as his profession, he 
entered the office of S. M. Russell, Esq., at Cuba, and began his studies, 
finishing with James A. Guernsey of Pittsford, Monroe county, and was ad- 
mitted to the bar at twenty-two years of age. Establishing himself at Cuba 
he soon secured a lucrative practice, w^hich extended throughout his own 
and adjoining counties. In January, 1845, he was appointed by the court of 
common pleas of Allegany to the position of district attorney. In 1852 Mr. 
Champlain was elected member of assembly by a large majority, and was 
distinguished, owing largely to personal popularity, by being the last Demo- 
cratic member sent from Allegany. He at once took a leading position in 
the assembly where he was noted for coolness, skill and superior ability. In 
April, 1867, he was elected delegate at large to the constitutional convention. 
In the fall of 1867 he was elected attorney-general, and in 1869 was re-elected 
by an increased vote. After the expiration of his term of office he retired 
from public life. Satisfied with the high honors which had been bestowed 
upon him, he sought the quiet of home life, and rest from active work, with 



274 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

only labor enough in his profession and otherwise, to make him contented 
and an occasional help to his friends. Mr. Champlain was buried at Cuba 
on the 10th of March, 1878. 

Wm. Pitt Angel studied law with his father, Wm. G. Angel, was admitted 
about 18-40, opening an office in Cuba, afterward removing to Ellicottville, 
where he was elected district attorney, holding the office some ten years. 
He afterward removed to New York and was for a time in ]5artnership with 
James W. Nye. He soon returned to Cattaraugus and located in Olean and 
in 1866 removed to Westchester county where he died February 11. 1869. 

David J. Palling was a practicing attorney as early as 1818, for a while 
in Hume, after at Angelica associated with Ransom Lloyd under firm name 
of Lloyd & Pulling. He removed to some westerti state not far from 1850. 

Albert P. Laning was admitted to practice in the common pleas of Catta- 
raugus county in 1844. In 1847 he was located at Rushford, and in Oramel 
as late as 1858. He became distinguished as a lawyer, his fame reaching 
far beyond the limits of the county. He removed to Buffalo where he secured 
a lucrative practice and was attorney for the New York Central for some 
years before his death which occured in the eighties. 

Bonum Laning a brother of A. P., was engaged with him and J. W. 
Deuel in practice at Oramel. He died many years ago. 

Elias E. Harding was born January 11, 1817, in Lyme, Conn., brought up 
on a farm, at 18 years of age attended the old Middlebury Academy one 
year, then one year at Alexander Classical School, after at the academy at 
Bethany. Taught school several terms and was for some time a teacher in 
Clarence Academy. In 1840 began reading law with Skinner & Smith at 
Leroy; finished with W. Riley Smith at Attica. He was admitted to the bar 
in 1844 at Rochester in class with James O. Putnam of Buffalo. Chief Jus- 
tice Nelson was a member of the examining board. Mr. Harding began 
practice in Hume in May, 1845, and has always remained there. He is the 
oldest lawyer and has been longest in practice of any in the Allegany bar. 

Benjamin C. Brundage was born in Vernon, Sussex county, September 
27, 1820; read law with Reynolds & Brundage, Hornellsville, and was admit- 
ted to the bar in 1848; the next year settled in Andover where he resided 
and engaged in active practice. Has been justice of the peace and notary 
public. Mr. Brundage died December 9, 1895. 

Amos G. Chase, son of Rev. John B. Chase, was born September 12, 
1824, in Milo, Yates county. He attended the common schools at Whites- 
ville, studied law with A. G. Chatfield of Addison, was admitted to the bar 
at Angelica in June, 1845, and settled at Whitesville, where he practiced law. 
He was considered one of the best of counselors. He died March 24, 1877. 

Hon. Morris S. Chase, born in 1822, was a son of Rev. John B. Chase, 
studied law with Hon. A. G. Chatfield of Addison and was admitted to the 
bar, but soon engaged in merchandising at Whitesville. (See Independ- 
ence.) 

James M. Curtiss was born in Edmeston, N, Y., in December, 1825. He 



Courts and Lawyers. 275 



studied in Gilbertville Academy, and read law at Mt. Upton with Upton & 
Fenlo and in 1847 was admitted to the bar, and located at Deposit and prac- 
ticed law. In 1850 he located at Bolivar where he has since resided. He 
has been president of the State Bank of Bolivar. He has been engaged in 
dairying- and farming. Mr. Curtiss ran for assembly and for district attor- 
ney, but his party being in the minority was defeated, running ahead of his 
ticket. He was one of the charter members of Macedonia Lodge, F. & A. M. , 
No. 258, is member of Olean Chapter, also Knight Templar of the Com- 
mandery of Olean. Supervisor of Bolivar 12 or 15 terms. He married 
Huldah J. , daughter of David C. Root. 

Milo H. Wygant was a leading lawyer of the county for several years, 
was elected district attorney in 1859. Afterward he moved west. 

Col. A. J. McNett was born Feb. 3, 1822, in Henderson, Jefferson county. 
He passed four years at Union Academy at Bellville, with the intention of 
entering Union College, but was prevented by ill health. In the fall of ] 843 
he entered the law office of Hon. Augustus Ford at Sacketts Harbor, and 
was admitted to the bar in 1847. In the winter of 1847-8 he removed to Buf- 
falo, and in partnership with Hon. Hiram Benton began the practice of law. 
In Buffalo he served two terms as alderman and one as city attorney, and in 
the winter of 1858 represented the second district of the city in the legis- 
lature. In 1859 he removed to Belmont, and became a member of the Alle- 
gany bar. In September, 1861, he raised a company and entered the serv- 
ice as captain in the 93d New York infantry, serving through the Pennisular 
campaigns and with the Army of the Potomac tiU the fall of 1863, when he 
was promoted to the lieutenant colonelcy of the 141st infantry. He was com- 
missioned colonel Aug. 12, 1864. During the campaign against Atlanta, he was 
wounded three times, losing his right arm. He was brevetted brigadier gen- 
eral for distinguished service in battle. After the war closed he served in 
different positions in the regular army, at one time as acting judge advocate 
general of the dejjartment of Washington. He frequently said he was a 
lawyer by profession, a soldier by inclination, and a farmer from necessity. 
He died in Belmont in March, 1895. 

Hon. Cy renins P. Black, son of Allen D.. and Lucinda (Wilber) Black, 
was born April 16. 1843, in Ward, then Alfred. Dougald Black, his paternal 
grandfather, born in Islay, Scotland, was half-brother of Alexander Black 
of Ward, and of pure Highland Scotch lineage. His paternal grandmother 
was Vila Livermore, of the noted Massachusetts family of.that name, whose 
father served in the Revolution. Mrs. Lucinda Black was daghter of Zeph- 
aniah Jr., and Elizabeth (Tucker) Wilber who came early in the settlement of 
this county to Alfred from Rhode Island. Cyrenius passed his early years 
on his father's farm on Vander mark Creek with few advantages of school. 
He earned money however to attend Alfred University in 1862-3, then taught 
school several terms and was a clerk in Whitesville, Wellsvilleand Angehca. 
At Angelica he began to study law with Hon. Martin Grover, continued it 
with Hon. M. B. Champlain at Cuba until 1866, when he located in the new. 



276 History op Allegany County, N. Y. 

county of Tuscola, Mich. The next winter he was admitted to the bar and 
has since been in extensive practice. He has been prosecuting attorney of 
Marquette county, lav/ counsellor of the city of Marquette, twice a member 
of the Michigan legislature and for five years United States district attorney 
of the Eastern District of Michigan with offices at Detroit. After this last 
service he located at Lansing, where he devotes himself entirely to law, 
and is ranked among the leaders of his profession in Michigan. 

J. W. Deuel was in Oram el a while about 1852 or 3. He had been in 
Gowanda previously. He was the middle member of the firm, Laning, Deuel 
and Laning, A. P. and R. B. Laning being the others. He afterward re- 
moved to Rochester where he was a judge of the municipal court, and when 
last heard from was living in Wemple near Albany. 

Hon. Wilham Folwell Jones began the practice of law at Wellsville in July, 
1852, in the 26th year of his age. He was born in Middlesex, Yates county, 
Sept. 9, 1826, and was the third son of Samuel Jones, Esq., an enterprising 
and successful farmer, and an influential citizen of that place. His early 
life until 21 years old was passed at home upon the farm, where he was 
reared in habits of industry and economy. His opportunities for education 
during his minority were confined to three months each year in the district 
school until he was 17, and, after that, to three winter months each year in 
the village academy. On attaining his majority his endowment was $1,000, 
a sum which the father bestowed on each of his children at that interesting 
age. With this sum he decided to endow himself with a more liberal educa- 
tion with a view to some professional pursuit. In 1849 he entered the sec- 
ond term of the junior year and class at Union College, Schenectady, taking 
the full classical course, and was graduated therefrom in June, 1851, with 
the highest honor, being the valedictorian of his class. Soon after entering 
college he took a seat as law student in the office of Paige & Thompson at 
Schenectady and read elementary law in addition to his collegiate course. 
In the fall of 1851 he entered the first term of the Albany Law School, 
which was founded that year, where he remained until after his admission 
to the bar in March, 1852. In July following he came to Wellsville and 
entered upon his career as a lawyer. He soon won the best class of cli- 
entage and rapidly acquired a successful and lucrative practice, which he 
retained for 23 years and until faihng health compelled rest and retire- 
ment. During this period he ranked among the successful lawyers of 
Ahegany county. His practice was chiefly in the supreme court. His char- 
acteristics as a lawyer were: 

(a.) Fidelity to clients — careful preparation of cases and zeal in their prosecution. 

(d.) Conscientious in giving advice — always refusing a retainer in cases vi'hich he did not 
believe would win. Ambitious of professional success, rather than anxious to win large 

fees. 

{c.) In speech he aimed to be analytical and logical, rather than florid. His conception 

of legal points was quick and lucid and he seldom erred in conclusions. 

In 1857 Mr. Jones was elected member of assembly from the second 

assembly district of Allegany county. It was during his legislative term 





t/> ^ .\ /^ 7^-L^^i^ 



Courts and Lawyers, 277 



that the bill removing the county seat from Angelica ' ' to some point on the 
Erie railway to be determined by commissioners named in the bill "was 
introduced and passed, and of which he was the advocate and leader in the 
assembly. One year's experience in public life was suflicient to satisfy him 
that the feeble and ephemeral honor to be acquired from a membership in 
the New York legislature was no adequate compensation for the sacrifice 
and loss of a good law practice, and which he felt he was still too poor to aban- 
don, hence his decision to withdraw resolutely from active politics and pub- 
lic life and return to the more congenial duties of his profession. From that 
time he has neither sought nor desired public office . During the war of 
the Rebellion, which soon followed, there was a general suspension of law 
business throughout the country, and it was during this period that Mr. 
Jones began to turn his attention to the field of finance. With a moderate 
accumulation of money he had saved he made judicious and timely invest- 
ments in pine lands in Pennsylvania and Michigan, all of which proved highly 
profitable. In later years the development of oil fields in McKean county. 
Pa,, followed by like surprises in Allegany near his home, opened up a new 
enterprise from which he reaped a liberal harvest. After retiring from the 
active practice of his profession, he traveled extensively in his own coun- 
try, traversing nearly every state and territory. In 1883 he became inter- 
ested in banking, being one of the organizers and a large shareholder of the 
First National Bank of Wellsville. He was its vice president until 1891, 
when he assumed and has since retained the presidency and chief financial 
management of that institution. Mr. Jones married Sept. 1, 1858, Miss 
Gertrude Fassett, a lady of culture and refinement, and settled down upon 
the site of the pleasant homestead in Wellsville where they have since resided. 

Hon. Edward D. Loveridge was born in New Milford, Conn., Dec. 11, 
1824. He was educated at Trinity College, Conn., afterward taught school 
in Virginia a few years. He commenced studying law in 1851, was ad- 
mitted to the bar at Rochester in 1853 and the same year opened a 
law office in Castile, Wyoming county, where he remained until he 
came to Cuba in May, 1856, when he formed a law partnership with his 
brother, Noah P., which continued for ten years. In Wyoming county 
Mr. Loveridge was town superintendent of schools. He was supervisor of 
Cuba for several terms. In 1861 and 2 he was elected to the legislature; was 
a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1864, when Abraham 
Lincoln was re-nominated for president. January 12, 1869, he was elected 
president of the Cuba National Bank; which honorable and responsible posi- 
tion he has since most creditably filled. He is the senior member of the law 
firm of Loveridge & Leggett, so well and favorably known, and doing an ex- 
tensive business. 

Amos B. Collins was born in Alfred in 1826. He was admitted to the 
bar in 1853; has held the office of justice of the peace for several terms. 

Marcus L. Butler, born in Cherry Valley, Otsego county. Sept, 2, 1824, 
read law there at J, W. Fowler's law school, and was admitted to the bar at 



278 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Owego in 1851, and located at Whitesville where he has since practiced. In 

1855 he was admitted to practice in the U. S. supreme court. 

Charles W. Woodworth, born in Rushford in 1822, educated at the com- 
mon schools and Springville Academy; read law with A. P. Laning and 
was admitted in 1856, practiced law in Rushford until his death in 1891, part 
of the time in company with W. A. Stewart, under the firm name of Stewart 
& Woodworth, and for the last few years with Ralph B. Laning, as Wood- 
worth & Laning. He was post-master from 1860 to 1884, justice of the peace 
from 1882, was supervisor continuously from 1865 to 1875 inclusive and 
later in the eighties, was chairman of the board in 1882 and 1887. 

Edgar W. Chamberlain was born in Waterloo, Seneca county, brought 
up on a farm and educated at the Waterloo Academy. He studied law in 
part with Hamilton Ward, was admitted in 1857 and entered into partner- 
ship with Mr. Ward. He has been justice of the i^eace two terms and presi- 
dent of Belmont a number of times. In the winter of 1876-7 Gov. Tilden 
appointed him one of a commission to report on the condition of the lateral 
canals. The other members of the commission were Hons. Warner Miller 
of Herkimer, A. B. Waldo of Essex, and William Poster of Oswego county. 
The lateral canals were abandoned in accordance with the recommenda- 
tions of the commission. Upon the failure of the First National Bank of 
Angelica, in 1886, President Cleveland appointed Mr. Chamberlain receiver of 
the bank, the duties of which office he discharged to the entire satisfaction 
of all concerned, paying aU the depositors and creditors of the bank in full. 
He is now postmaster at Belmont. 

Hon. Henry M. Teller, LL.D., U. S. Senator from Colorado, was born 
in Granger, May 23, 1830. His father, John Teller, was born in Schenectady, 
of Holland stock, in Feb., 1800, and came to Allegany county in 1814. He 
married Charlotte, daughter of Willard Moore, an early settler on the Short 
Tract road. She was born in Vermont, Aug. 8, 1808. and came to Allegany 
in 1820. John Teller resided on a small farm west of the Short Tract road 
from 1827 to 1852, when he moved to Pennsylvania and from there in 1863 to 
Illinois where he died in 1879. Three of his four sons are lawyers. Henry 
M. Teller attended the district schools and Alfred University (which in 1866 
conferred on him the degree of LL. D.), and Rushford Academy for several 
years and taught school in Grove, Allen, Oramel, Cuba, Angelica and Catta- 
raugus county. In 1856 he became a law student of Martin Grover and L. A. 
Kendall in Angelica, was admitted to practice at Binghamton in January, 
1858, and soon located at Morrison, 111. In 1861 he removed to Colorado and 
was in active practice of law until elected to the U. S. Senate, Nov. 14, 1876, 
on the admission of Colorado as one of the United States, from 1864 being in 
partnership with his brother Willard in the firm of H. M. & W. Teller. Sen- 
ator Teller cast his first vote for president for Franklin Pierce in 1852, but 
assisted in forming the Republican party, taking part in the campaign of 

1856 in New York and in that of 1860 in Illinois. He has always been active 
in politics, but the demands of an extensive and lucrative law practice for- 



Courts and Lawyers. 279 



bade his acceptance of office until he was chosen to represent the new state 
in the U. S. Senate. At the opening of congress, Dec. 4, 1876, he drew the 
term ending March 3, 1877, and the Colorado legislature elected him, Dec. 9, 
1876, for a six years' term. He served in the senate untill 1882, when he was 
ai^pointed secretary of the Department of the Interior by President Arthur. 
He held this office until March 3, 1885, when he again took a seat in the U. 
S. Senate, having been elected in January, 1885. He was re-elected senator 
in 1891, his present term expiring March 3, 1897. He has been a leading 
member of various important senatorial committees, and in 1879 was chair- 
man of the Teller committee appointed to investigate the elections in South 
Carolina and Louisiana. He is a close student of economics, is one of the 
national leaders of bimetalism, is not in full accord with the Republican 
party on the financial question and is a moderate protectionist. He has been 
Grand Master of the Free Masons of Colorado for seven years and has been 
Grand Commander of Knights Templar. He received the 33d degree in 
Scottish Rite Masonry in 1856. "Studious, reflecting, laborious and faith- 
ful as a lawyer, he has acquired a position at the bar second to no one in the 
west. He is original, and his opinions are ba&'ed on mature thought. His 
perseverance is proverbial. Before a jury he is irresistible, while as a jurist 
his profound knowledge of legal principles and precedents are everywhere 
recognized." Mr. Teller married in June, 1862, Harriet M., daughter of 
Packard Bruce of Cuba, N. Y. They have three children now living. 

Willard Teller, a brother of Henry M., was born in Granger in 1834. 
Staying on the farm until 1852 he entered Alfred University for a time, was 
graduated at Rushford Academy in 1856, and took a classical course at Ober- 
in College, Ohio, where he was graduated in 1858. He studied law at Angel- 
ica and was admitted to practice at Buffalo in November, 1859. He located 
at Glean until 1861, then practiced at Morrison, 111., until 1864, where he re- 
moved to Central City, Colorado, and with his brother, Henry M., formed 
what soon became a leading law firm of the territory. He removed to Den- 
ver in 1878, and, with Henry M., has offices at Denver and Central City, and 
enjoys a large practice. He is one of the leading Republicans of Colorado, 
but has never held office. 

Hon. David P. Richardson was born at Macedon, Wayne county. He was 
a student at the academy at Macedon Centre, and later at Yale, where he was 
graduated. Soon after he left college, in connection with Rev. Samuel Cen- 
ter, who was principal, he acted as first assistant during the first year of 
Angelica Academy. He succeeded Mr. Center as principal. He M^as ad- 
mitted to the bar in 1859, having joursued his studies with Judge Grover. 
At the outbreak of the Rebellion he raised a company of volunteers and 
joined the 6th New York Cavalry, with which regiment he served over three 
years on the staffs of Gens. Stoneman, Pleasanton and Deven. After the 
war he returned to Angelica where he has since resided. He was three 
years supervisor of his town, the last year being chairman of the board. He 
was in the 46th and 47th congresses and served with distinction. He was for 



280 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

years the senior member of the leading law lirm of Richardson, Flenagin & 
Smith, his partners being the late Hon. C. N. Flenagin and Prank S. Smith. 
He is now of the firm Richardson & Rob bins, his partner being Hon. F. A. 
Robbins, the present member of assembly from Allegany, and the firm is 
doing a large business. 

Robert S. Armstrong was born in Fulton county, June 29, 1835. He re- 
moved to Cuba in 1841, and in 1857 in the office of the late Hon. M. B. Cham- 
plain commenced the study of law, and while attending the Albany Law 
School in 1859 was admitted to the bar upon examination at general term. 
He soon after entered into partnership with Mr. Champlain at Cuba. The 
partnership continued until Mr. Champlain's death in 1879. At one time 
the firm was known as Champlain, Armstrong & Russell (the late Samuel 
M. Russell), and did an extensive business. After Mr. Champlain's death, 
Mr. Armstrong was for a while associated with Wilkes Angel. He still 
practices and is now associated with F. M. Todd, the firm being known as 
Armstrong & Todd. 

Omer Olney was born in Scipio, Cayuga county, Jan. 25, 1821. He was 
educated in the common schools, removed to Granger in 1853; in 1861 read 
law in the office of Peter Carter at Nunda, and was admitted to the bar at 
Buffalo in Nov., 1861, at the general term of the supreme court, Richard P. 
Marvin presiding, Martin Grover, Noah Davis, justices. He is now liv- 
ing in Topeka, Kansas, having practiced a number of years in Allegany and 
Livingston counties. 

Daniel H. Holliday was born in Burns, Dec. 6, 1837, and was graduated 
from the Albany Law School in 1861, and has since practiced la.w at Cana- 
seraga. 

Virgil A. Willard was born at Cuba in this county, Oct. 20, 1838, of New 
England parentage, but passed part of his early life at Sandisfield, Berkshire 
Co., Mass. When 13 he commenced work in a mill at Belmont (then Philips- 
ville), and earned money to enable him to attend school several terms at 
Rushford Academy, and at Friendship and Alfred. After reading law two 
years with Col. A. J. McNett he attended law school in Albany in 1861 and 
2, and was admitted to the bar on examination by the general term of the 
supreme court in May, 1862. He was a clerk in the quarter master's de- 
partment of the provost-marshal's office at Elmira in 1863 and 4, and after 
the war formed a law partnership with Col. McNett at Belmont. This did 
not long continue, and from its expiration Mr. Willard has been engaged 
alone in active practice at Belmont. He has been supervisor of Belmont, 
justice of the peace, and was. from 1887 to 1894, the editor of the Genesee 
Valley Post, of which he is part owner. He has been master of Belmont 
Lodge, No. 474 F. & A. M., and master of the A. O. U. W., a fraternal insur- 
ance association. He was married in 1872 to Miss Mary J. Lanphear, of 
Alfred, and resides at Belmont. 

B. C. Rude was born in Livingston county in 1836, was graduated from 
Genesee College at Lima in 1858, then for three years taught school. He 




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Courts and Lawyers. 281 



read law from 1859 to 1862, and in 1863 began practice at Almond, remaining 
there four years, then settling in Wellsville. From 1873 to 1875, in addition 
to his professional duties he edited the Wellsville Reporter. He removed to 
Florida. 

W. F. Bement was born Oct. 23, 1837, in Dryden , Tompkins county. He 
was a graduate of Rushford Academy. He studied law with N. P. and E. D. 
Loveridge at Cuba, was graduated from Albany Law LTniversity and ad- 
mitted to practice in May, 1863. He is located at Cuba. 

Seth H. Tracy was born Aug. 19, 1835, at Canandaigua. In 1840 his 
father, Ira Tracy, moved to " Phillips ville " now Belmont, where Seth at- 
tended the district school in the winter and worked on his father's farm in 
the summer. He completed his education at Alfred Academy in the spring 
of 1860 and then read law with Col. A. J. McNett at Belmont. In May, 1863, 
he was admitted to the bar at Albany. In 1865 he commenced the practice 
of law at Belmont which he continues. He has been notary irablic. 

Charles N. Flenagin was born Sept. 30, 1839. He received his education 
at the Genesee Conference Seminary at Pike, Wyoming county, and entered 
the law office of E. E. Harding at Hume as a student in 1860, and began prac- 
tice there in 1864. He removed to Angelica in 1874. He was elected to the 
assembly in 1869, and re-elected in 1870. In 1874 he was elected district 
attorney, and re-elected in 1877. When in Hume he was on the board 
of supervisors. For years he was one of the well-known law firm of 
Richardson, Flenagin and Smith of Angelica,. He died at Angelica. April 30, 
1881. 

Gen. Rufus Scott, son of Alfred and Anna (Harrison) Scott and grand- 
son of Rufus, the early settler of Friendshi]>, was born in that town Oct. 8, 
1838. His love of education was stimulated by the scant supply afforded by 
the primitive district schools he attended, and, by the cultivation of close 
economy, he succeeded in obtaining the advantages of Friendship Academy 
and Alfred University, and taught district school when 16 and was also a 
teacher in the academy. A good talker and a ready and a logical debater, in 
1860 he "stumped" the county for Abraham Lincoln, and cast his first 
presidential vote for his electors. He enlisted May 1, 1861, as a private in 
Co. B. of the 23d New York, shortly after commencing the study of law, 
served several months in the field, and was sent home on recruiting service 
for the 85th New York. He secured many enlistments for three companies 
of that organization, but, finding that probably amicable relations could not 
be maintained, he declined the offered commission of captain, and in Decem- 
ber, 1861, returned to his place in the ranks of the 23d, and served there 
until the spring of 1862. when he was conveyed to Fortress Monroe while on 
a visit to his friends of the 85th on a two-days' furlough. As he could not 
return to his regiment, he accompanied the 85th in the historic Peninsular 
campaign, taking part in nearly every engagement. He was arrested as a 
deserter May 24, 1862, but, released by order of the brigade commander, 
continued to follow the active service of the 85th, was severely wounded at 



282 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Fair Oaks and sent to hospital. In August, 1862, he rejoined his regiment 
and returned to Allegany on detached recruiting service, and August 27th 
was commissioned major of the 130th New York (1st N. Y. Dragoons). From 
this time until its muster-out at the close of the war he was prominently con- 
nected with the extremely brilliant career of this heroic regiment. He was 
commissioned lieutenant-colonel Dec. 24, 1864, and Mar. 18, 1865, was 
brevetted brigadier-general "for gallant and meritorious services." (He 
had been in actions where he was wounded five times — four severely.) Jan. 
10, 1866, President Johnson complimented his bravery and ability by an 
appointment as captain in the regular army, which he declined to accept. 
After the war he continued his legal studies, was admitted to the bar at 
Buffalo in May. 1866, and engaged in practice at Belmont as a member of the 
law firm of Ward & Scott. He was supervisor of Amity several terms, and 
served as district attorney for two terms from 1868, when he was first 
elected. His services as speaker in political campaigns were numerous and 
effective until the weight of private business compelled him to desist. He 
w^as prominently connected with the G. A. R. and active in its service until 
forced to deny himself this pleasure by the reason just assigned. In 1881 
on account of failing health largely induced by too much confinement he 
engaged in oil operations, and in order to be more centrally located for this 
purpose he made his home in Wells ville in 1883. He is now a large operator 
in the Allegany oil field, and has been retained in and conducted several 
important cases of litigation in connection with oil development. He was the 
New York member of the executive committee that conducted the " Shut-in 
movement " against the Standard Oil Co. in 1887 by shutting in oil wells and 
stopping 40 ]3er cent, of the output of the Allegany and Pennsylvania oil 
fields for a year, during which time the committee drew^ $6,000,000 from the 
Standard Oil Co. for the producers. General Scott has been connected since 
1885 with the Peerless Carbon-black Co., of Pittsburgh, whose works are 
located in McKean Co., Pa. Their product is largely used in the manufac- 
ture of the finer grades of printing ink. He married Nov. 12, 1864, Mary M. 
Axtell, adopted daughter of John anrl Mary A. Axtell of Friendship. Claude 
R. Scott is their only child. As a citizen, as an attorney, as a business man 
and as an oil operator General Scott is in the front rank of Allegany's peo- 
ple. His beautiful residence erected in 1886 is one of the elegant homes of 
Western New York. 

Hon. Seymour Dexter, Ph.B., son of Daniel and Angeline (Briggs) 
Dexter (see Independence) was born in Independence, Mar. 20, 1841. His 
education at Alfred University was interrupted in 1861, when he enlisted, 
April 26th. in Co. K. 23d New York. He faithfully served the tw^o years of 
his enlistment and then completed his college course at Alfred where he was 
graduated in 1864. He studied law in Elmira and in May. 1866, was admitted 
to the bar in Binghamton, and located at Elmira. Associated with various 
partners he rapidly acquired a large practice, in the spring of 1872 was 
appointed city attorney, and in the fall was elected member of assembly 



Courts and L.iw^ ers. 283 

from Chemung Co., the only Repubhcan elected to this position from 1866 to 
1883. He declined a unanimous tender of a second nomination as member of 
assembly. His professional standing- had before this been conceded to be in 
the front rank of his profession in the Southern Tier, and in 1877 he was 
elected county judge. He held this ofiice by re-election until August, 1889, 
when he resigned it to accept the presidency and active management of the 
Second National Bank of Eimira, one of the strongest banks of this strong 
financial city, which he now occupies. In this position of trust Judge Dexter 
has shown unusual financial ability and rare business acumen. In 1875 he 
was made president of the new Chemung Valley Building and Loan Associa- 
tion. He still holds that ofiice, and the Association has accomplished great 
good under his management and possesses assets of -^5310, 000. He has 
taken great interest in co-operative movements, was made vice-j)resident of 
the New York State League of Co-operative Savings and Building Loan 
Associations at its organization in 1890, and elected its president in 1890 and 
1891. He has acquired fame from his writings on this subject, and in 1889 
D. Api3leton & Co. of New York City, published his work on Co-operative 
Associations, which is now an universal authority. He has proven himself 
an able lecturer and writer on political economy, social science, and other 
subjects, and is a highly esteemed member of the American Social Science 
Association. He has been long i^rominently identified with the G. A. R., has 
been judge advocate of the State Department, and his name has been con- 
spicuously mentioned in connection with the highest official j^lace of the 
national organization. He has been for years a member of the Park St. 
(Congregational) Church of Eimira. an active worker in its Sunday-school, 
and an intimate friend of Rev. Thos. K. Beecher, its distinguished pastor. 
June 17, 1868, he married Eleanor E., daughter of Ebenezer Weaver, of 
Leonardsville, Madison Co.. who graduated from Alfred University in the 
same class with her husband. They have two sons and two daughters. 

Rev. Henry L. Jones, son of Lewis, born in Alfred, Nov. 13, 1828, was 
prepared for college at Alfred Academy, and, in 1852, was graduated from 
Union College, and in 1866 was admitted to the bar. For 6 years he was a 
teacher at DeRuyter Institute, later principal of Richburg Academy one 
year, from 1860 to 1863 he was school commissioner, then practiced law at 
Wellsville until April 7, 1891. August, 1891, he Avas ordained a Seventh-day 
Baptist clergyman and has since preached at various places. 

Zenas H. Jones was born in Coventry, Chenango county, May 12. 1810. 
In 1832 he came to Scio, later Wellsville, and in 1840 to Wellsville village, 
where he resided until his death Sept. 14, 1884. About 1841 he commenced 
reading law ^' by himself," and shortly after, advised by Judge Martin 
Grover, he presented himself for examination, and was admitted to the bar. 
March 26, 1866, he was admitted to practice in the northern district of this 
state. Mr. Jones was twice elected supervisor, served 32 years as justice 
of the peace, and was in 1879 elected police justice of Wellsville. 

John H. Rumptt" was son of Rev. A. Rumpft", and was born Nov. 21, 1838, 



284 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



in Saugerties, educated at the public schools of Boston, Mass., and Canajo- 
harie Academy, read law at Dansville with L. B. Proctor, was admitted to 
practice June, 1867, at Rochester, and has practiced at Dansville, and at 
Wellsville since 1879. 

William Spargur was born in Eaton in 1836. He attended Hamilton 
College and in 1862 was admitted to the bar. In 1867 he located in Wells- 
ville, where he still is in j^ractice. 

Frank Brundage, son of Matthew, born in Allen, Jan. 4, 1846, w^as edu- 
cated at Friendship Academy, read law in Angehca with Green & Richard- 
son, was admitted to the bar in December, 1868, opened an office at Angel- 
ica in 1872, went to Lockport, opened an office, in 1874 was elected district 
attorney, re-nominated by acclamation and declined, was elected county 
judge of Niagara county in 1878, served 4 years, then resigned and estab- 
lished himself for the practice of law in Buffalo. 

Henry H. Relya was born in Lee, Oneida county, June 6, 1840. He re- 
ceived only a common school education, read law with Emulous Townsend 
at Portageville, and with C. N. Flenagin at Hume, and was admitted to the 
bar at Buffalo in 1871. In December, 1874, he opened an office in Hume vil- 
lage, in the spring of 1895 removing his office to Fillmore, where he is now 
in practice. 

William H. Scott, son of Alfred and Anna (Harrison) Scott, was born in 
Wirt in 1849. He studied law at Belmont with Ward & Scott, was admitted 
to practice in 1872, located in Friendshij:* where he died in 1883. 

Bascom P. Mapes was born in Angelica in 1840. He practiced law for 
some years at Belmont where he is now engaged in the mercantile business. 
Has also been school commissioner for the southern district. 

Capt. Geo. H. Blackman was born in Plymouth, Chenango county, April 
23, 1841. He studied law in the office of B. C. Rude, Esq., in Wellsville, and 
was admitted to the bar in 1873 at Rochester. During the Civil War he 
enhsted as a iDrivate in Co. E. 93d New York, and served with the company 
until the fall of 1863, when he re-enUsted and was made orderly sergeant. 
Wounded in five places at the battle of the Wilderness, he walked eighteen 
miles to Fredericksburg, when, after waiting eight days, his right arm was 
amputated. After a furlough of forty days, he went back to the front, and took 
command of Co. E. of the 93d, and served until the close of the war, partici- 
pating in the grand review. He was then a member of the law firm of Rude 
& Blackman until in 1876 he was elected county clerk. He was re-elected 
in 1879, and has served lor nine years as trustee of the New York State 
Soldiers' Home at Bath. He was United States deputy internal revenue 
collector for many years from 1869. Capt. Blackman married Alice Rawson. 
Their children are John W. , David R. and Sara L. 

G. W. Harding was born in Hume Oct. 1, 1850, received his education at 
the Hume Union School, Rushford Academy and Cornell University, read 
law in the office of his father, E, E. Harding, in Hume, was admitted to the 
bar at Buffalo in June, 1873. Judges Huntington of Oswego and H. L. Com- 



Courts and Lawyers. 285 



stock of Canandaigua were of the examiners and abandoned the examination 
after a few questions. He has ever since practiced at Hume in company 
with his father under the firm name of E. E. & G. W. Harding. 

Caleb S. Hall, son of Anson C. and Hannah Hall, was born in Ward in 
August, 1849, received his education at Alfred University, and was admitted 
to the bar at Rochester in October. 1874. In 1876 established an office at 
Wellsville where he still practices. 

Frank Sullivan Smith, son of Dr. Wm. M. and Adahne (Weeks) Smith, 
was born at Short Tract, in the town of Granger, Oct. 14, 1851. Although 
a child of but ten years of age, he had the opjwrtunity to see something of 
the war, by reason of passing the latter part of 1861 and the early part of 
1862 with the 85th Reg. N. Y, Vols., of which his father was surgeon. From 
1865 to 1868 he attended the Angelica Academy where he prepared for col- 
lege. He entered Yale University in 1868, and graduated in 1872. The same 
year he was elected school commissioner of the first district of Allegany 
county, and served for one term, until Jan. 1, 1876. Admitted to the bar at 
Rochester, April 7, 1876, he at once became a member of the law firm of 
Richardson, Plenagin & Smith at Angelica, and during the four years next 
succeeding took active part in the work of the district attorney's office, his 
partner, C. N. Flenagin, being district attorney. He was especially active in 
the cases of the People vs. Babcock and People vs. Hendricks. He took en- 
tire charge of the second trial of the first-mentioned case and secured a con- 
viction, and, in the second, he had charge of the surgical work of the case. 
He also assisted in the defense of the indictments for murder in Livingston 
county, in the cases of Pierson and Withey. He married, Oct. 17, 1877, 
Miss Clara A. H. Higgins, daughter of O. T. Higgins, Esq., of Rushford. 
He was attorney for the Genesee Valley Canal railroad company, during the 
construction of the road between Olean and Rochester, and for its lessee, 
The Buffalo, New York and Philadelphia railroad company, and its successor 
company, from 1881 until 1887. He was president and general counsel of 
The Allegany Central railroad company from its formation in 1881 until its 
consolidation with The Lackawanna & Pittsburgh railroad company in 1883, 
and was vice president and general counsel of the latter until December, 
1884. In the spring of 1887 the trustees of Cornell University invited him 
to take charge of the law school of the University as its Dean. He declined the 
offer preferring to remain in the active practice of his profession. He was 
delegate to the Republican National Convention of 1884, secretary of the Re- 
publican State Committee 1887 to 1891, general counsel of the Scioto Valley 
and New England railroad company from its formation until its absorption 
by the Norfolk & Western railroad company in 1890, attorney for the receiv- 
ers of the Richmond and DanviUe railroad company 1893 and 1894, and vice- 
president and general counsel of the Central New York and Western railroad 
company since its formation. He has been successively a member of the 
law firms at Angelica, of Richardson, Flenagin & Smith; Richardson & 
Smith, Richardson, Smith & Robbins, and Smith, Rockwell & Dickson. In 



286 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



the fall of 1H87 he opened an ottice for the practice of law at No. 48 Wall street 
in the city of New York, and now has an office at No. 54 Wall street. Since 
opening his New York office he has had charge of much important litigation, 
notably in relation to the East and West Railroad of Alabama, the Schuyler 
Electric Company of Connecticut, the Pittsburgh, Shenango & Lake Erie rail- 
road company, the Michigan Gas Company and the Allegany & Kinzua rail- 
road company, in all of which he has been successful. He is a member of the 
State Bar Association, the Bar Association of the City of New York, and of 
■ the Society of Medical Jurisprudence, of which he is a trustee. 

Alfred J. Hibbard was born in Butler, Wayne county, Jan. 27, 1853. He 
was educated at Union College, was graduated from the Albany Law School 
in 1876, in 1877 located in Angelica where he practiced until 1892. when he 
removed to Buffalo, where he continues the practice of his profession. His 
wife is a daughter of the late Judge James S. Green of our county. 

Adelbert Moot, son of Charles, was born in Allen, Nov. 22, 1854. Heat- 
tended school at Belmont, Nunda and Geneseo. He was graduated from the 
Albany Law School Nov. 26, 1876. He practiced law at Nunda from 1877 
until September, 1879. He then removed to Buffalo and has been in con- 
stant and increasing practice since. In 1882 he married Carrie Van Ness of 
Cuba, and has three children. 

Levi C. VanFleet, son of Benjamin, was born in New Hudson, Nov. 22, 
1849. He was educated at Alfred University, read law with Luddington & 
DeCampof Syracuse, Allentown & Mills of Port Jervis andRufus Scott, now 
of Wellsville. He was admitted to the bar at Buffalo in 1877, located first in 
Andover, then went to Michigan, returned in 1879 and is now in practice in 
Andover. 

Hon. Oscar A. Fuller, son of Daniel and Clarissa (Cooper) Fuller, was 
born in Alfred, Jan. 17, 1844. In 1859 he was graduated from Wilson 
Academy in Angelica. He then assisted on the farm until he enlisted Sept. 
9, 1861, in Co. I. 85th Reg't, N. Y. V. and served until 1864. After his re- 
turn home he continued farm life until 1868 when he moved to Belmont, 
purchased a drug store and was established there 7 years. He then read 
law with Col. Rufus Scott and was admitted to the bar in 1877, and opened 
his legal office in that of Col. Scott, and remained in Belmont until 1884. 
His next and present location is at Wellsville. He was elected district 
attorney in 1883, held office 6 years and was a member of the constitutional 
convention in 1894. Mr. Fuller married Harriet Crosby of Angehca in 1866, 
and has 2 daughters, Clara and Hattie. 

William Armstrong was born in Ireland in 1848, in 1877 was admitted 
to the bar at Randolph. In 1881 he opened an office in Bolivar, where he re 
mained until 1885. Since then he has been in Buffalo. 

Aaron L. Elliott was born in Cherry Flats, Tioga county. Pa., in 1858, 
was educated at Alfred University, and admitted to the bar at Buffalo in 
June, 1878, and has ever since practiced at Friendship. 



Courts and Lawyers. 287 



Frank Harding was born December 10, 1856, in Hume, received a com- 
mon school education, read law with his father E. E. Harding, and was 
admitted at Buffalo June 8, 1878. He commenced practice in Hume, but in 
1881 went to Friendship, where he remained until 1884, part of the time 
being associated with A. L. Elliott. Returning to Hume he resumed prac- 
tice there, and in June, 1892, removed to Buifalo, where he now resides and 
practices. 

John Cooley practiced law a few years in Almond leaving that place 
from 1878-80. He is now dead. 

Edward F. Bishop, son of Cushman, was born in Cuba, read law with 
Loveridge & Swift, admitted to the bar in 1879 and practiced in Cuba. He 
was appointed reporter of the superior court at Buffalo. When the board of 
public works was organized he was secretary. Later he was made consul to 
Bradford. Canada. 

John S. Rockwell was born April 20. 1854, in Pike, Wyoming county, 
was educated at the Pike Seminary and the University of Rochester. He 
taught school at Pike, and Silver Springs and at other places, and began the 
study of law at Warsaw in 1876, reading with Augustus Harrington, Esq.; 
was admitted to the bar in 1879, and after two years passed as acting editor 
of the Western New Yorker, and a year in practicing law in Warsaw as part- 
ner of Byron & Healy, he moved to Allegany county. He was for a short 
time at Little Genesee, doing special work for speculators in oil property. 
He then went to Angelica as clerk for Frank S. Smith, Esq., until 1886, 
when the firm of Smith, Rockwell & Dickson was formed, which continued 
until October, 1895, when Mr. Rockwell moved to Buffalo to become a mem- 
ber of the firm of Simons & Rockwell. He married Dec. 7, 1882, Helen, 
youngest daughter of Hon. Harlow L. Com stock, of Canandaigua. They have 
two sons. In 1886 he became attorney for the Buffalo, Rochester and Pitts- 
burgh railway company, which position he still retains. 

Hon. Frank B. Church, son of Smith Church, was born in Friendship 
Dec. 17, 1852, He read law with Hon. S. M. Norton. From 1880, when he 
was admitted to the bar, until 1888 he was partner of Judge Norton. Janu- 
ary, 1888, he and his brother Frederic H. Church formed the law firm of 
Church & Church of Wellsville. He was elected delegate to the state consti- 
tutional convention of 1894. He married in December, 1875, Ida, daughter 
of Rufus Kinne of Cuba. 

Frederic H. Church, son of Smith Church, born at Friendship, June 23, 
1858, read law with the firm of Angel & Jones of Belmont, and with Hon. S. 
M. Norton of Friendship. He was graduated from Union University, Al- 
bany Law School in 1879, and admitted to the bar Nov. 25, 1879. He prac- 
ticed in Rochester until 1882, then removed to Wellsville and practiced alone 
until January, 1888, when he and his brother Frank B. Church formed the 
law firm of Church & Church. He married in February, 1892, Eleanor, 
daughter of Col. Stephen Moore of Wellsville. 

Edgar A. Hewitt, son of John W. and Adaline (Paine) Hewitt, was born 



288 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Nov. 30, 1855, attended Friendshiji Academy, read law with R. & W. H. 
Scott, was admitted to the bar in 1879 and has since been in practice at 
Friendship. In 1883 he was elected justice of the peace and now holds that 
office. He has been member of the board of education several years. 

William E. Smith was born in Willing in 1844. He served in the 1st 
New York Dragoons for three years; was clerk of Allegany county six years; 
and was for a while one of the editors and proprietors of the Belmont Dis- 
])atcli. He was admitted to the bar in 1880, belongs to the G. A. R., is a 
" chapter Mason," an oil producer and dealer in real estate. 

Hon. Fred. A Robbins was born in Bainbridge, Chenango county, Oct. 
16, 1858. Received a common school education and read law with Richard- 
son, Flenagin and Smith at Angelica; was admitted to ttie bar at Rochester 
in April, 1880. He first opened an office in Belfast, but soon removed to 
Angelica and associated himself with Hon. D. P. Richardson with whom he 
continues in business. He was elected supervisor of Angelica from 1889 to 
1893 inclusive, and was chairman of the board from 1890 to 1892 inclusive. 
He was elected to the assembly in 1893, again in 1894 and also 1895. In 
legislative councils he holds a prominent position, and is a leading member 
of the house. 

William J. Whitwood, son of Luther B. and Huldah (Carpenter) Whit- 
wood, was born in Friendship in 1851. He studied law with Hon. C. A. 
Farnum. Admitted to the bar in 1880 he has since been in practice in Wells- 
ville, and has been justice of the peace eight years and police justice one 
term. He married Frankie Carman, and has two sons, Louis and Carl. In 
1875 Mr. Whitwood was census enumerator of Friendship. The same year 
with A. J. Carman as Carman & Whitwood he engaged in the wholesale 
bakery and confectionery business which they made the largest enterprise 
of the kind ever in the county. Mr. Whitwood closed out his interest in 
1880. 

Ralph B. Laning was born in 1857, educated at Rushford Academy, read 
law with C. W. Wood worth of Rushford and A. P. Laning of Buffalo, and 
was admitted in 1880, and has practiced since in Rushford; confined mostly 
to office work and surrogate business. 

Albert L. Purdy, born in Harmony, Chautauqua Co., July 9, 1853, began 
studying law in the office of Hon. H. O. Lakin of Jamestown in 1876, and 
finished in the office of M. T. Jenkins then of that city. He was admitted to 
the bar at Buffalo in 1880 and commenced practice in Richburg, later was in 
AUentown and came to Wellsville in 1884. 

Horace E. Dudley, son of Elon and Fanny S. Dudley, was born in West 
Almond in 1840 of New England parents who settled there in 1831 and moved 
to Angelica in 1848. He was educated in common schools and Angelica 
Academy. He enhsted in 1862 in Co. G. 130th Regt. N. Y. Inf. (1st. N. Y. 
Dragoons), and served to the close of the war. He has resided in Angelica 
since 1868. He was elected justice of the peace in 1871 and is now holding 
his 7th term of 4 years each. He read law with Richardson, Flenagin and 



Courts and Lawyers. 289 



Smith, was admitted to the bar in 1880 and has since practiced law in 
Angelica. He was elected justice of sessions of the county in 1894, and was 
the last to hold that position. He has been village clerk for the last 10 years, 
and has been secretary of the Allegany County Agricultural Society for live 
years. Mr. Dudley married, first, Harriet A. McGibeny, who died in 1888, 
leaving two daughters; his second wife was S. DeFrancie Thompson. 

Stanley Calvin Swift, son of; Calvin Swift, was born in Cuba, Jan. 1, 
1851. He pursued a classical course at Ann Arbor, Mich., and for three 
years attended Michigan University. In 1876 he commenced studying law 
with Loveridge & Swift of Cuba, and was admitted at Rochester, Oct. 10, 
1879, and immediately began practicing law in Cuba. 

Charles H. Brow^ was born in Winfield, Herkimer county, July 20, 1858. 
He attended the district school and the academy at West Winfield, and 
when 12 years of age he began an apprenticeship in the printing oftice at 
West Winfield, and continued at that trade until the fall of 1875, when he 
entered the Hungerford Collegiate Institute at Adams and was graduated 
in 1877. He taught school one term and began the study of law in the spring 
of 1878, in the office of Mills, Palmer & Morgan at Little Falls, and was ad- 
mitted to the bar at Rochester in October, 1880. In May, 1881, he opened 
an office in Richburg, and has since enjoyed a substantial law practice. He 
represented Bolivar on the board of supervisors in 1888-9, was elected dis- 
trict attorney in 1889, re-elected in 1892, and again in 1895, and now lives in 
Belmont. Mr. Brown is a good lawyer, a popular public speaker and has 
rare tact in addressing a jury. 

William C. Windsor, a native of New York City, graduated from Albany 
Law School in 1881, and has since practiced at Canaseraga. 

Frank Miles Todd, son of Miles Dan and Deborah (Leonard) Todd, was 
born Nov. 23, 1849, in Friendship. Graduating from Friendship Academy in 
June, 1869, he began to read law with Champlain & Armstrong at Cuba in 
1879, and in 1882 was admitted to the bar at Rochester. He then with Chas. 
Older formed a law partnership in Cuba, which continued until the death of 
Mr. Older, two years later. Then the firm of Armstrong & Todd was organ- 
ized. Mr. Todd has been a justice of the peace 8 years, supervisor one 
term, president of the village one term, member of the board of education 
one year and was Democratic candidate for county judge in 1889. In May, 
1873, he married Ella, daughter of Heman Clark of Portageville, Wyoming 
county. Their children are Lena and Grace. 

Walter D. Ormiston was born in Hammond, St. Lawrence county. May 
21, 1865. He was educated at the Wesleyan Seminary, Governeur. He 
studied law with Loveridge & Swift and was admitted to the bar at Roches- 
ter in October, 1882, and established himself for practice at Cuba the same 
year. 

Charles S. Hatch, son of Jeremiah, was born in Friendship, July 17, 
1854. He was educated at Tufts College, Mass., read law with Corlett & 
Hatch of Buffalo, was admitted to the bar in 1884, was clerk in the district 



290 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



attorney's office at Buffalo for 5 years and for nearly 2 years has been chief 
clerk. In 1891 he was appointed clerk of the superior court. 

Charles Fremont Vincent was born in Almond, Sept. 3, 1856. His father 
Benjamin M., son of David and Freegift Vincent, was a native of Almond 
and now resides in Scio. He married Sarah Ferrin of Almond. David Vin- 
cent and wife were early pioneers of that town and lived and died there. 
Charles F. Vincent attended Friendship Academy, and was graduated there- 
from in 1879. In 1881 he began studying law with Hon. S. M. Norton in 
Friendship and was admitted to the bar at Rochester in October, 1884. Jan. 
1. 1886, he opened a law office in Wellsville where he has since practiced. 
In 1886 he was elected police justice and served 3 years. He was clerk of 
the surrogate's court under Judge Farnum for 3 years. In politics he is 
Republican. Mr. Vincent married Miss Lora Early, daughter of Z. B. 
Early now of Scio. 

Delwin A. Stebbins was born in Cussewago township, Crawford Co. , Pa., 
Aug. 31, 1854. He received his education at Mosiertown, at Edinboro State 
Normal School, and at Alfred University, and was graduated from the Al- 
bany Law School, May 22, 1884, and was admitted to the bar the same month. 
In August, 1884, he opened a law office in Almond, where he has since 
practiced his profession. For a while he engaged in teaching, in Little Gen- 
esee, Alfred and Pennsylvania. 

Edward Rutherford, son of Joseph H., was born in Allen, June 26, 1860, 
was graduated from the Albany Law School in 1886, admitted to the bar at 
Binghamton in 1886, was clerk of the surrogate's court of Allegany county 
two years, practiced law for a while in Angelica and Belmont, and is now in 
Buffalo, forming in May, 1895, a partnership with Hon. David J. Wilcox 
under the firm name of Wilcox & Rutherford. He has held the office of sec- 
retary of the Buffalo North Main Street and Tonawanda Electric railroad. 

Arthur P. Mcintosh was born in Caneadea, July 6, 1858, was educated 
at the Genesee Valley Seminary, read law with Richardson & Smith of 
Angelica, was admitted to the bar June 5, 1885, and in January, 1886, located 
at Belfast where he has since practiced. He was supervisor 3 years, and is 
presiding officer of Western Union Lodge, No. 146, F. & A. M., and Genesee 
Chapter, No. 156. 

Dawson D. Dickson, a native of the north of Ireland, came to this county 
in 1874. In June, 1882, he graduated from the Genesee Wesleyan Seminary 
at Lima, and the next August commenced the study of law with Richardson 
& Smith at Angelica. During his law studies he taught school several 
terms. He was admitted at Rochester in October, 1885, was elected school 
commissioner for the northern district of Allegany in 1887 and re-elected in 
1890. Resides in Angelica, of which town he was elected supervisor in 1894, 
and now holds that office. He is one of the well-known firm of lawyers. 
Smith, Rockwell & Dickson. 

John Cullen Leggett, son of Rev. Otis M. and Rosette (Litchfield) Leg- 
gett, was born at Oswego, Dec. 25, 1858. Rev. Otis M. Leggett was a Meth- 



Courts and Lawyers. 291 

odist minister and preached in various towns in Allegany county. He died 
March 1, 1889. John C. Leggettcame to Cuba in December, 1870. In June, 
1883, he was graduated from the University of the State of Missouri, and 
then began studying law with Hon. E. D. Loveridge of Cuba. He was ad- 
mitted to the bar at Rochester in October, 1885, and Jan. 1, 1886, formed 
the present law partnership of Loveridge & Leggett. 

Edward T. Durand, son of Dr. Albert Durand, was born in Andover, 
Dec. 1, 1863, was graduated from the Andover public schools, and Canisteo 
Academy, then attended Alfred University. He was graduated from the 
Albany Law School in 1885, was admitted to the bar the same year, and has 
since practiced in Buffalo. 

Elba Reynolds was born in Ward, then a part of Alfred, June 20, 1853. He 
was educated in the common schools of the county and at Alfred University. 
He was raised on a farm, taught school in the country districts for several 
years, and was principal 3 years in one of the Belmont schools. He com- 
menced the study of law with Hon. Hamilton Ward in Belmont in 1875, and 
after he was admitted to the bar continued with Mr. Ward until 1891, when 
Mr. Ward was elected to the supreme court bench. Mr. Reynolds then 
formed a copartnership with Charles H. Brown at Belmont and is now the 
senior member of the law firm of Reynolds, Brown & Reynolds at Bel- 
mont. Mr. Reynolds in politics is a Democrat, he has represented his town 
for three years on the board of supervisors, and from 1888 to 1891 was 
county school commissioner of the southern district. He made a splendid 
run for county judge in 1895, being beaten by only about 600 votes, running 
some 2,400 ahead of his ticket. 

Joseph F. Rice, son of Herman, was born at Manheim, Herkimer county, 
March 17, 1865. His education was acquired at Friendship and at Riverview 
Academy, Poughkeepsie, where he took a year's course in engineering. He 
read law with Judge S. M. Norton, was admitted to the bar Nov. 4, 1889, and 
has practiced at Friendship since that time. He married June 27, 1889, 
Belle, daughter of A. B. Bradley, has one son Herman. Mr. Rice is a mem- 
ber of Ahegany Lodge, F. & A. M. 

Charles M. Marvin, son of the late Charles M. Marvin of Belmont, was 
born at Peekskill, May 22, 1864. He was educated at Alfred University and 
at Harvard College. He was graduated from the former in 1882, from the 
latter in 1884. He took a post-graduate course in 1885. He read law with 
J. Stanchfield and Jacob Swartz of Elmira and was admitted to the bar in 
1890. After passing several months abroad he opened an office in the Rob- 
inson Building, Elmira, where he has since practiced his profession. 

Walter T. Bliss was born Nov. 6, 1860. He was graduated from Alfred 
in 1886. After one year at Ann Arbor, and one year of study with Bruce 
& Bruce of Clean he was admitted to the bar, January, 1890. He opened an 
office at Clean for 2 years, and in 1892 came to Bolivar and is now in the firm 
of Curtis & Bliss. 

Walter Norton Renwick was born in Belmont, Dec. 20, 1865, son of 



292 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



Walter D. and Abagail (Norton) Ren wick. He was graduated from Friend- 
ship Academy, and studied law in the office of S. McArthur Norton in 
Friendship. He was admitted to the bar in Buffalo in June, 1891. He 
formed a partnership with A. L. Elliott of Friendship, June 1, 1892, which 
was broken on account of illness and injuries received from a fall. He estab- 
hshed himself in Friendship, Feb. 1, 1894. 

Eldyn E. Reynolds was born in the town of Ward, Oct. 19, 1863. He was 
educated at Belmont village school and Alfred University, and admitted to 
the bar at Rochester Oct. 4, 1892, and immediately settled in practice at Bel- 
mont, where he still remains, and at present is the junior member of the law 
firm of Reynolds, Brown and Reynolds. 

Hamilton Ward, Jr., son of Hon. Hamilton and Mary (Chamberlain) 
Ward, was born in Washington, D. C, Jan. 20, 1871. Educated in Belmont, 
St. Paul's Hall, Salem, N. Y., and Vermont|Episcopal Institute, Burlington, 
Vt., he studied law with his father and Elba Reynolds at Belmont, w^as ad- 
mitted to the bar at Rochester, Oct. 16, 1892, and in May, 1892, began prac- 
tice at Belmont. He was later appointed collateral inheritance clerk of 
Erie county (connected with the district attorney's office), and made his home 
in Buffalo, where he is now in successful practice as well as assistant dis- 
trict attorney. 

John Emory Middaugh, Jr., born in 1868, and Henry G. Middaugh, born 
in 1871, are sons of Captain J. E. Middaugh of Scio, and both are promising 
young lawyers. Henry G. w^as admitted to the bar in 1892 and is now in 
practice in Buffalo. John E. was graduated from Alfred University, w^as 
two years court stenographer of Allegany county, was admitted to the bar 
in 1893 and located in Buffalo in 1894 for the practice of his profession. 

Crayton L. Earley, son of Stout, was born in Scio, Sept. 10, 1867. He 
was educated at Andover and Alfred University, read law with C. A. Farnum, 
Esq., of Wellsville, was admitted to the bar in October, 1892, and located in 
Andover where he has since practiced. 

Willett Lyon Ward was born at Lewis ville, Pa., i-eceived his education 
at Wellsville High School and Cornell University, 86-90, was admitted to the 
bar at Rochester in March, 1893, and has since practiced in Wellsville. He 
w^as elected justice of the peace for term 1895-99. 

Claude Rufus Scott, son of Rufus and Mary M. Scott, was born in Bel- 
mont in June, 1867. He was educated at Cornell University and was 
admitted to the bar at Rochester, March 30, 1893, and immediately estab- 
lished himself at Wellsville for the practice of law. 

Jesse S. Phillips, son of_Peter and Elizabeth (Snyder) Phillips, was born 
May 4, 1871, in Independence, was graduated from the Andover Union 
School in 1891, and read law with L. C. VanFleet. He was graduated from 
the University of Michigan in 1893, admitted to the bar at Rochester in 1894, 
and located in Andover. He is a partner in the VanFleet & Phillips law 
firm. 

Ransom L. Richardson, son of Hon. David P. Richardson, was born at 



Civil List. 293 

Angelica, Jan. 25. 1873. He was educated at the villag-e school at home, and 
attended the public schools in Washington, D. C, while his father was in 
congress, the Newton Collegiate Institute, Newton, N. J., Wilson Academy, 
Angelica, from Avhich he was graduated in 1891, and was graduated from the 
Cornell Law School in 1895 with the degree of LL.B. He w^as admitted to 
the bar at Rochester in March, 1894, and Aug. 1, 1895, opened a law oftice in 
Fillmore w^here he is now engaged in practice. 

Herbert V. McMullen was born in Salem, Pa., June 2, 1872. In 1881 his 
parents settled in Bolivar. He graduated from the public schools of Bolivar 
in 1891, read law with Becker & Farnham of Buffalo, and Avas admitted to 
the bar in October, 1895. 

Clarence Durand, son of Dr. iVlbert Durand, was born in Andover, Nov- 
ember, 1867. He received his education at Andover public schools, Canisteo 
Academy, and the Ann Arbor Law School, and is now a member of the law 
firm of Chase & Durand, Chicago. 

We have endeavored to give something of value concerning the lawyers 
who have either practiced law in Allegany or w^ere born within its limits, but 
it is a difficult task to gather all that we would like to procure. Of some 
lawyers we can learn nothing, many letters remain unanswered, while there 
are no doubt practitioners who worthily deserve place here whom we have 
unintentionally passed by. 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 



CIVIL LIST. 



MEMBERS OF CONGRESS.— The residents of Allegany who have repre- 
sented the district of which it forms a part, are as follows: William B. 
Rochester, Angelica, 1821 to 1823, when he resigned to take the office of cir- 
cuit judge; Luther C. Peck, of Pike, 1837-38-39-40-41; Martin Grover, 
1845-47; Judson W. Sherman, of Angelica, 1857-59; Hamilton Ward, 1865-71; 
David P; Richardson, 1879-83. When Allegany was organized as a county 
it was placed with Cayuga, Genesee, Ontario and Steuben in the 17th Con- 
gressional District. In 1808 Allegany, CattarauguS;, Chautauqua, Genesee, 
Niagara and Ontario counties w^ere constituted the 15th district. June 10, 
1812, Allegany, Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Genesee, Niagara. Ontario and, 
after 1821, Erie, Livingston and Monroe, the 21st. Allegany, Cattaraugus 
and Steuben were made the 28th district, April 17, 1822, and June 29, 1832, 
Allegany and Livingston; Sep. 6, 1842, Allegany and Steuben; July 9, 1851, 
Allegany, Genesee and Wyoming constituted the 30th district; April 23, 1862, 
Allegany, Steuben and Chemung were made the 27th district, and June 18, 



294 History of Allegany County. N. Y. 

1873, the number was changed to the 29th. Since then Ahegany has 
been grouped with Cattaraugus and Chautauqua and the district is now the 
29th. 

State Senators. — When the county of Allegany was organized it 
formed a part of what was called the "Western Senatorial District," and 
was allowed nine members; from 1808 to 1815 it was entitled to twelve mem- 
bers. By act of April 17, 1815, Allegany, Broome, Cattaraugus, Cayuga, 
Chautauqua, Cortland. Genesee, Madison, Niagara, Onondaga, Seneca, 
Steuben, Tioga and Oswego constituted the Western District. April 17, 1817, 
Tompkins was added and the district was awarded nine members, and, 
during that condition which existed till the adoption of the constitution 
of 1821, Allegany never had a representative from her own territory in the 
senate. When the constitution of 1821 was adopted, Allegany, Cattaraugus, 
Erie, Genesee, Livingston, Monroe, Niagara and Steuben were made the 
8th Senatorial District and so continued till Nov. 12, 1824, when Orleans was 
added. April 18, 1826, Steuben was taken off. May 23, 1836, Allegany, 
Cattaraugus and Livingston were made one district, entitled to one member, 
and, in 1841, Wyoming was added. Under the constitution of 1846 the state 
was again re-districted and Allegany and Wyoming formed the 30th District 
with one member. By the act of April 13, 1857, Allegany, Livingston and 
Wyoming constituted the 13th District. Since that time Allegany has for 
some years formed iiart of a district with Steuben and Chemung counties, 
and at present is grouped with its old associates Livingston and Wyoming. 
The names of the state senators resident in Allegany have been James Mc- 
Call, who represented the district in the legislature 1825-26-27-28; John 
Grlttin, 1833-34-35-36; Laurens Hull, 1837-38-39-40; Calvin T. Chamberlain, 
1843-44-45-46; Charles D. Robinson 1851-52; Martin Butts, 1855-56; Wilkes 
Angel, 1863-64-65-66; Abijah J. Wehman. 1875-76-77-78; Sumner Baldwin 
1882-83. 

Members of Assembly. — Session of 1807 (Allegany, Genesee and On- 
tario counties composing the assembly district), Alexander Rhea, Philetus 
Swift, Asahel Warner. 1808 (same district), William Rumsey, Philetus 
Swift, Asahel Warner, Jr. 1809 (Steuben and Allegany, until 1823), Henry 
A. Townsend; 1810-11, John Knox; 1812-13, Jacob Teeple; 1814-15, Daniel 
Cruger; 1816, Timothy H. Porter; 1817, Timothy H. Porter, Wm. B. Roch- 
ester; 1818, Wm. B. Rochester, James McCall; 1819, John Dow. James 
McCall; 1820-21, Clark Crandall, John Dow; 1822, Amos Peabody, Grattan 
H. Wheeler. 

Since 1823 Allegany has been a district by itself, and some of the time 
entitled to one and some of the time to two. In 1823 James McCall was 
the member; 1824-5, Lazarus S. Rathbun; 1826, George Williams; 1827, Asa 
Lee Davidson; 1828-9, Azel Fitch; 1830-1, Daniel Ashley; 1832-3, John B. 
Collins; 1834, Lewis Wood; 1835, Alvin Burr; 1836, Calvin T. Chamberlain; 
1837, Calvin T. Chamberlain, Azel Pitch; 1838, Seth H. Pratt, Samuel Rus- 



Civil List. 295 

sell; 1839, Setli H. Pratt, William Welch; 1840, Lorenzo Dana, William Welch; 
1841, Lorenzo Dana, Horace Hunt; 1842, Robert Fhnt, Samuel Russell, 1844, 
Nathaniel Coe, Horatio R. Riddle; 1845-6, Nathaniel Coe, John G. Collins; 
1847, Grover Leavens, Samuel Russell; 1848, John Wheeler, William Cobb; 
1849, Orville Boardman, Erastus H. Willard; 1850, Anthony T.Wood, Joseph 
Corey; 1851, Emery E. Norton. Anson Congdon; 1852, John Wheeler, John 
R. Hartshorn; 1853, Emulus Townsend, Marshall B. Champlain; 1854, Gid- 
eon H. Jenkins, Lucius S. May; 1855, Lucien B. Johnson, Lucius S. May; 
1856, Isaac Hampton, Alexander H. Main; 1857, William M. Smith, James T. 
Cameron; 1858, John M. Hammond, William P. Jones; 1859, Alfred Lockhart, 
William Cobb; 1860, William M. Smith, Darwin E. Maxson; 1861, Wilkes 
Ang-el. Lucius S. May; 1862-3, Alvah E. Cruttenden, Edward D. Loveridge; 
1864. Charles M. CrandaU, Morris S. Chase; 1865, Charles M. Crandall, Al- 
bon A. Lewis; 1866, Wm. Wilson, Albon A. Lewis; 1867, Charles M. Cran- 
dall; 1868-9, Silas Richardson; 1870-1, Charles N. Flenagin; 1872-3, Wm. W. 
Crandall; 1874-5, Orin T. Stacy; 1876-7, Sumner Baldwin; 1878-9, H. H. 
Wakely; 1880-81, Samuel J. Morgan; 1882, Washington Moses; 1883-4, 
Charles S. Hall; 1885-6, Wm. R. McEwen; 1887, Washington Moses; 1888-9, 
A. B. Cottreh; 1890-1, Addison S. Thompson; 1892-3, M. M. Congdon; 1894- 
5-6, Frederick A. Robbins. 

The only assemblyman ever elected from the Allegany district for 
" speaker " was Daniel Cruger of Steuben, in 1816. 

County Clerks. — From the organization of the county down to the 
adoption of the constitution of 1821, the county clerks were ai^pointed by the 
Council of Appointment, which was composed of one senator from each dis- 
trict openly nominated and appointed each year by the assembly, no senator 
being eligible two years in succession. The governor was the presiding 
officer of the council, and had only a casting vote. The names of those who 
held the office by appointment and the dates of their appointment were: 
Jacob S. Holt, April 7, 1807; Victor Du Pont, Nov. 9, 1808; Richard M. Law- 
rence, Feb. 2, 1810; Joseph A. Rathbun, Feb. 24, 1811; Evart Van Wickle, 
Jan. 27, 1813; Amos Peabody, July 8, 1816. After this they were elected at 
the November elections and followed each other in this succession: Amos 
Peabody, 1822; Judson W. Sherman, 1831; Samuel Van Wickle, 1837; Wm. 
Windsor, 1840-41-42-43; Martin Butts, 1846; John J. Rockafellow, 1849; 
James M. Mott, 1852; Wm. B. Alley, 1855; John W. Eldridge, 1858; George 
W. Green, 1861-64; Wm H. H. Russell 1867-70-73; George H. Blackman, 
1876-79; Wm. E. Smith, 1882-85; George A. Green, 1888-91-94. 

Sheriffs. — These officers were also appointed down to the adoption of 
the constitution of 1821. The appointees were, with date of appointment: 
John Gibson, Apr. 7, 1807; John Hawley, Feb. 28, 1810; Ebenezer Hyde, Feb. 
21, 1811; John Mullinder, Mar. 23, 1813; John Gibson. Mar. 2, 1814; Jedediah 
Nobles, Mar. 25, 1816; Asa Lee Davidson, Apr. 24, 1818; Joseph Wilson, Feb. 
12, 1821. After this time they have been elected and the succession has 
been: Joseph Wilson, 1822; Hugh Magee, 1825; Daniel McHenry, 1828; Jesse 



296 ' History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Bullock, 1831; John T. Wright, 1840; David Brown, 1843; Joshua Rathbun, 
1846; Joab B. Hughes, 1849; Gamaliel Benjamin, 1852; Samuel C. Cotton, 
1855; Henry Brown, 1858; Edward S. Bruce, 1861; John T. Wright, 1864; 
Uriah L. Davis, 1867; Joseph Gillies, 1870; Stephen N. Bennett, 1873; Wm. 
H. Withey, 1876; Joseph Gillies, 1879; Ittai J. Elliott, 1882; A. B. Bradley, 1885; 
Wm. J. Garwood, 1888; N. B. Sherman, 1891; Geo. H. Swift, 1894. 

County Treasurers. — Previous to the adoption of the constitution of 
1846 the treasurer was appointed by the board of supervisors, and held 
office until his successor was appointed. The county treasurers' books 
afford the means of ascertaining the succession which is as follows, with 
their years of service: Benjamin Riggs, 1808; John MuUinder, 1809 to 1812, 
inclusive; Moses Van Campen, 1813 to 1824; Alvin Burr, 1825 to 1831; Asa 
S. Allen, 1832 to 1835; Andrew C. Hull, 1836 to 1839; Ransom Lloyd, 1840-41; 
Samuel C. Wilson, 1843 and 1848 ; Smith Davis, 1844-49-50-51-52-53 ; 
Emory E. Norton, 1847; Daniel D. Gardiner was elected in the fall of 1854, 
and took the office Jan. 1, 1855. His predecessor. Smith Davis, also held the 
office during 1854. Mr. Gardiner's length of service is unprecedented in the 
county, and quite likely in the state, as he was continually re-elected and 
held the office until his death in March, 1893, when Charles Ricker, of Fill- 
more, the present incumbent, was appointed by Judge Norton, and elected 
at the succeeding election. 



CHAPTER XXXV. 

ALLEGANY'S CENTENNLVL CELEBRATION AT V^ELLSVILLE, N. Y. 

June 26th and 27th, 1895. 

CENTENNIAL celebrations of important events in the history of nations, 
states, counties, towns, cities, villages and institutions, have come to 
be regarded as essential parts of our civilization and eminently calculated to 
inculcate love, veneration and respect for our ancestors, to cultivate devo- 
tion to country, and to inspire in the hearts of a people earnest patriotism. 

The writer, having had occasion to acquaint himself somewhat with the 
history of Allegany county, in the spring of 1894 conceived the thought that 
Nathanael Dike's settlement at Elm Valley in 1795 should be made the 
occasion for a Centennial Celebration of the first settlement of Allegany, 
and the more he thought of it the more strongly impressed he became of 
the value of such a celebration; indeed he finally considered that it would be 
in a sense almost criminal for Allegany to allow 1895 to pass without a fitting 



Centennial Celebration. 297 

and proper demonstration in honor of such an historic event. Not long after, 
meeting Roger Stillman, editor of the Behnont Dispatch, he impressed upon 
him the importance of losing no time in calling the attention of the people to 
the subject through the i^ress. The following appeared in the next issue 
of the Dispatch: 

" In the year 1795 Nathanael Dike hewed out the fir^t clearing in Allegany forests, and 
established the first home ever made for a white man within its borders, upon the creek which 
still bears his name. Next year will complete the first century of Allegany's settlement, and the 
Dispatch suggests that on some appropriate date a celebration of that event be held at the 
county capitol, with ' fitting pomp and circumstance,' and that the historians of the county 
present papers upon the subsequent events down to our time. We would be pleased to receive 
suggestions and recommendations from all citizens interested in the project." 

This was the first public expression ever given to the idea of a Centen- 
nial Celebration for Allegany. The Northern Allegan}/ Observer at Fillmore 
endorsed the movement with hearty approval. Newspaper after newspaper 
fell into line with the enterprise and neighboring city and county journals 
took up the subject and voiced opinions favorable to the project, until public 
opinion was settled in the conviction that Allegany should celebrate the cen- 
tennial of her first settlement. 

At a meeting of the Allegany County Farmer's Club at Hume, resolutions 
were passed appropriately endorsing the movement. It was thought best 
to call a meeting of the Allegany County Historical Society, and one was 
accordingly held at Belmont on the 16th day of October, 1894, during court 
week, when a representative gathering of citizens from the different parts 
of the county were present. The matter was called up, and it w^as at once 
voted unanimously " that the chair appoint a committee of five to whom the 
time and place for holding a centennial celebration of the first settlement of 
Allegany county should be left." This committee was appointed: Judges 
Hamilton Ward of Belmont, S. M. Norton of Friendship, and C. A. Farnum 
of Wellsville, and Hons. E. D. Loveridge of Cuba and D. P. Richardson of 
Angelica. The veteran teacher Prof. S. A. Earley of Wellsville attended this 
meeting, and in behalf of his people, a number of whom he had consulted, 
offered to raise ff;500 at least toward defraying the expenses, should such a 
demonstration be held at his town. The committee (with the exception of 
Mr. Loveridge who was unable to be present) met at Belmont on the 21st 
day of December, and after thoroughly canvassing the subject, settled upon 
Wellsville as the place, and June 19, 1895, as the time, for such demonstra- 
tion. Saturday evening, Jan. 5, 1895, a meeting to forward the centennial 
celebration was held in Wellsville. Hon. C. A. Farnum presided, and L. H. 
Thornton was secretary, and this committee was appointed to meet and 
co-oi^erate with the Historical Society at Belmont on the next Tuesday: 
Capt.Geo.H. Blackman, Prof. S. A. Earley, Dr. H. M. Sheerar, G. B. Gordon 
and A. E. Cowles. 

Tuesday, January 8th, the County Historical Society held its annual 
meeting at Ward Hall in Belmont, re-electing Jno. S. Minard president, Geo. 



298 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

W. Fries secretary and SteiDhen Pollard custodian, and electing W. J. Rich 
ardson of Belmont treasurer. The Wellsville committee was in attendance 
and its report on time and place for holding the Centennial Celebration was 
accepted and adopted. It was also arranged that the officers of the society 
should be a committee to meet with the citizen's general committee of Wells- 
viUe to prepare a program of exercises for the celebration. The members 
of the general committee were: Hon. C. A. Farnum, Hon. O. A. Fuller, Hon, 
W. F. Jones, Hon. F. B. Church, Gen. Rufus Scott, Capt. Geo. H. Blackman, 
Dr. G.H. Witter, Dr. H. M. Sheerar, E. W. Barnes, John McEwen, W. C. 
Ross, Samuel Hanks, A. E. Cowles, Samuel A. Earley, J. H. Brown, D. C. 
Ackerman, W. B. Coats, George E. Brown, Libbeus Sweet, Dickinson Clark, 
C. H. Fisher, Wm. Beever, G. B. Gordon, T. P. Otis, Sidney Frisbey, James 
Macken, E. B. Hall, L. H. Thornton, Wm. Miller, Levi Frank, Ed. Hanraham, 
Wm. Duke, Sr., F. H. Furnian and A. S. Brown. Hon. F. B. Church was 
made permanent chairman, and Lewis H. Thornton permanent secretary. 
At a joint meeting of the Historical Society and this committee held at Wells- 
ville, Jan. 17, 1895, the committee said that Wellsville could be depended 
upon to raise $1,000 for the celebration. Pres. Minard of the Historical 
Society then appointed a committee of one member from each town except 
Wellsville, to solicit subscriptions to an expense fund. This committee was 
composed of these gentlemen: Silas C. Burdick, Alfred; S. S. Karr, Almond; 
T. N. Boyd, Andover; D. P. Richardson, Angelica; Riley Allen, Alma; George 
A. Green, Amity; Fred R. Piatt, Allen; E. W. Cowles, Bohvar; L. N. Brainard, 
Belfast; J. C. Craig, Burns; W. T. Elhott, Centerville; D. W. Chamberlain, 
Caneadea; M. M. Congdon, Clarksville; E. D. Loveridge, Cuba; A. Miner 
Wellman. Friendship; John S. Pitt, Granger; Charles K. Bacon, Grove; J. 
P. Mills, Hume; Theodore Cobb, Independence; J. E. Middaugh, Scio; Clar- 
ence Ricker, New Hudson; L. H. Ackerman, Willing; Geo. Watson, West 
Almond; Murray Farwell, Ward; Crandall Lester, Wirt; A. L. Litchard, 
Rushford The following were made soliciting committee to work in Wells- 
ville: F. H. Furman, James McEwen, P. L. O'Connor, Geo. Isenhauer and 
Louis Dornow. An executive committee of nine was created, and it Avas 
voted to invite the ladies to particiiDate. 

The county convention of the W. C. T. U. at Belmont in January received 
and accepted an invitation to attend and take part, and a committee consist- 
ing of Mrs. Geo. W. Fries of Friendship, Mrs. J. S. Minard of Fillmore and 
Mrs. Sidney Frisbey of Wellsville, was appointed to co-operate with the gen- 
eral committee. At a meeting of the general committee on Feb. 18, 1895, 
Chairman F. B. Church thus announced the executive committee: Clarence 
A. Farnum, Oscar A. Fuller, A. E. Cowles, John McEwen, E. W. Barnes, W 
C. Ross and W. B. Coats; with F. B. Church chairman and L. H. Thornton 
secretary. 

As the time passed public attention was aroused, and Prof. Stephen 
Pollard, school commissioner for the southern district, suggested the idea 
of prize essays upon some appropriate subject connected with the centen- 



Centennial Celebration. 299 

nial, so when the Teacher's Association for the southern district convened 
at Behnont in February, a committee consisting of Profs. Craig of Wells- 
ville, Crissey of Behnont, Cannon of Andover, and Commissioner Pollard, was 
appointed to report a plan of procedure. The " General Citizen Committee 
of Wellsville approved the reported plan and made the announcement 
through the press " that the essays should be upon "Our County,"* that 
the competition should be open to all pupils over twelve years old of all 
schools in the county, that the teachers of the several schools should select 
the best of these offered up to as many as one for each teacher employed; 
that they should be numbered so as to be identified, the names of the writers 
not to be known to the committee, etc. Rev. B. C. Davis, Miss Inez R. 
Maxson and Prof. W. C. Whitford all of Alfred University, were named as 
the committee to whom the essays were to be submitted, and to award the 
prizes. April 24, 1895, the date for holding the celebration was changed to 
the 26th and 27th of June on account of the Commencement exercises at 
Alfred University. 

The ladies of Wellsville organized to prepare a historical museum. They 
appointed town committees and invited people to send in historic treasures, 
relics and " curios," and the village trustees donated the use of the required 
portion of the new city building for storing and exhibiting the relics, pic- 
tures, works of art, etc., constituting the museum. 

As the time for the celebration approached the work increased, and as 
the people of Wellsville became aware of the proportions of the undertaking, 
which from day to day developed beyond anything the most sanguine had 
expected, they only put forth the more effort and met the responsibility 
with great credit. The citizen's general committee held meetings every 
week, andoftener. These sub-committees were appointed: 

General Executive Coritrnlttee, Hon. F. B. Church, chairman; Hon. O. A. 
Fuller, E. W. Barnes, A. E. Cowles, Hon. C. A. Farnum, John McEwen, W. 
B. Coats, W. C. Ross, F. H. Furman. treasurer; L. H. Thornton, secretary. 
Reception and Entertainment, Frederic H. Church, Charles A. Ball, Gen. 
Rufus Scott, James Thornton, Wm. F. Jones, H. K. Opp, James Macken, 
Grant Duke, C. A. Farnum and F. H. Furman. Grand Procession, Historical 
Pageant. («) Modern Section and Trades Display, H. K. Opp, J. M. Rath- 
bun, I. N. Fassett, Rev. A. R. Miller, Dr. F. H. Ellsworth. (6) Old Section, 
W. E. Fisher, G. B. Gordon, Wm. Bruce, W. M. Lee, Willett Ward and Luman 
Leonard. Fireman's Parade, J. J. O'Connor, T. H. Sweney, Wayne Scott, 
Dana Richards, James Sullivan, Percy Green, Wm. L. Rogers. Grand Army 
Division, Commander A. M. Boyd. Civic Societies, Ed. Williams. : Orf/aniza- 
tion of Procession, Capt. George H. Blackman. grand marshal; Willie Duke, 
marshal's orderly; aides, Dr. G. H. Witter, Wm. Bruce. Wm. E. Smith, 
Russell Tremaine, M. D. Palmer, A. M. Boyd, Wm. Opp, Wm. Duke, Jr. 
Sports, Oak S. Duke, Burt Danks, Harry Teeple, Charles Clark, Thos. H. 
Sweney, Frank Chamberlain, Claude R. Scott. Chas. M. Barnes. Decorat- 

*This subject was sujjgested by Mrs. Georgia Drew Merrill, the editor of this history. 



300 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

ing Village, "Mayor" Grant Duke, Wm. L. Rogers, W. C. Kendall, E. D. 
Clark, Martin Morgan, Eugene Allen, Stephen Moore. J. J. O'Connor. 
Music and Bands, M. D. Haskins, Paul B. Hanks. Charles Kendall. School Chil- 
dren's Parade, Profs. Craig, Bryant, Reed and Laewen and Prank Higgins. 
Stereopticon Exliibition, Prof. Charles Bryant. Soldier'' s Reunion, A. M. Boyd, 
O. A. Puller, Capt. Geo. H. Blackman, James Thornton. Railroad Rates and 
Excursions, John McEwen, W. B. Coats. Historical Museum, Mrs. John Cot- 
ton Smith, Mrs. A. S. Brown, Mrs. E. W. Barnes, Mrs. Chas. Kendall. Miss 
Pannie Lewis, Mrs. George Rosa, Mrs. W. C. Ross, Mrs. P. V. R. Stillman, 
Miss Miriam Thornton. 

The Sunday before the celebration many of the clergy throughout the 
county preached discourses appropriate to the time and calculated to in- 
spire feelings in consonance with the centennial idea. The week previous 
to the celebration w^as a busy one for the people of Wells ville. All w^as bustle 
and hurry. The city hall under the direction of the ladies was decorated 
most beautifully, and conveniently and tastefully arranged for the exhibition 
of historic relics. Two beautiful arches trimmed with evergreens spanned 
Main street and by the coming of the 25th of June, Wellsville had put on 
gala attire, all public and business places and many residences being deco- 
rated with a profusion of " red, white and blue. " Many former Alleganians 
were registered at the hotels or taken care of by old friends and acquaint- 
ances in town, and all was ready for the celebration. 

The Celebration.* — Wellsville, June 26, 1895. At sunrise the people 
were reminded that the long looked for centennial had arrived in good earn- 
est, when Captain Miller raised his thumb from the vent of the brass 12- 
pounder, and the report of the gun proclaimed to the inhabitants far and 
near that the memory of Nathanael Dike still lives, and that the grand- 
children, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren of Allegany's 
first settlers are meeting to celebrate the event of the first settlement. All 
day yesterday and early this morning, every man, woman and child was busy 
decorating the business places and residences in the most lavish manner. 
Every train is loaded down with human freight, and before sunrise the 
teams commenced rolling into town and it is believed they will continue 
until 20,000 people are on the ground. The new city hall is occupied on the 
first and third floors by the Historical Museum. This feature is in charge 
of the ladies and contains over 2,000 valuable and curious reminders of 
olden times. Each exhibit has its interesting history, and many open a 
train of events that w^ould take a volume to describe. The exhibits from 
each town occupy separate booths. 

PiRST Day. — At 11:10 the excursion train on the Erie started for the 
old home of Nathanael Dike at Elm Valley. A switch has been put in at the 

■*The writer will depend upon the local papers for an account of the exercises, etc., sifting from each the 
best of its report, not stopping to give credit further than to say that the Cuba Patriot, the Wellsville Re- 
porter and the Belmont Dispatch have been impressed into service. 



Centennial Celebration. 301 

place and it is known by railroad men as Dike. A band accompanied the ex- 
cursionists, arriving on the ground shortly before 12 [o'clock. Two thous- 
and people, many coming in carriages, gathered about the old cellar, the 
only thing left of the pioneer's buildings except one stick of -timber of the 
old milldam near by. In the pioneer bury ing-ground, just a little distance 
away on a gentle elevation, repose the remains of the pioneers Dike and 
Cole and their families, the graves marked by rude rough stones show the 
beginning of settlement a century ago. 

After a prayer by the Rev. Dr. E. A. Leeper, Hon. O. A. Fuller made 
this address: 

Ladies and Gentlemen: — The committee havmg in charge our Centennial Celebration, 
have thought it right and proper that we should meet here on the very spot where the first 
w'hite settler carved out for himself and family a home, and where the first step was taken to- 
wards that purer, higher and grander civilization that has made our county such that every per- 
son dwelling within her borders is proud of her civilization, proud of the record she has made 
during the one hundred years past and gone, and proud to meet together in her first Centennial 
Celebration, and celebrate that record. We meet here to-day to pay our tribute to the memory 
of the first white settler, Nathanael Dike. I want to say to each and every one of you, that we 
are commemorating the memory of no ordinary man. Nathanael Dike was a patriot from boy- 
hood until his death. He loved freedom and hated oppression ; he loved liberty and was op- 
posed to serfdom with his whole soul, and it was no wonder that, although a student of Yale 
College at the time when the little band of colonies declared was agamst old England on 
account of her cruel oppressions, he then threw ofT his studentship, buckled on his sword and 
left the halls of Yale College. He enlisted in the Union cause and fought for liberty ; and as 
we follow him through these seven long, cruel, bitter years, we find him being promoted for 
gallant conduct on the battle field until he was an officer on Gen. Warren's staff ; remaining 
there until that brave general fell mortally wounded at Bunker Hill, and was then transferred 
to the staff of Gen. Washington, and remained with that brave and noble General until peace 
had been declared and our independence won. It seemed strange to me at first as it will no 
doubt to you, that one occupying the high position in society that he occupied ; one that had 
endeared himself to every person in the then young nation, and could have had and held al- 
most any political position in the gift of the people, should have left that which was most near 
and dear to him, and sought a home in the wilderness of Western New York ; yet when we 
remember the spirit that Nathanael Dike was made of ; when we remember that nothing but 
patriotism beat within his breast ; when were member that it had been the dream of his life to 
see a great nation builded up with a Government for the People, of the People and by the Peo- 
ple, and remembering that he knew that in no way could such a nation and government be 
builded but by advancmg civilization, and so when we remember that none but the brave and heroic 
could or would have been our first pioneersthen, we can account for Nathanael Dike leav- 
ing his home which was in Connecticut and first settling in the Mohawk Valley. Staying there 
until he saw the seed of a purer civilization taking root, he left and went to Turtle Point, Pa. 
Next we find him coming up through the Canisteo Valley ; past where the city of Hornellsville 
now stands, on over into what is now Karr Valley, and then over the mountainous hills from 
Karr Valley until he struck Elm Valley coming down through that valley until he reached this 
spot where the valleys come together reaching here in the spring of 1795, ^"d saying: " Here 
I will make a home for myself and family." Could he have found a more lovely spot.'' I leave 
the answer to you. Nathanael Dike was a great man in more than one way. He was a genius. 
He was a great mechanic and builded himself the first saw and grist mill built within the bor- 
ders of our county, and in a few years built the first tannery. Go to yonder cemetery and you 
will there find and learn the genial, sympathetic and loving nature of the man. You will see 



302 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

there gravestones made by him from the common flat stones of our fields and the inscriptions 
thereon made by him with rude implements and yet works of art, and those inscriptions are 
plain, althoug^h almost loo years have gone, as they were the day they were inscribed thereon. 
All done by him as I am told without pay, for the early settlers who were less fortunate than 
himself. That reminds me how much more friendly toward one another and how much more 
they stood ready to help and assist each other in those days than we are to-day. We, stand- 
ing here, can hardly realize what it meant to be the first settlers of our country. The pri- 
vations, the sufferings and the dangers that they passed through can only be told to us in story. 
The nearest white settlement to this place at the time he located in this spot was nearly 30 
miles, being near where Canisteo stands to-day and an unbroken wilderness on every side. 
The wild beasts of the forest had not then been subdued, and what was worse the savages 
were roaming up and down our valleys burning, plundering, murdering at the midnight hour, 
sparing neither women or children. Such scenes were of frequent occurrence, and it needed 
just such brave and noble men as Nathanael Dike, Moses Van Campen, Patterson Coe and 
others to settle such a wilderness as this county was at that time, and when I think over and 
study the characters of those noble pioneers it seems to me that God in his infinite mercv raised 
up those grand men to lead us to a purer, nobler and grander civilization, just as he raised 
them up in olden times to lead the children of Israel out of bondage to the promised land. We 
owe a debt of gratitude to the memory of the first settlers of our county which we can never 
repay. It was their patriotism, loyalty and love of country that enabled your county and mine 
in the dark spring time of 1861 to send as brave and noble men as ever went forth to battle 
and to die as was sent from any county within our great Empire State or within the county of 
any state in our great nation, and more of them according to her population than any other 
county, and it is one of the brightest and noblest pages in our county's history, and one that 
will grow brighter and brighter as the years roll around. And we also owe to them the grand 
educational system that we now have where the poor can be educated without cost or price. 
And as we go from this spot sacred to Alleganians let each and every one cherish more fondly 
the memory of those brave men and noble women who were the first settlers of our county. 
And let us here and now firmly resolve to emulate the noble examples of their lives by being 
kinder to each other. Ever ready to assist, to lift up rather than pull down. Willing that oth- 
ers should succeed as well as ourselves. Ever ready to stretch forth a ready hand to a needy 
brother. Willing, eager to help and assist those less fortunate than ourselves. If we will but 
do this, how much better society will be, and the future generation that is soon to follow in 
your and my place will cherish our memory as we cherish the memory of those whose lives we 
this day commemorate. 

Gen. Alexander S. Diven of Elmira, 86 years old, formerly an Alleganian 
and a lawyer of great eminence, district attorney of Allegany county from 
1836 to 1841, was introduced and made a short speech. The exercises at 
Elm Valley were concluded by the introduction to the assemblage of four of 
the direct descendants of Nathanael Dike. Tliey were Dr. J. M. Dike, of 
York, Livingston county, great-great-grandson, his two little daughters, 
Lulu and Mabel, and R. A. Dike, his brother. At Welisville the childrens' 
parade formed at the Union School grounds Main St., at 1:45 P. M., but 
made but a short march on account of an approaching thunderstorm, and 
was discontinued at Baldwin's theater. Hardly were the people seated when 
down came the rain in a drenching shower accompanied by heavy thunder 
and vivid lightning. The storm soon ceased and the afternoons exercises 
began with a chorus, "America," by the school children. Gen. A. S. Diven 
was then called to preside over the centennial exercises. This he did in a 



Centennial Celebration. 303 

very felicitous manner. Rev. E. A. Rice invoked the divine blessing and 
was followed by this eloquent address of welcome by Hon. Wm. F. Jones: 

Citizens of Allegany : — It has been the practice of people, in all ages, to signalize 
important or decisive events in some enduring and impressive manner. We immortalize the 
valor and the deeds of men in busts of marble or statues of bronze. In monuments of granite 
we commemorate the conquests of armies and the majesty of empires ; but the achievements of 
Industry, the conquests of Science and the majesty of Labor we embalm and immortalize in 
History. In oriental lands are temples, obelisks and pyramids, so ancient that the events they 
once commemorated have passed into oblivion. They stand there in their majestic grandeur, 
solitary and forsaken. On this new continent our monuments are new, and the lessons they 
perpetuate are the stories of yesterday. Bunker Hill has only passed its one hundred and 
twentieth anniversary, the Washington Monument was but recently completed, and the jewelled 
crowns that blaze on Gettysburg are but the creations of our own generation. All these may 
pass into decay, but History endures. While language lasts her light illuminates the world. 
Then let us do homage to History. We bring to her this tribute of our county. We gather 
the gems of a century, gleaned from the path of our progress, and cast them at her feet. With 
speech and parade, with joy and ceremonial display we commit them to her care. We cele- 
brate an interesting event. We celebrate the achievements of a century, and fhese are the con- 
tributions we bring to History. 

When it was first decided that we should hold this celebration, the question arose as to 
the locality where it should occur, and there were many claimants for the honor. Important 
settlements were made in various parts of the county during the first decade of the century, 
and many of the early settlers were men of social distinction, men of culture, of refined charac- 
ter, representing both wealth and enterprise. They embraced an array of names of which the 
county has always been proud. Among them were men whose lives and acts were honorably 
identified with its early developement and civic history. They represented the highest type of 
social and political citizenship. It was felt by many that some locality should be selected which 
best represented these early influences. But. as is usual in such instances, there was vigorous 
competition when placed on that basis. At this juncture Wellsville came forward, with her 
usual modesty (a merit which has always been conspicuous in her), and offered her solution. 
She pointed to the historic fact, and made the undisputed claim, that it was within the limits of 
her township that Nathanael Dike, pioneer of all our settlers, on one bright day m June, 1795, 
pitched his tent upon the bank of the little stream that now bears his name, and there built his 
home and his family altar ; that there he opened up the first settlement within the territory 
since erected into our county ; that it was he, who, with axe of steel and arm of iron, smote 
the first tree that fell in this wooded wilderness ; that his sturdy blows, echoing through the 
forests, were heard within the confines of civilization. These blows rang out over the lake 
country ; they echoed down the valley of the Mohawk ; they were heard on the banks of the 
Hudson ; they thundered among the rocks of New England ; they were reechoed from the land 
of Penn. They aroused the spirit of adventure, and migration from all those regions 
followed so rapidly in the track of the first settler that, in less than eleven years from the time 
when the first smoke rose from Dike's humble cabin, a new county was born to the Empire 
State. What place then more fit for these memorial rites than the banks of that same historic 
stream, and the place where its waters join the Genesee } This solution seemed very satisfactory, 
and to Wellsville was accorded the honor of holding this first centennial. The place is ap- 
propriate, the day auspicious, and ySu are here, invited guests, a happy concourse, to join in 
these festivities. Wellsville accefjts the honor with pride and pleasure. She has kindly dele- 
gated me to extend to you her cordial greeting. She welcomes you with open arms. She re- 
joices with you over the wonderful achievements of the county during the century just closed. 
She shares with you the patriotic pride which every citizen feels who contemplates the progress 



304 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

she has made, and the high position she has attained, in the grand family of counties. She is 
your co-worker in this enterprise. She co-operates with her sister townships and with sister 
villages in spreading this banquet. She gives her service to distribute the feast. She tenders 
to you the freedom of her town. She opens her heart to you as well as her homes and in her 
name I bid you a Cordial Welcome. We have much to celebrate. 

Allegany is fortunate in the period covering her communal existence. It has been coequal 
and contemporary with the most glorious era of the world's history. She has become an hon- 
ored part of the grandest state in this grand republic. She has participated in its proud 
developement. She has borne her burden and shared the glory of the commonwealth in its 
victorious march. What stirring memories move us as we run backward through these years ! 
How imagination riots among these fields of her romantic history ! On themes so grand and 
so instructive I would gladly dwell, but the place assigned me here forbids. The occasion in- 
vites other thoughts also. It recalls the perils and the trials of the early settler. It excites our 
sympathy for his privations, and arouses our admiration for his heroic endurance. See the 
obstacles that opposed him. Take with me one look, a single backward glance. Let your 
eyes run to the remotest margin of the century just closed. Along that distant horizon you 
see a trackless wilderness. It covers all the ten hundred and thirty-three square miles of our 
territory. Wave on wave of wooded height stretch to the utmost line of vision. Not a high- 
way, not a home, not a habitation of civilized man ! Forests illimitable, dark and dense, shut 
the sunlight from brook and glen. They mantle all the heights. They darken all the vales. 
Great pines stand ward and sentinel upon the rugged hills, and over stream and river wave 
their giant arms. Through what ages unknown to us have they not stood there, challenging 
the encroachment of man ! What human heroism can conquer this wilderness ? 

A century is gone ! One hundred years ! How brief the period compared with all the 
ages precedmg, a mote upon a boundless sea, a single sand upon its shore ! And yet in this 
brief period what marvelous transformations appear! The wilderness is changed to wealth. 
A county is developed, rich in people, rich in every resource. How changed the land appears ! 
What scenes of pastoral beauty greet your eyes ! How the fertile fields stretch away on every 
view ! What peaceful, prosperous homes abound ! Here indeed is a young empire. See 
what thriving villages dot the land ! How the towering church spires glow ! Religion has 
joined her hand with honest enterprise. God and Happiness reign here. See her magnificent 
schools, her Academic halls, her grand University, a seat of learning, fit to grace the richest 
state. See the multitude of ardent youth who crowd their portals. Surely cultured life is here. 
Behold her industries ! Visit her marts of trade, inventory every enterprise, sum up the grand 
accumulations of her wealth, and then take account of those greater riches, those which exist 
in the quality of her people. How many have attained distinction ! What shining lights grace 
Bench and Bar, Pulpit and Profession, Learning and Art, Trade and Commerce ! And then 
what hosts her records bear, who, in dreary camp, on weary march, on fiery battle-fields have 
shed renown and glory on her name. Here indeed are men, men fit to constitute a state, 
' Men who their duties know, and knowing, dare maintain." Here also " Sovereign Law sits 
empress, crowning good, repressing ill." I love the Great Grand County. I love her 
bright green fields. I love the music of her streams. I love her grand old hills. She gave me 
welcome in my youth, I give her blessings in my age. 

This day the Mother County meets her family in happy reunion. To her side she calls 
her faithful children, and, lo, they come, a happy multitude. Here are her cultured daughters, 
here her stalwart sons. Here is farmer, laborer, artisan. Here are teachers of schools, pro- 
fessors of colleges, merchants, doctors, lawyers, legislators, priests and judges ; all have come 
to lay their tribute at the feet of the foster mother. Some come bearing garnered wealth, 
some honor-crowned, some laurel-wreathed, but all with loyal hands and loyal hearts. Here 



Centennial Celebration. 305 

also is the remnant of her veterans ! Pride of the maternal heart ! Best beloved of all her 

sons ! 

Once more they come with martial tread, 
With form erect but silvered head ; 
With face of bronze and heart of steel, 
As when the mother made appeal. 
Beneath the banner they unfold, 
Their names, their deeds, are writ in gold. 

Citizens, soldiers, friends. In the name of the Mother County, in the name of our Civic 
Authorities, in the name of the Centennial Committee, once more I salute you, I bid you hail ! 
"all liail and welcome." 

Mr. John S. Minard of Fillmore was then introduced and read the His- 
torical Sketch. As Mr. Minard has covered the same o^round more fully in 
the chapters of this work containing the general history of the county, it is 
not necessary to introduce it here. It was listened to with interest and at- 
tention and was generously applauded. Mrs. L. A. Platts of Alfred next 
read a very finely-prepared paper upon "Woman's Share in Our History." 
Prof . D. A. Blakeslee, a former Alleganian, next followed with an address 
on " Our Schools," which was listened to with marked attention. The Cen- 
tennial Hymn, composed by an Alleganian, set to music by another Allega- 
nian, was then sung by a double quartette: 

CENTENNIAL HYMN. 

From willing hearts, with willing tongue, 

We pour, to-day, our grateful praise ; 
A hundred circling years have flung 

Rich blessings o'er our lengthening ways. 

For Thou, who led'st Thy chosen race 

From bondage to the promised land. 
Didst lead our fathers to this place. 

And shield them with Thy potent hand. 

Through dangers, hardships, dire distress, 

They wrested triumph from their foes ; 
Till Allegany's wilderness 

Rejoiced and blossomed as the rose. 

Each waving field and flock-crowned hill, 

Each peak and glen and forest dome. 
Each laughing stream and busy rill 

Shed blessings on our every home. 

For these the bidding of Thy words 

Our grateful tribute here we pay 
To Thee, Jehovah, sovereign Lord, 

On this a century's birthday. 

We thank The», Lord, for land made free. 

For homes of comfort, church and school, 
May this, our golden jubilee, 

Proclaim anew the golden rule. 

Bear them along, ye friendly gales — 

The hallelujahs that we sing; 
Till Allegany's hills and vales 

Shall with the echoing praises ring. 



306 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

A. W. Litchard, president of the Allegany County Farmers' Club, then 
read a paper on "Our Agricultural Resources." This was a very able and 
appropriate paper, and appears as a separate chapter in this book. 

In the evening Chairman Church introduced I. W. Near of Hornellsville 
as presiding officer, and, after a few remarks from him on assuming the 
chair, the program was continued with an able address on the " Bench and 
Bar," by Frank S. Smith, Esq., of Angelica. It evinced much research and 
great care in arrangement, was exhaustive, comprehensive, entertaining 
and instructive. It should be published in pamphlet form. A stereopticon 
entertainment, regarded as one of the leading features, had been extensively 
advertised to be given during the evening, but the lateness of the hour at 
which the exercises were commenced, and the time devoted to the " Bench 
and Bar " ; "The Press," by L. G. Raymond of the Allegany County Bejmb- 
lican of Angelica; "Trade, Commerce and Manufactures," by S. P. Morse of 
Friendship; the W. C. T. U. by Miss Mary E. Bowler of Little Genesee, so 
filled the time as to preclude anything like justice being done to this part of 
the entertainment. On account of the lateness of the hour Judge S. M. 
Norton refused to read his paper on " Civic Societies," and for this he was 
greatly applauded. A goodly number of the stereopticon views were how- 
ever rapidly shown, accompanied by very brief explanations from J. S. 
Minard. Prof. Place of Alfred University had prepared over 100 slides or 
views, many of them from photographs taken expressly by John S. Minard, 
to fully illustrate the progress of our county from the Seneca Indian occu- 
pation. Portraits of Red Jacket, Cornplanter, Joseph Brant, Blacksnake, 
pictures of the " old council house " at Caneadea, of the "White House, " (the 
Church mansion,) the Van Wickle (now J. S. Rockwell) house at Angelica 
where the first courts in the county were held, present and former county 
buildings, prominent pioneers, etc., constituted the collection. 

Second Day. — Thursday morning at 10:30, Chairman F. B. Church 
called the people, who had filled Baldwin's theater to overflowing, to order, 
and called upon Judge S. M. Norton to preside. Judge Norton made some 
happy remarks, eulogized the pioneer academies and spoke eloquently of the 
grand work Alfred University had accomplished, of its many graduates 
who had achieved success, of its honored instructors, particularly Presi- 
dents Kenyon and AUen, and stated that it gave him great pleasure to intro- 
duce Madame Alberti of New York City, a daughter of President Allen, who 
stood in the front rank of elocutionists, who would read the Centennial poem, 
written by a former Alleganian, Hon. Hanford L. Gordon of Los Angeles, Cal. 



Centennial Celebration. 30< 



CENTENNIAL POEM. 

Ho ! From the land of palms and orange-bloom, 

I greet you, rugged Allegany hills. 

Among your mumuring pines my life began. 

And there my childhood found a cabin home. 

Ho ! From the land of snow-capped mountain-peaks. 

And valleys green with fig and lemon tree ; 

Where the great ocean roars and beats and breaks, 

I greet you, gently gliding Genesee. 

One hundred years ! and what are these to thee ? 

Men come and go like bubbles on the sea ; 

Men come and go ; but what are they to thee ? 

One hundred years, one hundred years ago. 
Your rugged hills were clad in fir and pine ; 
Where graze the bleating lambs and lowing kine 
The savage chased the deer with bended bow. 
The wolf's long howl, the panther's piercing scream. 
Alone the silence of the forest broke. 
Where now the spires of town and village gleam. 
Up from the Indian's wigwam curled the smoke ; 
Where puffing iron steeds by hill and dale 
Fly harnessed to their trains of palace cars, 
Crouching for game, or in his tribal wars. 
The stealthy savage trod the forest trail. 

One hundred years ! Behold, some magic hand 

Hath swept the forests from your rolling hills. 

Your babbling brooks have shrunk to murmuring rills, 

For ruthless axemen have laid bare the land. 

The frontier then was at Niagara's brink, 

And all beyond was unpathed wilderness, 

Save where the Canadian in his Indian dress 

Pushed out to trade for beaver and for mink. 

Hardy the hands and stout the hearts of men 

Who clove a pathway through your forests then. 

Stout hearts and brawny arms of pioneers 

That hewed their cabins from the wilderness, 

Nor murmured at hard toil and sore distress 

While planting well the seeds of future years. 

From pomp and palace sweet contentment flies, 
And seeks admission at the cabin door. 
Happy the pioneers — albeit poor ; 
They studied the ways of nature and were wise. 
He is the least in want who wants the least ; 
The sombre woods were stocked with noble game, 
So wild the browsing deer that they were tame. 
And woods and waters furnished forth a feast. 
Where now on gentle slope and grassy mead 
The whinnying colts and sleek, fat cattle feed. 
Where throng the busy, babbling multitude. 
The hardy settler's rude log cabin stood. 

Little knew he of pomp and luxury ; 

His stumpy clearing, tilled with toil and care. 

Furnished his bare-foot cubs with wholesome fare. 

The frugal house- wife, busy as a bee. 

Spun flax and wool, and wove the homespun good 

That clothed her sturdy lord and numerous brood. 

Happy the monarch of that stumpy field ! 



308 



History of Allegany County, N. Y. | 



Happy ihe house-wife at her spinning wheel ! 

Time hath no happier lot to man revealed : 

The mystic fates no happier lot conceal. 

Ah, sweet content, the blessing of the blest. 

Upon thy cheerful table, east or west, 

Corncakes and baked potatoes make a feast. 

Stout hearts were theirs and brown and brawny arms 

That from the wilderness hewed fields and farms. 

The patriot sons of these brave pioneers 

Marched at their country's call in after years. 

And mid the thunderstorm of shot and shell, 

In the forefront of freedom's battle fell. 

Ye sons and grandsons of the pioneers. 
Say, is your lot a happier lot than theirs ? 
We chase the jack o'lantern of wealth or fame ; 
We patch the cloak of truth with many a lie ; 
We hunt our fellow men, alas, as game ; 
We toil and moil and delve and drudge and die. 
We mount the steed of steel and ride amain ; 
We grasp the fiery thunderbolt for gain ; 
We scan the ocean depths ; we signal Mars, 
And read the reeling universe of stars. 
Alas, the more we learn the less we know ; 
Contentment is the wisdom of the wise : 
Tested by this our knowledge is but woe. 
And pride and pomp and wealth but gilded lies. 
Before one solemn truth I stand in awe. 
The highest law to man is Nature's law. 

Ah, in the toil and moil of modern days 

is there no higher aim than cent per cent ? 

Are all our nobler aspirations spent ? 

Even in God's holy house of prayer and praise 

We ask ourselves, in secret, if it pays. 

We pluck our wealthy brother by the coat ; 

We clutch our needy brother by the throat. 

And can it be in mother Nature's plan, 

As we rise up above the beasts of prey 

Into the brilliant sunlight of to-day, 

Alas, that man's worst enemy is man ? 

And shall we praise the laws and call them good. 
That enrich the few and beggar the multitude ! 
Ah, long and strong is the robber arm of greed. 
But longer, stronger, is the arm of need. 
Where the mad mob rules Liberty runs mad. 
And Justice dies. Heaven help the unhappy land 
Where the red monster lifts his bloody hand 
And hydia heads, defying man and God. 

O, was the blood of patriot fathers shed 
To found an empire governed by the mob — 
Where Freedom falls and Anarchy instead 
Teaches her hungry wolves to rape and rob? 
Say, was the blood of patriot brothers slain 
Under our starry flag in Freedom's cause 
To save the nation and maintain the laws. 
Shed on a hundred battlefields in vain ? 
No ! For God rules the destinies of men. 
Even as he ruled the fate of battle then ; 
And out of toil and sweat since time beean. 



Centennial Celebration. 309 

Aye; out of darkness, storm and stress and mire, 
Yea, out of rape and rapine, blood and fire, 
Higher and holier hath God lifted man. 

Yes, sons and grandsons of the pioneers. 
Your lot is still a better lot than theirs. 
The teeth of time have harrowed up the soil ; 
Earth yields her goodlier fruits to lesser toil. 
Where lumbering wain and wagon toiled amain 
(Even when yon listening bald-head was a boy) 
Through marsh and mire and rut and rugged way — 
Over the stumps and stones and corduroy — 
Behold, by sunny slope and grassy plain, 
Hauling his precious freight in gilded train, 
The iron horse flies like the wind to-day. 
Science hath bridled nature's wildest steeds, 
And bid them labor for our daily needs. 
The very thunderbolts are harnessed now 
To humming mills and swiftly flying cars ; 
And we may sit and thank our happy stars. 
While fire and water drudge and delve and plow. 

Say, sons and grandsons of the piofieers, 
Is not your lot a better lot than theirs ? 

Capt. R. H. Pratt, the head of the Indian School at Carhsle, Pa., of great 
renown as an educator of Indians, and withal a former AUeganian. then de- 
livered the Centennial oration. It was an able effort, occupying nearly an 
hour. After some music, he was followed by Hon. E. W. Hatch of Buffalo, 
an Allegany boy. His theme was "Allegany in the late Rebellion." The 
Judge came fully up to the requirements of the occasion, and satisfied the 
most extravagant expectations of his auditors. During the exercises a song, 
''Allegany Hills," written by an unknown AUeganian, and set to music by 
Joseph Gorton and arranged by Glenn Jones, was beautifully rendered: 

The following sonnet, composed by Prof. G. W. F. Buck, one of the first 
principals of Rushford Academy was sent by mail to President Minard, 
but not received in time to be read. 

SONNET. 

Land worthy fame, and yet to fame unknown ! 

No fairer glades Italian seas enfold. 

Not lovelier glens brave Tyrolese behold. 

Far-looking uplands, where are nobler shown ? 

Wood-crowned, rill-cleft, fondling in close embrace, 

Thy dear, one river, holiest of streams 

To him who views thee in an exile's dreams, 

Once gazing daily on thy radiant grace. 

Proudly, O Allegan, as now obscure. 

Remain always, untrod by tourist throng ; 

Thy charms, inviolate by alien eyes. 

Reserved for those who shall have loved thee long, 

And cherish thee with love that will endure. 

Whether the sunshine gleams or tempests pour. 

Letters of regret from Sidney A. Foster, of Des Moines, Iowa, Rev. F. 
W. Beecher, Hon. H. M. Teller, of Denver, Col., and others were then read. 
The weather was quite threatening in the morning of the second day and no 



310 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

doubt kept some people at home, yet, by the time set for the pageant, there 
were 15,000 people in town, some estimates placing the number at 20,000. 

The Grand Parade. — Promptly at one o'clock the grand parade formed 
near the tannery, in charge of Capt George H. Blackman, with assistants 
Wm. Opp, Russell Tremaine, Wm. Bruce, G. H. Witter, M. D. Palmer and 
A. M. Boyd, and Willie Duke the marshal's aid. It was the most magnificent 
pageant ever witnessed in Allegany county. Gorton's Band of 14 pieces, 
Jas. Gorton, Jr. , leader, headed the procession, followed by carriages con- 
taining the mayor and trustees, speakers, and guests of honor. The 47th 
Regiment Band, Geo. W. Sutton leader, preceded the 47th Separate Com- 
pany of Hornellsville, with 60 men in line, in charge of Capt. Avery Mc- 
Dougal. The " boys in blue " made a fine appearance and attracted much 
attention. 

The second division was in charge of Wm. Bruce, who led a squad of 
well-costumed Indians. Then came a float rejiresenting "An Indian deer 
hunt," with three aborigines, a canoe and a deer among the trees. Another 
float portrayed a settler's camp in the woods with preparations for a meal in 
progress; another float showed an Indian massacre, a vivid reminder of the 
troubles in the border settlements in time of war. A beautiful contrast to 
this was "Going to church in 1795 and in 1895," the first an old horse and 
Indian sled, the second, John McEwen's elegant coupe and horse. Then 
came an Indian scout on horseback followed by a "prairie schooner" and 
two seedy-looking settlers on foot. Ten old men in a wagon labelled "old 
timers " were followed by another lot of old timers, a wagon full of iclocks of 
ancient days. An old one-horse plow and a new sulky plow, with two 
horses were-nextin line. An immense old-style loom and a spinning wheel 
with Mrs . Wm. Mason at work spinning while a little girl rocked the old 
wooden cradle was shown on another float. The " First miU in Allegany 
county," was exhibited by two boys with boxing gloves in a rope ring, 
while the "Limited mail in 1795 " was shown by Rufus Murray on horse- 
back in costume of " ye olden times," with saddle-bags and accoutrements. 
Threshing machines in all styles, old, older, oldest, were represented with 
an "old thresher, " a boy and a flail, and a woman spanking a refractory child. 

The third division, A. M. Boyd in charge, was composed of nearly 300 
veteran soldiers of the G. A. R., and two fife and drum corps, and was an 
impressive sight. The " Short Tract military band," headed by J. S. Pitt, 
won many praises. 

The fourth division was led by G. H. Witter, and the trades display 
which followed was finely designed and truly representative. The first 
float was arranged by the attaches of the dry goods store of S. F. Fisher. 
It showed a fine display of carpets in the form of a tent with a little " occu- 
pant" sitting in one end. Bullard & Co.. grocers, made a handsome display 
of tea chests and other articles with pretty decorations. A very fine effect 
was made by Stillman & Co's display of plants and flowers. The Johnston 



Centennial Celebration. 311 

Harvester Co., made a fine display with one of their complete machines, a 
"bonnie binder." Lake's monumental works, represented by artistic spec- 
imens of their work on a heavy truck drawn by four horses, made a good 
display. Alger & Son had a miniature modern boot and shoo store on wheels 
with clerks and customers. There was also in contrast the old shop with 
John Frey "pegging away like all possessed," while Lon Ross told him 
"yarns." The Buckeye mowers and binders displayed fine machines. The 
carriagepole manufactory of Freeland and Bradley of Wells ville made a good 
showing, and the Empire Novelty Company had a young printing press on 
wheels and amused the people and delighted the small boys by the distribu- 
tion of fans with advertisements which were profusely scattered and eagerly 
sought. Mrs. G. Olivey's millinery and dry goods house had a pretty and 
handsomely decorated wagon conveying several lively girls, which attracted 
much attention. Ostrander & Co., had the " old woman who lived in a shoe " 
on exhibition, with children and shoe. The idea was happily conceived and 
well carried out. Rockwell Bros., crapets and dry goods, made a display 
fully in accord with their " up to date " business. Otis; Day & Co., exhibited 
a complete bath room in excellent style, with Miss Mary Bruce in matronly 
attire superintending the bath of two little girls. The Coats Manufacturing 
Co., showed a mill full of machinery with employees at work. The Osborne 
mower, an old-time McCormick mower, and the Empire graindrill had prom- 
inent places. Levi Frank the clothier, had an advertising wagon and so did 
the Wellsville Tobacco Co. 

M. D. Palmer commanded the last division with the Wellsville Fire 
t)epartment led by the Excelsior Band of Andover with 14 pieces. Chief J. 
J. O'Connor, and First Assistant Thos. H. Sweney, headed by the Emerald 
Hook and Ladder Co., in charge of Assistant Foreman Patrick Moran. 
Twenty men were in line and the Scotch bag-pipe furnished music. The 
Baldwin Hose followed with 24 men in new uniforms. Drum Major Smith 
attracting much attention. The Duke Hose with 20 men in "natty" blue 
uniforms made a fine appearance. The Genesee Hose Co., with a very hand- 
some parade cart and 20 of the best-looking boys in the state, were in charge 
of Foreman Percy Green. They also had a drum major in uniform. The 
display was highly creditable to all concerned, and will long be a pleasant 
memory to all who witnessed it. 

Immediately after the parade fully 10,000 people filled the grand stand 
and the race track to witness the races. The 47th Separate Company of 
Hornellsville gave a drill exhibition which was greatly enjoyed. This was 
followed by foot, bicycle and other races, in which the "greased pig " was 
not forgotten. 

Notes. — Richard Church, the only surviving son of Judge Philip 
Church, was present during the afternoon exercises of the first day and very 
properly occupied a seat on the platform. John Barker Church of Geneva, 
a grandson of Judge Church, was also present with his uncle Richard. 



312 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

John B. "wore" a beautiful hickory cane, which the celebrated Indian 
chief Governor Blacksnake (the nephew) made and presented to Judge 
Church. 

Among the numerous bodies adding to the success of the occasion Gor- 
ton's Band and the music it dispensed was one of the most enjoyable and 
conspicuous . 

The Grand Army men of the county held their annual " campfire " at 
Wellsville on the second day of the celebration. Their headquarters in the 
Beever block was a busy place, 600 of the veterans there enjoyed a compli- 
mentary dinner. 

Hon. Frank B. Church. P. H. Pur man and L. H. Thornton, respectively 
chairman, treasurer and secretary of the Wellsville executive committee, 
had the most onerous and continuous tasks of the many hard worked citizens 
in connection with making a success of the celebration. Their arduous 
labors were highly appreciated. Mr. Church, as chairman of the committee, 
presided over the public meetings, except when relieved by Gen. Diven^ 
Hon. I. W. Near and Judge Norton, and made an admirable presiding 
officer. 

A special " Centennial Edition " of the Wellsville Reporter was issued, 
which did great credit to the enterprising publishers. 

No drunkenness was seen upon the streets, nor were any arrests made, 
there being no occasion. The immense throng of people was good-natured, 
orderly and happy, every one on his best behavior to the lasting credit of 
Wellsville in particular, and Grand Old Allegany m general. 

The ladies in charge of the m^^seum had the biggest job of all, and they 
did it as none but women can do when they set out to accomplish a great and 
glorious achievement. The museum was a leading element in the celebra- 
tion's ultimate success. Under the auspices of the ladies three styles of 
centennial spoons were gotten up as souvenirs. In the bowl of each spoon 
was a very appropriate design, the old Seneca council house of Caneadea. 

Historical Museum. — We are indebted to the WeUsville Reporter for 
the following interesting description of some of the more than 10,000 antique 
and historical articles on exhibition in this attractive department. The 
commodious new City Hall was mostly taken up by this great exhibit and 
was constantly thronged with visitors. 

Angelica. — The Angelica collection was one of the most interesting. It 
contained the antiquities belonging to Major Moses VanCampen, the Indian 
fighter. The Major's rifle, full set of surveying instruments, the tomahawk 
with which he killed several Indians, powder horn and other accoutrements 
all loaned by his grandson, Moses Burr, and a well executed oil painting of 
the pioneer loaned by the Wilson Academy, also the writing desk made and 
used by Van Campen, loaned by L. J. Palmer. Among the other interest- 
ing relics from Angelica were: portraits of Hon. Martin Grover, Mr. and Mrs. 
Alex. d'Autremont who came to Angelica in 1806, Mr. and Mrs. Chas. Hor- 



Centennial Celebration. 313 

ton, editor of the Angelica Reporter in 1841, portrait of Hon. John Collins 
and military coat worn in War of 1812, curtains brought from England and 
pair of embroidered pictures made a century ago by Mrs. Collins, a sword 
used at Waterloo, a summons issued by Moses Van Campen J. P., in 1822, 
endorsed by John Moore, constable, the father of the Moore brothers living 
at Riverside. Mrs. Herdman sent bone soup spoons, knitting sticks and 
dishes, all over the century mark. A beautiful embroidered skirt made by 
Mrs. Alex. d'Autremont when 80 years old; innumerable old dishes, brass 
candle sticks, pewter plates, the old sign of the "A. Richardson Inn 1824," 
the Slocum family Bible, printed in 1715 in excellent condition, latin book 
printed in 1669 and bound in rawhide, and numerous other old books, an 
evening dress and mantel (R. S. Charles) used in 1850, portrait of Ransom 
Lloyd. Mrs. Prank S. Smith, Mrs. John S. Rockwell, Miss E. A. Whitmore 
and Mrs. Herdman contributed a case of old and foreign silverware, partic- 
ularly attractive. Miss Whitmore sent a large number of antiquities, dishes, 
embroidered clothing the work of Mrs. E. M. Grover and others. Cake 
doylies embroidered by a lady 83 years old were remarkable for the fine 
workmanship; a pair of silk slippers worn at the first dance in Angelica and 
over 100 years old. Not the least attractive were the shoes taken from a 
German tramp by Sheriff Garwood, and replaced by new ones. The old fel- 
low cried when parting with the mammoth coverings, each one big enough 
for an elephant to wear. They are now the property of John Gibson, Jr. 
An ancient neck yoke was labeled "Washington and his celebrities have 
ridden after this," and 80 years old bear tra^DS were loaned by L. J. Palmer. 
Amity. — Prom Belmont came the private collection of George and R. J. 
Tucker, an interesting lot of geological specimens found near Belmont and 
many fine Indian and war relics; punch bowl and cut glass decanters from 
the Church mansion. A suit of clothes made for and worn in 1790 at 4 years 
of age by Stephen Rogers, who came to Amity in 1804 and lived to the 
age of 102, exhibited by his son, C. D. Rogers; Queen Anne musket and 
Springfield pistol, flag and veil worn by PoUy L. Gorton, now Hyde, at the 
Harrison election 1840; painting of the old council house by Mrs. M. G. Davis, 
Belfast, frame made from wood from the old chief house at Ah-Wis-Koy, the 
oldest and last of the Indian habitations on the Genesee; compass used by 
John T. Hyde in 1799, and later by David How, the first man hung in Alle- 
gany; pine shingle four feet long from log house, Cronk Hill. Caneadea, 
erected in 1831; jmir mitts knitted by Percis Phebe Hyde, daughter of Na- 
thanael Dike, for her granddaughter, Mrs. Ella Crandall; Masonic apron 80 
years old; tureen cover owned by Gen. Stewart, the grandfather of Maj. 
Church and used to serve George Washington many times; wooden water 
cask 100 years old; corded cloth hat used by James O. Jordan of Cuba, 80 
years ago; rocking chair used by Wilkes Angel when a child; wooden chop- 
ping bowl carved by John T. Hyde in 1802 from a maj^le knot. His wife who 
used this bowl was Phebe Percis Dike, daughter of Nathanael Dike, married 
in 1798, and settled at Belvidere in 1802; a fine case of Indian arrow heads 



314 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

from C. H. Whitcomb, Belvidere, found in Allegany county; leather fire 
bucket, owned by George Tucker, used by the old Bowery Fire Co.,. in New 
York City; bottle jack and brass candelabra used at Villa Belvidere. 

Alfred.- — The collection sent by Alfred University was large and varied 
and deserves special mention, but space forbids extended notice. There 
was fine work from the Terra Cotta Works; views of the University and 
portraits of its faculty; first map of Alfred, 1821; old time portraits; flax 
brake and wheel; wedding dress Martha Mina Allen 1812; needles for weav- 
ing harness, etc., and many things of rare excellence and great value. 

Alma. — The Alma collection included Indian skull and other relics. An 
old collar and harness straps from first harness used in this county; rock- 
ing chair used by Daniel Cole, the first male white child born in Allegany 
county and first male born in the town of Wellsville, also his por- 
trait; rolling pin, 130 years old, brought from Vermont by Prosper 
Adams; iron plate; cow bell 110 years old; saw used during the Revolution- 
ary War by Samuel Merriman, a carpenter and bridge builder. 

Almond. — Looking glass loaned by Elizabeth Major, once the property 
of Mrs. Nathanael Dike; confederate uniform and haversack captured at 
Macon, Ga. , in 1865; confederate artillery flag taken from Andersonville, in 
1865, by S. S. Karr, 86th N. Y. Vol. The first deed and bond ever drawn in 
the county, Sept. 27, 1796, between Chas. Williamson of Bath and Joseph A. 
Rathbun, one of the first settlers of the town of Almond. First jury list 
drawn in Allegany county, 1808, which we copy: 

Jury List. — State of New York Allegany county to Jacob Holt, Esq., Clerk of said county. This sixth 
day of May, A. D., 1808. We hereby transmit to you a list of the names of Freeholders and Inhabitants resid- 
ing in the town of Alfred in said County Viz. 

Freeholders — Tarball Whitney, Joseph A. Rathbun, Matthew McHenry, Joseph Karr, William Gray, 
Walter Karr, Rosswell Haskins. 

Inhabitants — Alpheus Baker, Asa Clark, Ardon Cobb, Benaijah Hays, Benaijah I. Hays, Benjamin Van 
Campen, Clark Crandall, Charles W. Clark, David Haskin, Elihu Knight, Enos Seaward, Harvey McHenry, 
Jeremiah Oakley, Joseph Green, James Ayers, Joel Whiteg, John Mcintosh, Joseph Coleman, John Van 
Campen, Milo Stephens, Miles Oakley Jr., Micah Haskin, Nathan Green, Oliver Miller, Orrin Hays, Peter 
Pottman, Philip Doddever, Reuben Jones, Rufus Lawrence Jun, Seth Baker, Solomon David, Samuel Karr, 
Silas Ferry, Stephen Major, Thaddeus Baker, Thomas Granger, Thos. Miles, Wheeler Hinman. 

J. K., Sup. J. A. R., T. Clk. 

Andover. — A shot gun owned by Wm. B. Clarke, made in 1761, used by the 
Clarke ancestors; flint lock rifle and flint lock musket from Newell Baker; 
punch bowl used by George Washington, and old dishes from Mrs. Levi 
Rogers; server made by Benjamin Palmer, Sr., in 1810, also a boot jack made 
from a deer's horn; candle holder used in husking time; wooden canteen 
carried by Nathaniel Perkins in the Revolution; old books and dishes; first 
official guide received at Andover post office in 1822, used by Andover 's first 
post-master, C. R. Spicer, (only three post offices in Allegany county at 
that time); homemade linens and embroideries in great variety and all ages; 
an arithmetic, entirely written with pen and ink by Thaddeus Baker in 
1824. The following old school certificate was particularly interesting: 

ScHOOi. Certificate.— We, the Subscribers, Inspectors of common schools for the Town of Scio, 
County of Allegany, do certify that, at a meeting called for that purpose, we have examined Miss Louisa Jones 



Centennial Celebration. 315 

; 

and do believe that she is well qualified in respect to moral character, learning and ability to teach a common 

school in this town for one year from date, given under our hands at Scio, N. Y. 
Scio, December 21st, 1839. 

Geo. B. Jones, 1 

W. H. Coats, >• Inspectors. 

Welcome H. Browning, ) 

Sunday School REPORT.^First report of Genesee Sabbath School Union held at the court house in the 
village of Rochester, Wednesday, Oct. 28, 1827. The executive committee's report says of Allegany: This 
county includes 22 towns and contains 18,000 inhabitants. Our agent visited all the towns except one, found 
15 Sabbath Schools in operation, and succeeded in establishing a County Union under encouraging circum- 
stances. There was a desire expressed by the people generally upon whom he called to have schools established 
in their respective neighborhoods, and it is confidently expected that a considerable number will be commenced 
next spring in places hitherto not favored with these institutions. Officers for Allegany County Union were 
elected as follows: Hon. Philip Church, president ; Hon. James McCall, Vial Thomas, Esq., Rev. Moses 
Hunter, Al. \Vm. Wilcox, Josiah Whitman, Al. Samuel King, Asa S. Allen, Esq., John C. McKeen, Esq., 
vice presidents ; John Collins, Esq., treasurer ; Ranson Lloyd, Esq., Rec. secretary ; Gen. Samuel S. Haight, 
Cor. secretary. 

Bolivar. — A splint bottom rocking chair made in Richburg 74 years ago; 
an old plate and a gown 90 years old worn by Mercil Cowles were the only 
exhibits. 

Cuba.- — A small collection of Indian relics, gun used at Bunker Hill, 
powder horn made in 1777, and another used in 1759, in French and Indian 
war and carved with pictures of the old forts; iron spoon used by Seneca 
Indians at the oil spring in Cuba; wedding slippers, Campbell family, 4 gen- 
erations old. 

Friendship. — In Mrs. W. A. Hart's private collection a greater part of 
which she has obtained in the town of Friendship and kindly exhibited, we 
find interesting curios: A map of the county made Aug. 1, 1804; case of 
Continental money well preserved; military hat worn at annual training 
which met in Angelica in 1836; -cannon ball found on farm of Samuel Hess, 
Belvidere; ancient chandelier for oil and rag, this hung from ceiling in olden 
times by the light of which six young ladies spun every evening; first whale 
oil lamps, 1827; large iron shell picked up at Ogdensburg when her Majesty 
Queen Victoria's subjects made an attempt to cross the river and gain a foot- 
hold on the border of our Empire State, but were driven back; a handsome 
brass lamp from Rome, saved from the ruins of convents after their destruc- 
tion by the French, which they assured Prof. W. H. Pitt was many centuries 
old; blue sugar bowl decorated with landing of Lafayette at Castle Garden, 
Aug. 16, 1824; punch bowl; plates; pewter plates; pewter porringer; the flow- 
ing blue ware of our grandmothers, the mulberry and pale blue of which 
Mrs. Hart has sets; china; glass decanters of 1763 and 1827; almanacs of 
1804 and later dates; Bible nearly four hundred years old; Indian moccasins; 
Mexican shoe; gold epauletts of War of 1812; grain fan; foot stove; mortar 
135 years old; Indian stone pestle; book of hymns, 1766; book of letters, 1712; 
pitcher from England used for beer at hunting dinners. The sightseers 
were much interested in the old fashioned tall bedstead of maple with blue 
and white linen curtains made in 1800 falhng from teester frame. Hnen tick, 
sheets and cases made in 1817; a handsome carpet coverlet spun by Mrs. 
Hart's mother, wove by Mrs. Pearse in Cuba in 1839; knapsack of linen worn 



316 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

in Revolutionary War, also in the War of 1812; iron pipe made in 1810; tinder 
box in use previous to the invention of matches; bronze pitchers which 
brightened the shelves; with many pieces fancy china; a peculiar linen wheel 
and other articles too numerous to mention. We noticed a finely carved 
cane made of a piece of the stockade prison pen at Andersonv ille, done and 
owned by J. T. Burdick; a line handstitched dress made by Miss Phebe 
Colburn 54 years ago for Mrs. Geo. Wells, Eutopia; other fine w^ork done in 
Rhode Island some time in the 18th century; fancy rug sent by Mrs. G. W. 
Fries; a cherry table used by Major Moses Van Campen, when making plots 
or maps of the farms he surveyed from Transit Bridge to Geneseo. 

Genesee. — White mitts worn 100 years ago; corset worn in 1740; specta- 
cles, commission of cavalry officer issued in 1808; andirons, oven and crane; 
snuff box century old; hoe bought in 1810; family Bible 125 years old; doll 70 
years old dressed in exactly the fashion of to-day, besides many other relics. 

Hume. — A portrait of Major Peter Keenan of the SthPenn. Cavalry, with 
his uniform and sword occupy prominent place in this excellent collection, 
gathered by John S. Minard; portraits of Roger Mills and wife, Samuel 
Russell and wife; Geo. Minard and wife. Stephen B. Jacobs and wife, Jona- 
than Thatcher, an old hunter; R. W. Botsford and wife; Augustus d'Autre- 
mont, all old pioneers; wooden pitchers, 1790; almanacs of 1804-5; old 
books; wooden mortar and pestle 100 years old; account books of Roger Mills 
and A. d'Autremontof 1776and 1820; Indian ax; naturalization papersof Augus- 
tus d'Autremont; Indian ladles and other relics found at site of Indian vil- 
lage of Caneadea; cavalryman's cap 1800; mahogany server used in serving 
LaFayette; Indian meal sieve; conch shell owned by Capt. Isaac Van Nos- 
trand at Short Tract, always blown at 4 A. M., 12 M., and 9 P. M., (as the 
caj)tain had the only time piece in the settlement) has been heard 6 miles; 
wooden bread trough, shape and size of a wooden cradle; an old j)aper, the 
sale bill of a negress is particularly of interest. 

Bill of sale for Charlotte, to Augustus D'Autremont. — Know all men by these presents 
that, I, Victor Du'Pont of the town of Angelica, County of Allegany, State of New York, for 
and in consideration of the sum of two hundred dollars in hand, paid to me by Mr. d'Autre- 
mont for my black wench named Charlotte, which I have bought from Mordicai Hale, Esq,' 
with her boy now four weeks old, said girl to serve Mr. d'Autremont for twenty years, faithfully 
and honestly, after which time I warrant her free if she behaves properly during the time she haS 
to serve. The boy to serve Mr. d'Autremont till he is 28 years old as the law directs. And I' 
do for myself, heirs, assigns, executors and administrators quit and renounce all claims to said 
wench and boy. Witness my hand, 

Angelica, this 15th day of August 1809, V. Du'PONT. 

Signed and delivered in presence of Augustus D'Autremont, 

Ellis Pearce. 
Independence.— ^oviv2i\t& of Dr. and Mrs. Anthony Barney, Mary A. 
Covell, Mary A. Wood, Alva Wood, "a pioneer of Whitesville "; sword used 
at Bunker Hill; fife used in war of 1812 by Nathan Babcock; the first clock used 
in Whitesville 1800; etc. 



Centennial Celebration. . 317 

Rushford. — Singing book 1797, old wooden square, handmade nail from 
the first frame house in Rushford, bread toaster, flat irons, skillets, apple 
parer, wooden bread tray, flint lock musket, wooden lantern made in 1810, 
before tin lanterns were known, cap quiller, old spectacles, old map of 
United States, assessment roll, old books and bed covers. 

Sclo. — A great collectioii of old books, pottery, linen work, was very in- 
teresting. Rockingchair given to Esther B. Hale as a wedding present in 
1790, and many years old then; flax and quill wheels and basket, 150 years 
old; wooden cradle in which seven generations had been rocked; trammel 
and kettles, andirons, tongs and shovels, hand fan 150 years old, lantern 100 
years old, warming pans. Many of these were brought by Mrs. Hinkley, 
who took great interest in the exhibit, as did also Mrs. Geo. W. Smith, who 
was present with her flax wheel and delighted the people by showing them 
the old-fashioned way of spinning flax. The Scio corner represented an 
old fire-place and was fitted with all the utensils found in old well regulated 
grandfathers' kitchens. Mrs. Edward Carr sent a family tea chest, 200 
years old; bayonet and cartridge box war of 1812; a sword used when the 
artillery was called out in Alfred to subdue the rioters when the Erie road 
was built; rolling pin used by the Middaugh family several generations, and 
chair used by Wm. Middaugh 1845; old books from the Norton family and 
almanacs from 1824; piece calico owned by fifth generation; black earthen 
tea pot and pitcher saved from a fearful cyclone wreck of 60 years ago. The 
.case sent by K. S. Black and Eugene T. Black contained an Oxford Bible 
printed in London in 1784 that belonged to Nathanael Dike, also the latter's 
account book, and a fine collection of stamps and coins . 

Willing. — The old fashioned kitchen arranged for Willing attracted much 
attention, and Mrs. Warren Rice of Hallsport, over 80 years old, receiv^ed 
her many friends there, and interested the hundreds of people who crowded 
around her by spinning flax in the good old way and explaining the various 
uses made of it in " Ye Olden Times." The Willing collection, gathered by 
Mrs. O. T. Perkins, Mrs. Lorenzo Witter, Mrs. Mapes and others was very 
complete. Among other things were: A sword captured from a captain of 
the 47th Va. Vols, in 1865 by Lieut. O. T, Perkins; a dictionary over 
100 years old, now owned by Mrs. Supplina Rice; Bible 102 years old, 
Mrs. Wood; a chair owned by Eld. Nathaniel Perkins over 100 years ago; 
cavalry sack worn by Mr. Rice in the Revolutionary war, owned by Leonard 
Fanton; warming pan used in connection with the fire-place, owned by Mr. 
and Mrs. Luther Hall; tin bake-oven. pewter pan, turn spit, cards for pre- 
paring wool for spinning, foot stove; dummy attired in dress worn by Mrs. 
C. D. Mills 60 years ago; bonnet made 100 years ago and now owned by Mrs. 
Daniel Peacock; shoulder shawl by Mrs. Mapes; embroidery done by Miss 
Thankful HaU 85 years ago, part of a bed quilt pieced by her nearly 100 
years ago; woolen stockings spun, dyed and knit by Thankful Hall, and most 
beautifully done. The relics in the case of J. R. Hawkins were very old. A 



318 - History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

lace cap worn by Jerusha Ellis, said to come over in the Mayflower; a cane 
and powder horn from the body of a British officer at Bunker Hill; rare 
books, Bible printed in 1793; the collection of spectacles, some over 300 
years old, property of John Barney; a corset said to be 115 years old, much 
stift'er than those now worn; old silver and curios, and many other articles. 

Wellsville. — The WeUsville exhibit was large and varied, fiUing three 
sides of the large room on the third floor. Louis Dornow showed three cases 
of birds, all natives of Allegany, excellently mounted by taxidermist O. E. 
Vars of Andover. A case of Lincoln curios, photographs and autographs 
exhibited by J. M. Rathbun, attracted much attention. The signatures are 
all genuine and very interesting. A turquoise serpentine bracelet presented 
to Mrs. Rathbun's mother by Mrs. Lincoln. Dr. H. M. Sheerar had a case 
of fossils, Indian relics and curios from all parts of the world. Not the least 
interesting was a will made in 1694, a Roman History of 1648, Columbian 
Reader of 1810, a fluid lamp in use between the era of candles and that of 
kerosene; sickle 80 years old, and a trilobite, very perfect, at least 6,000 
years old. First account book of the first store in Wellsville kept by Silas 
Hills in 1832 and later years. Map of Allegany county loaned by D. C. 
Ackerman, made in 1829. A number of towns were included now a part of 
Livingston county. Padlock that came over in the Mayflower. N. B. 
Grames had a large collection of antiquities including high clock, rifle, violin, 
knapsack, powder horn and half a hundred other curios. Mrs. A. A. Good- 
liff had a case of shells, spoons 200 years old with family crest, and curios, 
besides old chairs and other antiquities. Mrs. Chas. Smith exhibited a rare 
collection of old andirons, fenders, furniture, bedding, etc. Rev. Geo. Buch 
Indian relics of Allegany county, three volumes of an old Bible, lady's gold 
watch 156 years old. Mrs. H. K. Opp's case contained a china punch bowl 
used by Washington and his aides at Newburg; teapot 125 years old; lace 
veils 80 years old; china cups and saucers, very old, and other relics. Miss 
Mary Cowles exhibited a fine old pewter plate, London made and in the 
family 100 years; wooden salt cellar, 125 years old, belonging to her grand- 
mother; long beaded purse carried by a lady of fashion in 1830. Mrs. C. P. 
Kendall showed a remarkably finely executed pen- written music book by 
Wm. Kendall, a musician of ability, he came to this country from England 
in 1830, set of Tippecanoe glass dishes with scenes from the famous cam- 
paign of 1840; gold banded china teapot, 200 years old; chair, wedding 
present of her father and mother, and silhouettes of the latter. Miss 
Russell showed the first sewing machine of Wellsville, old side saddle and a 
fine collection of relics. Passport of O. P. Taylor, given by secretary of 
state in 1858, and one from Dom Pedro of Brazil in 1860. The collection of 
old china of all kinds, pewter jugs and plates, bottles, etc., filled several 
cases and ranged in age from fifty to over a hundred years. To mention 
them all would take columns of space. Poster of the first 4th of July cele- 
bration in WeUsville, 1841; Capt. Z. H. Jones, marshal; Lewis Foster, 
president. Looking glass 100 years old, Mrs. Caldicott. Pair shears 200 



Centennial Celebration. 319 

years old. made in England, owned by Mrs. Rosina Briggs. Pitcher owned 
by Van Amburg, the lion tamer, 75 years ago, and given by him to Mrs. 
Sexton. Collection of Indian rehcs from Jas. Thornton. Mrs. Wm. Mason, 
spinning wheel at work. Mrs. J. R. Freeland exhibited a large number of 
articles, including beautiful old china and silver, old glass cup plates, coins, 
relics of war 1812, pieces of wood taken from frigate "New Orleans," wed- 
ding bonnet and dress of her mother, old whiskey bottle, etc. An old dinner 
and tea set purchased by Mrs. L. D. Davis (mother of Mrs. W. B. Coats) in 
1845. The remarkable part of it is that the set is complete after a service of 
fifty years. Mrs. Oak Duke, commission issued to her great-grandfather by 
Samuel Adams. Mrs. W. F. Jones loaned a fine collection of old silver and 
china. Portraits of early Wells ville pioneers, showing many generations. 
Henry L. Jones brass clock of 1734, fire carrier 1776; Nathaniel Dike's home- 
made hammer and shears, and other relics. Mrs. Wm. Miller, tall clock; 
child's chair 100 years old, property of Mrs. D. Clark attracted much atten- 
tion. A dress and shawl 150 years old, which belonged to Mrs. B. P. 
Perkins" grandmother. Quilt jiresented in 1855 by the Ladies' Anti-slavery 
Society of Friendship to Mr. and'Mrs. A. N. Cole, and the original "Editor's 
Easy Chair " of A. N. Cole. Pewter tea pot brought from England in 1805, 
Mrs. J. B. Goodliff. Pewter sugar bowl, 150 years old, Mrs. L. S Anderson. 
Snuff jar, 150 years old, Mrs. A. M. Boj^d. We must stop here, as it is 
simply impossible to enumerate the immense number of articles of interest. 

THE PRIZE ESSAYS. 
Our County. — The First Prize Essay, written and read by Miss Lizzie L Grove of 
Friendship. — The history of the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth, is familiar to every student 
of history. Their privations and trials were something which the young people of to-day can 
scarcely realize. Yet not less severe were the trials and hardships endured by the Pilgrims who 
came through the great wilderness of Western New York, and found their way into that part 
of the state, the one hundredth anniversary of whose settlement is celebrated to-day. While 
riding from town to town in the many pleasant drives which Allegany county affords, it seems 
almost impossible to imagine the entire place a great wilderness. More especially do we notice this 
m driving from Friendship to Angelica. One place from all others attracts the attention of 
passersby, and that is the Church Farm. Not only is it noticed because of the beauty of the 
place and its surroundings, but because of the fact that it was the home of Judge Philip Church, 
the son of one of the first settlers of the county. In 1799 Mr. John B. Church purchased from 
the Morris Reserve 100,000 acres of land, covered with pines. Philip Church, with a small 
party guided by Moses Van Campen, started from what is now Almond, to explore the land 
recentlv purchased by his father. This was accomplished, and in 1804 a map of the Church 
Tract was made, and Angelica laid out near the center. Previous to the coming of the white 
settlers the county was inhabited by a tribe of Indians called Senecas, who lived near Caneadea, 
and in this town was situated the old " council house " of the Indian*?. One of their tribe bore 
a name renowned and familiar to the older inhabitants of the county, that of Mary Jemison, 
or as she is often called, " The white woman of the Genesee." Captured by the Indians 
when about 12 years old, she spent the remainder of her life among the Senecas, by whom she 
was ever honored and respected. When the county was still a part of Genesee county, Nathan- 
ael Dike, a graduate of Yale College, and a soldier of the Revolution, first settled in what is now 
Allegany county. Mr. Dike was a native of Connecticut, from which state he moved into Penn- 
sylvania, and from there in 1795 within the borders of Wellsville. Therefore it is fitting that 



320 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

this celebration should be held in this town. Another of the early settlers, who was known and 
respected throughout the county, was Hon. Martin Butts of Clarksville. Settling early in that 
town, he made for himself a home and a name remembered many years. Still another, is the 
Hon. John Hammond, or who was perhaps better known by the title of " Honest John Ham- 
mond." In 1 83 1 Mr. Hammond with his father moved to Allegany county, and from that time 
until his death in 1887, he was prominent in the affairs of the county. Soon after the settle- 
ment of Mr. Dike, by an act of the New York state legistature, Allegany county was formed 
from Genesee county April 7, 1806, but comparatively little was done towards settling it until 
near the close of the year. Slowly and tediously the great forests began to disappear, and new 
settlers joined those already here. Their small log houses gave place to larger and better ones. 
The settlements and the number of homes increased, and the manufacture of lumber formed 
the leading industry of the pioneers for many years, but as the forests disappeared this indus- 
try began to give way to agriculture. The various industries of the county are due, to a large 
extent, to the great diversity of soil and surface. While Allegany is fortunate in never having 
been visited by war, yet the inhabitants have suffered from it. To the war of 181 2 it contribu- 
ted its portion, as afterward in the late war, when it is said no county in New York opposed 
slavery more strongly than Allegany. To Angelica is due the honor of being the first town in 
the county in which a newspaper was published. Here in 1820 the Angelica Republican was 
started, but continued only a few years, Angelica was made the first county seat, being then 
the most central place. During the time Angelica was the county seat, two railroads and the 
Genesee Valley canal were built, none of which passed through Angelica, and it was decided to 
move the county seat. Accordingly, in 1858 it was partially removed to Belmont, but court 
was held in both places until about one year ago when Belmont became the county seat. In 
our country, where all men are free and equal, the self-made men hold a high place in the esti- 
mation of our people. Judge Martin Grover ranked among the first of our county. From a 
poor boy working in the office of a lawyer, he became by his own efforts one of the best edu- 
cated men in the state, and finished his career as a judge of the court of appeals in New York 
state. As Allegany county grew and improved in other ways, so it did in its educational work. In 
the town of Alfred William C. Kenyon opened a school, to which came young men and women 
from all over the country. By his enthusiasm and earnestness Mr. Kenyon instilled into the 
hearts of his pupils worthy thoughts which appeared later in their lives. All over the United 
States these pupils, now teachers, statesmen and divines, have gone forth carrying with them 
praises for Allegany, until it has become renowned for its educational advantages. The four 
hundredth anniversary of the discovery of the western continent by Columbus was celebrated 
at Chicago. May the celebration at Wellsville, of the one hundredth anniversary of the settle- 
ment of our dear old Allegany, be as long remembered, and may the history of the county be 
as familiar to every person in the county, as is the history of the discovery of America. 

Our County. — Second Prize Essay, written by Miss Rtdh Mason, Rushford. — Probably 
no county has ever been opened for settlement with greater difficulties to overcome than the 
territory which comprises Allegany county. The dense forests which covered the surface were 
the greatest hinderance, because of the great time taken by settlers to remove them. As late as 
1809 or 10, settlements on the Holland Purchase were few, because of the density of the wood- 
land. After this time the prosperity of the county slowly advanced. The lumber produced 
found but little market at home, as the land lay far from the head waters of the Allegany. If 
this had been the only difficulty with which the county met, there would have been much greater 
prosperity. But it was not, the free use of whiskey in all the Genesee country was a curse 
which made the strong men weak, and carried sorrow into the log cabins of the wilderness. 
The actual settlement of the county was begun in 1795, i" the spring of which year Nathanael 
Dike located in the present town of Wellsville on Dikes Creek. Nathanael Dike came from 
Tioga Point, Pa., but was a native of Connecticut. He received his education at Yale, and during 



I 



Centennial Celebration. 321 

the Revolution was attached to Gen. Warren's staff at Boston and later to Gen. Washington's. 
In 1796 Rev. Andrew Gray, Wm. Gray, Joseph A. Rathbun and Benjamin Vandermark settled 
in the town of Almond. All of these were from the same locality in northern Pennsylvania, 
and brought their goods in flat-bottomed scows up the Susquehanna and its tributaries to the 
site of Hornellsville. The towns settled next after Wellsville and Almond, were Andover in 
1796 at Elm Valley, Independence in 1798, and Genesee in 1799 at Ceres. Allegany county 
was formed from Genesee, April 7, 1806. The western tier of townships of Steuben county 
was annexed in 1808. A portion was re-annexed to Genesee in 181 1, and Eagle, Pike, Genesee 
Falls, Portage, Nunda and Ossian were taken off in 1846. Another portion was added to 
Livingston in 1856, leaving the county as it now is. The eastern tier of towns was included in 
the Phelps and Gorham Purchase, the two western tiers in the Holland Purchase, and the two 
intermediate tiers in the Morris Keserve. The Holland Purchase was the territory ceded to the 
Holland Land Company by the Six Nations in 1797. The Morris Reserve was owned by 
Robert Morris, excepting 100,000 acres belonging to John B. Church. This tract was bid in 
for Mr. Church by his son Philip at the foreclosure of a mortgage to secure $80,000 lent by 
Church's agent, Alexander Hamilton to Morris. The surface of the county is mostly a hilly 
upland, divided into valleys by the screams, much of it presenting a rugged mountainous sur- 
face. The highest summits are 2,000 to 2,500 feet above tide, or 500 to 800 feet above the 
valley, many of whose slopes are too steep for profitable cultivation. The hills end abruptly on 
the Genesee which flows through a deep valley. The drainage of the county is sufficient to 
indicate its elevated character. There are two main ridges, which extend parallel with the 
Genesee river, and form watersheds to streams flowing into that river and the Canisteo, a 
tributary of the Susquehanna, on the east; and the Allegany river on the west. The Genesee 
flows in a northerly direction through the center of the county. The rocks of the county 
belong mostly to the shales and sandstones, the former being found mostly in the northern 
part, and the later in the southern part, though sandstones have been quarried in Rushford 
for grindstones. Before the county was occupied by the whites it was embraced in the do- 
main of the Senecas, who lived in large numbers on the Genesee flats. They raised corn and 
potatoes, and sometimes camped and hunted on the uplands, where they were accustomed to 
make maple sugar in the sprirg. The Indians gave up their lands in Phelps and Gotham's 
Purchase, by a treaty at Buffalo Creek in 1788. The rest of the county, except the Caneadea 
Reservation, was given up in 1797, by a treaty at Big Tree or Geneseo. The Reservation was 
ceded to the whites m 1825, but the Indians remained upon it until 1830, their principal village 
being at Caneadea. The hrst court held the year after the county was formed, sat at Angelica 
June 2, 1807. By an act of the next legislature the county seat was permanently located at that 
place, a court house and jail being erected soon. The first county judge was Philip Church, 
owner of the large Church estate. In 1858 an act was passed, providing for the removal of 
the county seat to a point on the Erie railroad. Belmont was chosen and up to 1892 courts 
were held alternately at the two places. Although grains can be successfully grown, the county 
is best adapted to grazing. Dairying has become the most important business of the county. 
The lumbering business was once very important, many immense trees being found in the 
forests, but they have nearly disappeared. The principal improvements are the Erie railroad, 
which enters near the center of the eastern border, and extends through to the center of the 
western ; the Genesee Valley canal, which extended along the valley of the Genesee to Oramel 
at which place it turned and went southwest. Several well-known men have been born, or at 
some time have lived in our county, among whom are Senator Teller, United States senator 
from Colorado, who received his education at Rushford Academy. Dr. Wm. Smith, formerly 
from Granger, was health officer of port of New York for many years. He was removed by 
Gov. Flower. Senator Higgins, state senator for the 32d district, was born in Rushford, edu- 
cated at Pike Seminary. Judge Hatch, formerly from Oramel, now a judge of the superior 
court of Buffalo. Judge Hamilton Ward, judge of the supreme court, 8th district; his present 
home is Belmont. Robert J. Ingersoll born at Dresden, N. J., who lived at Hume when a boy, 
is now a prominent lawyer and lecturer in New York City. One university, several academies 
and many union schools have been established within its borders, gaining for Allegany a good 
educational standing among the counties of the state. We hope that during the coming cent- 
ury, our county may advance as much as in the past, and that 1995 will find her possessed 
of many noble sons and daughters. 



322 



History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



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Allegany and Its Peopl 



A Centennia! Memorial -History 



TOWMS OF THE MOHHIS -RESERVE 



WELLSYILLE, ANGELICA, AMITY, SCIO, ALLEN, 

GRANGER, WEST ALMOND, WARD, BIRDSALL, 

GROVE, WILLING, ALMA. 



"Wellsville. 325 



WELLSVILLE. 

CHAPTER XXXVI. 

KY LEWIS H. THORNTON. 

This history proposes to interpret, so far as possible, present Wellsville. The past is a true fountain of 
knowledge by whose light alone to-day and to-morrow can be understood. A discussion of some of the causes 
which have created the Wellsville of to-day, the presentation of a collection of statistics, and a simple narrative 
of local history is its purpose. Historical events, otherwise uninteresting, gain a charm from having occurred 
on familiar ground. The Genesee river is more than a stream of water notorious for its spring floods, when 
one knows how it has historically affected the territory through which it flows. The Main street of Wellsville 
is invested with a new interest when one learns that it follows very nearly the old Indian trail along which 
Red Jacket and Cornplanter journeyed. Local history is remarkably difficult to investigate and set forth. Mis- 
takes are inevitable. When it is appreciated, however, by what laborious research among records, diaries, old 
account-books and histories ; and by how many patient interviews, facts have been rescued from the failing 
memories of the oldest residents, shortcomings may be forgiven. There is an old story to the effect that when 
Sir Walter Raleigh was a prisoner he saw from his window a street tumult and gave different testimony re- 
garding it than two other witnesses who themselves disagreed as to the circumstances. When it is impossible 
for us to be of one mind relative to things that have occurred within our sight and hearing, how difficult to 
search out the truth about events in the long ago. So hard, in fact, as to be impossible were not some of 
them contemporaneously recorded. Had it not been for the remarkable assiduity of Dr. H. M. Sheerar as a 
local annalist and chronicler of events in the history of Wellsville, many of the facts and details herein con- 
tained would long ago have been taken to the grave in the memory of those gone before. The reminiscences 
and scrap-books which he kindly placed at the disposal of the writer have been a source of authentic informa- 
tion. To the personal recollections also of Mr. and Mrs. John Cline, Mr. and Mrs. John B. Clark, Mr. G. B. 
Gordon and the diary of Mr. Carlton Farnum is due the publication of much that throws a new light on the 
history of Wellsville. 

ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO Allegany county was an unexplored Avild- 
erness, inhabited only by wild beasts and savages. By the former 
alone in Southern Allegany, for the red man never really lived in Wellsville 
or the other south towns. He came only periodically to hunt or fish, and in 
the spring to make black maple-sugar. In the Pigeon Woods, eight miles 
up the river from Wellsville, there was an established camp of rude wig- 
wams for use in the pigeon season. Both north and south of us along the 
river signs of a (so-called) pre-historic race have been unearthed. Within 
the boundaries of Wellsville, however, no such remains have been discov- 
ered, and even of the Seneca-Iroquois possession of Wellsville we know 
little but the fact. 

Southern Allegany lies in the northern limits of the Alleghany range of 
the Appalachian Mountain system. The Alleghanies reach their highest 
altitude less than 50 miles south at the headwaters of the West Branch of 
the Susquehanna river. Our location prevents northeastern storms from 
reaching us. For rain we depend on the west, which gathers the residue of 
vapers brought up the Mississippi valley from the Gulf of Mexico, and 
precipitates it in a rainfall which averages, perhaps 22 inches annually. As 
a result of the wholesale destruction of the forests along the Genesee and its 
tributaries disastrous spring floods are of common occurrence. 

"Wellsville; 42 deg., 7 min. north latitude, 6 deg., 5 min. 25 sec. west 
longitude; " is situated on the Genesee river, 91 miles from its mouth, and 



326 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

11 miles from the point in Pennsylvania where the headwaters fork to pro- 
duce the stream.* The river valley here averages a half mile in width. 
Dike's Creek enters the river from the northeast througli a valley, which, for 
some distance, is as broad as that of the river. Cold Brook, Crowner Creek, 
Chenunda Creek and several other very small streams, and that nameless 
tempest of angry waters which, every flood time, tears down across Madi- 
son, Pearl and Briggs streets and the Erie railroad, thence south across 
Main street, and through the Bradley property to the river, join the Genesee 
within our township limits. This last is a tyi3ical mountain stream, dry in 
summer, but full and raging in the rainy season. In less than 2 miles it 
falls 300 feet. 

The country surrounding Wellsville rises abruptly on each side of the 
river valley, which averages 1,525 feet above sea level. Less than a mile 
northeast of West-Main street river bridge the hills rise 1,900 feet above the 
sea. Niles Hill, three miles distant in the southwest, attains an altitude of 
500 feet above the river. This is the highest land in the township. A point 
on the river bank at the Scio boundary, 1,460 feet above tidewater, is the 
lowest. The highest point in the corporate limits of the village lies 1,850 
feet above sea level. It is on the hill above Briggs street, 1-5 of a mile north- 
west of the junction of Pearl with Main street. The lowest land, 1,485 feet 
in altitude, is where the old B. E. & C. railroad bridge crosses the river. 
There are points in Lewis' Grove and Applebee's flat which have about the 
same altitude. The highest residences in the village are those of W. C. 
Ross and R. H. Lee, 1,700 and 1,850 feet respectively above tidewater. Main 
street averages 1,514 feet in height, being 1,496 at its lowest or northwestern 
end, 1,520 at Madison street, 1,500 at Dike's Creek, and 1,540 at the corpora- 
tion boundary above the Catholic Cemetery. Wellsville lies in the Chemung 
Shales with a bit of conglomerate, old red sandstone and the Catskill for- 
mation cropping out on some of its hilltops. There is also a quantity of 
northern drift. The Chemung does not give a generous soil, lacking lime 
and other valuable ingredients, and containing not a great quantity of pot- 
ash. Silicate of alumina is its principal constituent. Compact enough in 
its nature, however, to hold water and containing sufficient potash, it is well 
adapted for grass-raising and grazing purposes. Hemlock, maple, beech 
and the like, characteristic of potash lands, grow in abundance, while those 
trees that require a quantity of lime are conspicuous for their absence. 

* In 1872 Captain Eldridge, of Boston, made scientific observations here in Wellsville. He found that 
the Erie railway station is geographically situated: Latitude 42 degrees 7 niin. north from Washington, lon- 
gitude 6 degrees 5 min. 25 sec. west from Washington, height above the sea 1,480 feet; on the Genesee river, 
91 miles from its mouth, by the river road, air line distance south from Rochester 76 miles; on the Erie rail- 
way 358 54-100 miles from New York City, from Dunkirk 102 miles; air line distance from Pennsylvania state 
line 10 miles, 15 miles to headwaters of the Genesee river. Location of the Baptist church spire is: air line 
distance from spire to the City Hall, New York City, 228^;^ miles, bearing south of the spire 64 deg., 22 
min. E. To the State House, Philadelphia, Pa., 21114 miles, bearing south 44 deg., 15 min., east. To 
Capitol building, Washington, 2303-5 miles, bearing S. 12 deg., 42 min. E. Difference of time City Hall, 
New York, and spire of Baptist church 15 min., 52 seconds. Capitol at Washington and spire, 3 min., 52 sec- 
Old State House, Philadelphia, and spire, 11 min., i6 sec. 



Wellsville. 327 



There is noticeable, however, a somewhat remarkable contrast in the nat 
ural productions of the neighborhood. This is due to the presence in our 
supersoil of compact clayey loam, and subsoil of tenacious gravelly clay, of 
a large admixture of northern drift materials, among which may be recog- 
nized the pebbles of different limestones, of Medina sandstone, and granites. 
Much of this has been finely comminuted and thoroughly mixed with- the 
Chemung formation. The lime in our soil, which gives us hard water, comes 
entirely from this drift. Up the Dike's Creek valley, where there is very 
little if any drift, no hard water is to be found, nor are the natural 
productions such as demand the presence of lime. Along the river fiats we 
find an alluvial soil, the richest and most fertile in the township. Mr. E. B. 
Hall has a valuable and interesting collection of local geological specimens, 
his efforts in search of fossil sponges having been especially favored with 
great success. A new species bears his name, and he has in his possession 
the largest fossil sponge ever found. 

Advent of the White Man. — In 1793 Capt. Charles Williamson, acting for 
the Pulteney estate, settled at Bath. The lower Genesee was becoming 
celebrated as a land of promise. The upper "Genesee Country " was en- 
tirely unknown except as containing the Seneca-Indian village at Caneadea 
and the famous oil-spring near Cuba. The territory now the township of 
Wellsville was useful but to the Indians, and to them only as the haunt of 
deer and other game, and the location of a part of their trail along the river 
from Caneadea to the headwaters of the Susquehanna. It is doubtful if the 
foot of any white man ever voluntarily pressed the soil of our town previous 
to the coming of the pioneer Nathanael Dike; as a prisoner of the Indians, 
however, the celebrated Iroquois' interpreter, Capt. Horatio Jones, passed 
through Wellsville in 1781, and, though it may not be possible to verify the 
inference, there can be no question but that many captives from the awful 
massacres in Northwestern Pennsylvania were taken by the Seneca trail 
down the Genesee and to Niagara. The life of Moses Van Campen relates 
how he and others were taken prisoners by the Indians on the headwaters 
of the Susquehanna and conducted along the trial down the Genesee to 
Caneadea. 

Not till 1795, twelve years after the United States had achieved their 
independence from Great Britain, did the first white settler place his foot 
upon the territory of Wellsville. For many years after the treaty of peace 
had nominally put an end to the American Revolution, Indian border warfare 
continued. Urged on by their British allies the savages had tasted blood 
and it was impossible to restrain them. The dread of Indian butchery, 
added to other pioneer hardships and perils, delayed for years the settle- 
ment of Western New York. Thus it was not till 1795 that Nathanael Dike, the 
first white settler, came to Allegany. He erected a cabin, a saw and grist mill 
and a tannery at Wellsville. French says that the mills, which were erected 
in 1802, were the first in the county. The tannery undoubtedly was the first 
one in Allegany. Thus the "Tanbark City " at the very earliest day was 



328 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

the most important manufacturing- town in the county, though it did not 
long remain so, as after the tirst few years of the century, and until nearly 
1850, there were several larger and livelier towns. But, as she once was 
the cradle which fostered the first manufacturing, she, at length, again be- 
came the nucleus of Allegany's wealth and commerce, and to-day is the 
county metropolis in population as well as in manufacturing. 

What led Nathanael Dike, once a student at Yale College, and afterward 
an aide on the staffs of Generals Warren and Washington, to settle in the 
heart of a wilderness can only be conjectured. Originally from Connecticut, 
he had been in the Mohawk Valley and at Tioga Point, Pa. , before striking off 
into the unknown country of the Upper Genesee. Crossing- the lands of the 
Pulteney estate on the Canisteo River Dike must have passed through Al- 
mond by way of McHenry Valley, across the hills to Elm Creek, and thence 
down the valley to the broad level where it unites with Dike's Creek. Here 
Allegany's first white settler prepared to build his rude hut. The valley at 
the point chosen was particularly attractive. It was timbered with hard- 
wood, which was so much easier cleared than the dense pine forests that 
covered most of Southern Allegany. The land was promising for farm pur- 
poses, for the soil consisted of rich alluvial dejDOsits, and the full and rapid 
stream afforded a good waterpower. And so it happened that the first bit 
of Allegany's virgin forest was cleared at Elm Valley, five miles from the 
site of the county's metropolis, and four from the thriving village of Andover. 
All but one of these inviting features of landscape, soil and waterpower, 
which led Dike to settle where he did, existed in greater degree where Wells- 
ville now stands. The land at Elm Valley, however, was covered with hard- 
wood, at Wellsville the growth was mostly pine and hemlock. How condi- 
tions change. Half a century after Dike's coming the great forests of pine 
were a gold mine of value. 

The first settler, however, who had no opportunity to market either logs 
or lumber, must select a hardwood district. He had to clear the land im- 
mediately, for it was necessary to subsist on the soil. A hardwood stump 
is as easily pulled as a first tooth. It is a perfect nightmare to attempt the 
extraction of a great pine root with the rude appliances of the early settler . 
It is necessary for the pioneer to turn some products into cash. One can im- 
agine how Dike, during the first year in Allegany, "cleared up " the beech, 
elm and hickory, and rolled the trees (branches, logs and all) into one great 
pile which he burned; more hardwood was piled in the same place and the 
ashes were carefully gathered and converted into lye. " Black-salts " were 
made by "boiling down" the lye. These found a ready sale, for, after a 
through baking, the x^earlash, from which was manufactured soda or sale- 
ratus, was produced. Thus the clearing of hardwood land wellnigh paid for 
itself. Dike's cabin became the nucleus of a small settlement situated at 
Elm Valley which had no influence whatever on the location and growth of 
the present village of Wellsville. It is interesting because it affords a brief 
chapter of first things in the township. French's Gazetteer of 1860 is 



Wellsvillf. 329 



authority for the statements that the first white person born in Wells ville 
was Rachel Dike in 1805, that the first death was that of Thomas Brink in 
1807, and that the first school was kept by Ithamar Brookings in 1814. It 
was -0 years after these events, however, before the river valley within the 
village of Wells ville received a settler. There were several families living 
in Scio, who, along about 1810, came through Wellsville to Elm Valley for 
supplies. There was then not a settler in what is now our village. In 1816 
William and Asa Foster settled about a mile and a halt up the river towards 
Stannard's Corners. 

The Village Pioneer. — It would seem from tradition and the meager record 
of the early days of the century that the corporation wherein now 4,000 
people reside was one of the last locations in the town to be selected by the 
pioneers. At Riverside, Stanards, Brimmer Brook, Elm Valley and other 
points, lonely settlers had built cabins, but in that part of the Genesee Val- 
ley which was destined to become the most thickly settled spot in all Alle 
gany there is not even vague tradition of any settler previous to the coming 
of the squatter Job Straite in 1822. " Uncle Billy " Weed, a most original 
character, " squatted " on the hill west of Samuel Hanks' residence in 1824. 
" Billy " always maintained that Job Straite, Sr. , was the first settler, and 
that his log cabin was the first white man's habitation in corporate Wells- 
ville. The house was situated within the present Parnum Cemetery, east of 
the Pair Association grand stand. Mrs. Job Straite, Jr., who for years 
lived in the old log house, was interviewed a few years before her death. 
She stated that her father-in-law, her husband and herself came to Wellsville 
in 1822. There is no tradition of any previous settlement and we must con- 
clude that Job Straite, Sr., the "Lost man " of our early history, was the 
village pioneer. These very early settlers were " squatters " not particu- 
larl}^ celebrated for virtue, sobriety, or religious zeal. However, the Dikes 
at Shoemaker's Corners (Elm Valley), the Knights and Palmers at Scio, and 
other men of energy and good judgment, purchased their lands and never 
claimed title by virtue of possession. 

Rogers' Survey of 1826, etc. — A map of Wellsville (then a part of Scio) and 
the original notes of Jesse Rogers' survey of 1826, in the possession of Mr. 
R. H. Lee, furnish the earliest absolutely authentic information relative to 
the early settlement of corporate Wellsville. The map and notes were 
sworn to and subscribed before Alvan Burr, commissioner in Allegany 
county, Nov. 22, 1826. The notes state that the object of the survey was the 
subdivision into small lots of the Willing-Prancis tract of the Morris Reserve 
by John M. Wilson and Jesse Rogers. It is very unfortunate, from an his- 
torical stand])oint, that the names of settlers who came later than 1826 have 
evidently been placed upon the map. The original notes, however, are pre- 
served. Lot 4, of 181 acres, marked "occupied by Job Straite." is de- 
scribed as ''beech, maple, and pine, first quality upland and pine flats." 
Lot 5, of 110 acres, consisting of beech, maple, butternut and pine upland 
and flat, was occupied by Job Straite, Jr. Other occupants of land up the 



330 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

river v/ere Samuel Warner, Amos Lane, Enda and Johnson. The notes 
mention no settlers in the village other than the Straite family. The map 
has the names of many of the township's pioneers. Some of them were in 
Wellsville in 1826. Others must have come later, but it is likely that all 
settled here previous to 1832, for several who came in that year are not 
mentioned. Starting from the south line of the town we find by the map 
that J. Mallory occupied the Cobb farm on the east side of the Genesee; that 
Wm. and Asa Foster owned what is now the valuable Ackerman farm; that 
Valentine Bowen lived across, on the west side of the river. A. A. Adams, 
H. and R. Hall and H. Rogers had settled on the east side of the Genesee and 
S. Hills near Duke's Mill on the west. A. Dunham. R. Wells, Gardiner 
"Wells, "W. D. Spicer, G.B.Jones, the Rowleys and M. Johnson w^ere recorded 
as occupants of the soil. The highway on the east side of the river was 
marked "Pennsylvania Road." This main line of travel along the Genesee 
was located farther away from the river than the business portion of our 
present Main St. Both the east and west ends of Main St., however, follow 
closely the old Indian trail that in 1826 had become the Pennsylvania Road. 
From the making of the Rogers' survey until 1829 there is no evidence of 
the advent of settlers. The first few years of the century had been pros- 
perous ones, but the war of 1812, the cold and backward season of 1816 with 
the financial panic of 1818 and 1819, the failure of corps and the European 
wars retarded immigration and rendered the condition of the settlers one of 
extreme hardship. From 1825 to 1830 the Erie canal, so diffusive in its ben- 
efits and so stimulating to life and activity in Northwestern New York, 
served only to prevent the coming of new settlers and to crush the hopes 
and depress the energies of the pioneers in Southern Allegany. Gradually 
and remotely, however, even before the construction of the Genesee Valley 
Canal to Dansville in 1840, the benefits of this mighty enterprise began to 
reach Allegany. "No new country " says Turner, "has probably ever been 
opened for settlement, that had as rugged features, as much of difficulty to 
overcome, as the territory which comprises Allegany county. * If the entire 
county can be so characterised, how about Wellsville and the other south 
towns? Situated in the precipitous ridges of the northern spurs of the Alle- 
ghanies and heavily timbered with pine, the lands had little attraction. New 
settlements were extremely isolated, and, when the settlers began to have 
anything to dispose of, there was no market. The pioneers who came pre- 
vious to 1830 subsisted largely on fish and game. Asa Foster used to say that 
he paid for his farm by hunting, trapping and fishing. As late as 1835 he killed 
a female panther near Duke's Mill, captured her two cubs and sold them in 

* The " rugged features " of our township territory and soil do not conspire to give us the very best of 
farms. However, they are by no means poor and all in a state of improving cultivation. Quantities of hay, 
oats and potatoes are produced and exported. Cattle and sheep are raised to a considerable extent and butter, 
cheese and wool are yearly shipped away. Buckwheat, corn, millet and wheat, as well as garden truck in 
great variety, is raised for home consumption. The improved farms along the river and the Dikes' Creek 
Valley, valued at $ioo per acre are rich and productive. The average value of improved farm lands per acre 
is perhaps $40. 



1 



Wellsville. 331 



Rochester for $300. In 1842, only 53 years ago, a partridge, than which there is 
no wilder game, was shot opposite the VanBuren tavern on Main street. In 
1827 Billy Weed killed 24 deer, a bear and a wolf with his old llint-lockgun and 
one pound of powder. He bought the rilie in the spring of that year of 
Miami York and gave 200 pounds of maple sugar for it. In the early days, 
next to black salts and pot and pearl ashes, maple sugar could be used best 
in trade. In 1840. John Cline. then of Hallsport, traded a Cortland manufac- 
turer 500 pounds of maple sugar for a two-horse wagon to be delivered 
in Dansville in 1841. 

Butter, cheese and lumber were the products which the early settler 
next sought to market. Ruinous cost of transportation over long woods- 
roads, and up and down steep hills, rendered it impossible to realize a 
profit. At one time Baltimore, now so far away, seemed destined always to 
remain the great market for this section. Reached easily by water commu- 
nication from ArlqDort down the Canisteo, Chemung and Susquehanna rivers, 
it received the grain, the lumber and other products of a great country 
which now never communicates directly with that city. The Allegany 
waters, reached from Cuba and Glean, furnished a means of communication 
with Pittsburgh. A map of the '"Church Tract" made in 1804 says that 
"Produce can be transported from within 16 miles of the Tract, down the 
Susquehanna in Arks to Baltimore at two shillings per bushel. " It was not 
till 1840, when Dansville became the lumber market for this region and 
there was a prospect of the construction of the Erie railroad, that immi- 
grants were especially attracted to Wellsville. Settlement on the Morris 
Reserve, except on the Church Tract, was never pushed as the Holland 
Company and Pulteney estate "hustled" matters west and east of middle 
Allegany. No land owners ever systematically "boomed" Wellsville. Its 
natural situation as the outlet for the rich lumber and farming country to 
the south and the topography of its surroundings rendered its growth 
steady and sure despite the slow progress of its settlement. In 1830 a dozen 
Allegany towns surpassed Wellsville in population. Since the completion 
of the Erie railroad however it has always remained the shipping point for 
great quantities of produce, and therein lies the secret of its business life. 
As late as 1830 Wellsville village was so isolated that primitive corn-mills 
were still in use. A great contrast to its present easy means of communi- 
cation! Job Straite had a corn-cracker at his cabin, made by cutting down 
a large maple and using the stump for a bowl. Corn was ground in this 
novel mill by raising and dropping in the bowl the heavy pestle which had 
been constructed from a section of the tree. 

The life of the pioneer was invariably one of privation. In 1829 Bar- 
.tholomew Coats, the father of our townsman Ambrose G. Coats, came from 
. Independence to Wellsville and located at Riverside on the Church Tract. 
He reached here guided only by a blazed track through the forest. An ox 
team hitched to a wood sled (constructed like a stone-boat) brought along a 
few necessities. His experience was similar to that of the other hardy 



332 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

pioneers. Those who came from '29 to '40, perhaps one might say to '50, 
laid tlie foundation on which present Wellsville so tirmly stands. 

They had not come for rest or leisure ; 

They had not come for ease and pleasure, 

They came to strug:gle and to toil, 

To battle with the giant trees that occupied the soil. 

They came to build a town. Gardiner and Robert Wells, Reuben Kent, 
Daniel Tuttle, Harmon VanBuren, Silas Hills, Nelson and Cornelius Seeley, 
Dr. George B. Jones. James Posbury, Chas. Rowley, Justus Brimmer, and 
Joseph Crowner settled here between 1827 and 1832. The year Gardiner 
Wells came is not known. It was sometime previous to 1830, and certainly 
not before 1826. It was for him that the village was named. In June, 1829, 
John Cline walked with his father from Bath by way of Towlesville, Hor- 
nellsville, Almond and Andover to HaUsport, in Independence. He still 
retains (1895) a remarkable recollection of the journey. A promising section 
of land was selected, and in the fall, with oxen and cart, tools were brought 
from Bath, a small place cleared and a cabin built. Mother and sister came 
in the next March. "There was not much at Wellsville then," said Mr. 
Cline. " In fact it really had no existence as a village. The Straite's clear- 
ing on the flat was the largest anywhere about. A spot opposite the Roman 
Catholic Cemetery looked to have been cleared for years. There were ruins 
of a mill on the Adams x^roperty (now Rixford place) that had long ago been 
' run out.' There may have been two, perhaps three houses on Main street, 
but mj^ recollection is dim. One was Gardiner Wells' I am sure. 
W. D. Spicer was Wellsville's first fiddler, wire walker and play actor." 

Prices in \32, the First Store, etc. — 1832 was the year of village beginnings. 
The first tavern, the first school house, the first saw and grist mill and the 
first store were opened in that year. In the early spring Silas Hills came 
from Swanzey, N. H., where he had been a storekeeper and carpenter. He 
drove across country and brought, in a two-horse wagon, a small stock of 
merchandise and groceries. The goods were exposed for sale in the Van 
Buren tavern. The old account book, well preserved and in a legible and 
careful handwriting, is the property of Chauncey Hills, youngest son of the 
pioneer. It is the oklest written record of the village and verifies many dis- 
puted dates and facts. The first item, dated May 12, 1832, is: ''Thomas 
Straight Dr. to i lb. Tobacco .13; 1 qr. Tea, Y. H. .31. Cr. by Potatoes, U 
bu., .38." May 14th Anthony Seeley is credited 20 cents for 2 i:)ounds of 
butter. May 16th Stephen Palmer is credited "by mill irons $5.00. "" No 
other mention of either grist or sawmill is made until November, 1832. when 
Silas Hills is credited, " to cash joaid for whiskey to raise grist mill §0.75." 
Nothing is said of the construction of the sawmill, but Feb. 8, 1833, appears 
"John Foster Dr. to 211 ft. boards," and Feb. 10, " Shubel Spicer Dr. to 
sawing 7,931 ft. boards at 150 cents a thousand." The first mention of the 
w^ork of the grist mill is a charge, Feb. 18, 1832, " Gardiner Wells Dr. to 68^ 



Wellsville. 333 



lbs. Flower $2.06." The same day Harmon VanBuren bought 33^ pounds 
flour for $1.00 and Stephen Palmer is charged with "Corn Tool." Judging 
from the accounts the mill did considerable toll grinding. The sawmill 
charges were $1.50 a thousand feet for sawing pine and $2.00 for cherry. 
These are the onlj'^ lumbers mentioned in the account book. Clear stuif soft 
pine was sold for $3.00 a thousand at the mill. Lumber as good is now worth 
$50. Common labor brought 50 cents a day and skilled carpenter work $1. 
Calico was worth from 20 to 30 cents a yard. Tea sold for more than a dollar 
a pound, sheeting 1-4 cents a yard, and other articles at proportionate prices. 
Butter was cheap, so Avas whiskey. Judged from a modern economical 
standpoint, however, the times were "'mighty hard." One of the few 
wagons in the community was that of Silas Hills, who had brought it from 
New Hampshire. It was rented for 25 cents a day. Meals were charged at 
19 cents each. In 1839 Bartholomew Coats boarded railroad graders at 14 
shillings a week and paid $16 a barrel for flour. There is an item against 
Alfred Johnson for 2 glasses of whiskey at 3 cents a glass. A cotton hand- 
kerchief was purchased, June 28, 1832, by Peter Wells for 25 cents. Such a 
rag can he purchased now '• six for a quarter." Such were the "good old 
days." Good for hardship, incessant labor and disappointment. It is 
always so with early settlers. They build for the next generation. Do we 
citizens of to-day sufflciently appreciate their work and honor their memo- 
ries"? Read between the lines of the following items. They tell much of the 
social and business customs of early Wellsville. 

" Seeley Paid for work on mill In cash 25 cents. In whiskey 56 cents. Sept., 1832, Josiah Hackett Cr. 
by I deer skin 22 cents. Oct. 10, Newman Morse Dr. to 3 oz. Indigo $.56. Oct. 13, Huldah Hall Dr. to 4 
yds. calico $1.13. Oct. 13, Chester Bristoll Dr. to i par Nitten Needles 6cents. Nov. i, Stephen Palmer Dr. 
to I qt. molases drank raising .75. Nov. 9, Josiah Hackett Cr. i deer skin .38. Nov. 9, Stephen Palmer Dr. 
to I paper of pins . 13. Nov. 15, Hiram Rogers Dr. to 2% yds. sattennett $2.75, i Bac comb .38, i par side 
combs .10. Nov. 19, John McFarlen Dr. to i Hat $4.00, Cr. by i par shoes $1.75. Nov. 19, Joseph Crowner 
Dr. to I Tea Pot Block Tin $1.50. Nov. 21, William Foster Dr. to i spelling book .19. Nov. 21, George W. 
Littlefield Cr. to 3 fowls .38. Jan. 3, 1833, Joseph Crowner Dr. to i Spool Thread .13. Sept. 18, 1833, Ansel 
Forbes Dr. to i bu. of wheat $i.oo, 7 lbs. mutton .28. Nov., 1833, Asa Foster Cr. by Venison 38 lbs. at 3 
cents a pound $1.14. March 7, 1835, Dr. Geo. B. Jones Dr. to making cupboard for post office $2.00. 

After September, 1835, no charges for groceries or dry goods appear. 
Sept. 17, 1835, Danl Tuttle is charged with "lumber for Perry's store. 270 
feet, $1.20." Probably when Norman Perry opened a store, erected for him 
on Main St. near the site of the Simmons Opera House, Hills gave up 
his store. We And that he conducted the mills until Ephraim Smith's 
arrival in 1837. Then he did the work of a carpenter, his natural occupation. 
The first frame house in the village was built by Gardiner Wells in the fall 
of 1833. Sept. 15th, Hills charged Wells with carpenter work on the new 
house. Oct. 28, 1833, VanBuren is charged $6 for making doors and casings. 
In 1835 several items appear against Stephen Taylor for carpenter work. 
Oct. 6, 1835, Silas Hills moved into the Taylor house, (still standing, the 
oldest structure in Wellsville). Dec. 1, 1835, a day's carpenter work on the 
" school house " is charged, a few days later this item is entered, " Dr. Geo. 
B. Jones Dv. to 1 day's work on old school house $1.00." Tradition has it 



33-1 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



that the second school house (frame), on the corner of Mill and Broad streets. 
was not erected till 1837. It would seem however that a new house must 
have been commenced in 1835. Two acres of the most valuable land in the 
village, and a i interest in the Kent and Wells mills, were sold in 1833 for 
$282. The deed is now in the possession of Rev. Henry L. Jones. It con- 
veys from R. C. Kent to Dan'l Tuttle all that rectangle of land fronting along 
Main street from Mill to the Baldwin block and extending to the river. The 
mill privilege was then doubtless more valuable than the real-estate. The 
VanBuren lot, corner of Mill and Main, was sold by Gardiner Wells to Har- 
mon VanBuren in 1830 for $V2. An acre of land, the site of the Howell 
House, was offered to Samuel Hills by Wells, if Hills would clear and fence 
it. The offer was not accepted. 

Relative to the naming of Wells ville tradition is disappointing. It was 
only after much enquiry and careful research that the least bit of definite 
information has been discovered. Mrs. Harriet Hills, widow of Samuel 
Hills, who came here in April, 1832, gave the writer these facts: After build- 
ing the mills at the foot of present Mill street. Wells, Kent, Hills, VanBuren 
and others agreed that the settlement should be named. So in the fall of 
1832, on a rainy, dismal night, Silas Hills, Samuel Hills. Robert Wells, Reuben 
Kent, Daniel Tuttle, Asa Foster. Harmon VanBuren, Anthony Seeley, and 
perhaps others, met informally at the log schoolhouse. Gardiner Wells, the 
largest landowner, was not present. Quite naturally it was decided to call 
the place "Wells" or "Wellsville" after him. How interesting to know 
now the pros and cons of that night's discussion in which some doubtless 
maintained that the backward village needed no name for it would never 
amount to anything. Croakers are always present. One man. it may have 
been Kent, or Hills, affirmed that the location was a fine one and the settle- 
ment would thrive despite every disadvantage. In 1835, when the postoffice 
was established, the name became formally and officially Wellsville. Not- 
withstanding the strenous efforts made in the early seventies to change* the 
name to "Genesee," the town, village, railroad station and postoffice came 
to be each and all Wellsville. Our community could bear no better name. 
Gardiner Wells was one of the first settlers, the very earliest of those 
representative pioneers who really founded Wellsville. He owmed all of lot 
3, on which the business portion of our village is situated, and in every way 
was interested in all the business beginnings. His log house, built previous 
to 1830, was the first structure on Main street. It stood on the south side 
of the road, about 20 rods east of State street. James Fosbury's, on the 
opposite side, was also built at an early date. The title to the greater portion 
of lot 3, later the most valuable real estate in the county, passed from Gardi- 
ner Wells to E. A. and Ithamer Smith. Wells sold the land "for a song," 
moved away, and died, it is said, a poor man. 

The First Tavern and First ScJioolh(mse.— In 1830, Harmon VanBuren, a 
relative of President VanBuren, came "in great style." " Uncle Bart " 
Coats used to say: "Come with a coach, leave with a wheelbarrow." The 



Wellsville. 335 



VanBurens however came to stay and to prosper. The fact that their advent 
was by horse and wagon, and not on foot or by oxteam, was then a proof of 
luxury. 

Harmon VanBuren kejit our first tavern in a log- cabin on the site of the 
kitchen of the present Fassett House. Situated on the Pennsylvania road, 
so many travelers asked for lodging-, that, in 1832, the house w^as opened to 
the public. It was constructed from trees, trimmed and cut into lengths. 
These were rolled u^d and notched together at the corners. Openings were 
left for front and rear doors and windows. Poles were laid across the top of 
the walls to support the chamber lloor, a ridgepole and rafters were put up, 
and the roof w^as made of broad bark strips, lield in place by poles fastened 
at the ends with slender strips of green bark. An opening left in the cham- 
ber floor for a rude ladder afforded communication with the loft. A door 
was constructed, and. for a time, old newspapers, saturated with grease, 
served for window glass. The openings between the logs were •' chinked " 
with wood, held in place by a thick mortar of mud. The house furnishings 
were economical and simple. For chairs blocks were sawed from a log. 
For bedsteads poles were fastened in the logs at one end of the loft, about 18 
inches from the floor. The other ends were supported by blocks. The fire- 
place w^as a huge affair built of stone. The chimney was very large, con- 
structed below of stone and above of sticks plastered with mud. When this 
small house, about 25 by 20 feet in size, w^as crowded with guests, the ladies 
of the family slept on the ground floor in front of the fire. They could see 
through the chimney the tops of the tall pines outlined against the sky and 
moving to and fro in the breeze. A " leanto " was attached to the house and 
used as a barroom, courthouse, town-hall and general loafing-place. Attor- 
neys pleaded causes there before a promiscuous audience seated on blocks, 
stools and whiskey barrels. The annual town meeting of old Scio was first 
held at Wellsville in 1832 at the VanBuren tavern. Settlers from near and 
far, up and down the river, were present. 

During the day a " raising bee " erected a log schoolhouse on the north- 
w^est corner of State and Main streets, the present site of the McEwen 
manufactory. This house was used only five years and its very existence is 
dim in the memory of the old residents. A striking feature of its architect- 
ure was the immense fireplace. There was a stone wall at the back, in which 
was inserted one end of a large curved stick, at each side of the fireplace, 
five or six feet from the floor. The other ends of the sticks rested against 
a beam that supported the chamber floor, where another timber was placed 
crosswise for the front of the chimney, which was built on the w^ all and these 
three timbers. The hearth w^as of clay. In this primitive schoolhouse, with 
its rough furnishings of hewn timber. Miss Hulda Hall was the first teacher. 
Miss Hall it is said "showed neither fear or favor" in teaching and in 
enforcing good manners and instructing her pupils in the "three R's." 
The schoolhouse was the first public place of worship. Previous to its erec- 
tion, religious exercises were held in the houses of the settlers. The Meth- 



336 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

odist society was organized in 1830 with 13 constituent members. Rev. 
Azel N. Fillmore, the first pastor, preached in the old log schoolhouse. In 
1834 the Baptist church was organized. Regular meetings were held in the 
old schoolhouse. Rev. H. H. Whipple was the first pastor. In 1837 a frame 
schoolhouse was built where Broad street now joins Mill street. It was 
destroyed by fire in 1842. In 1844 a schoolhouse was built on the site of the 
present commodious brick structure on Main street. E. A. Smith deeded 
the lot to the school trustees with the provision that it should always be 
used for school purposes. These houses were used for religious services 
until churches were built. 

Hunt for a Lost Man. — The most thrilling episode in the early history of Wellsville was the organized 
hunt for Job Straite, Sr., in 1833. The pioneers were a close body of brothers, deeply interested in each 
other's welfare. Settlements were few and isolated, and men were friends, not merely acquaintances. It was 
not remarkable that when the old man Straite. 90 years of age, wandered into the forest that the settlers, for a 
radius of nine miles or more, united in a search for the lost man. One Sunday in April, 1833, '^h'^ o'd gentle- 
man started to visit his grandson. The path was a narrow one through the forest. Nothing was thought of 
the old man's absence till Monday afternoon when the son discovered that he had never reached his destina- 
tion. An alarm was immediately sounded through the neighborhood and a searching party organized, but no 
trace of the wanderer could be found. The search on Tuesday was also unsuccessful. Excitement became 
intense. On Wednesday men gave up their usual work and made a business of the search. The man had 
been out three cold nights. Whispers of foul play circulated, out-of-the-way places were searched for his 
remains, for it was believed that he must certainly have been murdered. None could suggest an incentive for 
the dark deed however, and many did not believe its commission possible. Thursday, Friday and Saturday 
they searched continuously. On Saturday, the eighth day, hope of his discovery while alive was given up. 
Excitement grew apace. Men from Scio, Andover, Willing and Independence joined the hunt. Parties were 
organized and 200 or more men systematically scoured the country. A line was formed reaching from Wells- 
ville to Andover on the south side of Dike's Creek. About 8 o'clock Sunday morning companies began to 
move slowly and cautiously forward scanning every foot of ground. Men were in speaking distance of each 
other and armed with guns and horns. The country was a perfect wilderness in which it was very easy to lose 
one's way. Toward the close of the afternoon three sharp shots and a blast of horns svoke the echoes of the 
hills south of Dike's Creek, about half way between Andover and Wellsville. The man was found and found 
alive. At least he breathed, but his mind was gone, and he sat unconsciously digging with his hand a hole in 
the ground. His mouth was filled with earth and roots which he had attempted to eat. His condition was 
indeed pitiable, but not so for long. Kind friends took turns carrying him to the road. At John Harvey's, 
the nearest house (where Emory Cook now lives), a blanket was procured and rigged to poles. On this the 
old man was carried to Shoemaker's Corners (now Elm Valley). Here Dr. Rice resuscitated Mr. Straite who 
eventually recovered and lived for several years. Manson Rice of Andover discovered the lost man. Erastus 
Baker first answered the glad blast which Rice blew on discovering the wanderer. One shot followed another 
down the long line, the sound of conchshells and horns and hilarious shouts mingled in the valley until the joy- 
ful news was carried miles away and all the searchers were informed: " The lost is found 1 " " The lost is found! ' 

The Village in 1837, and the Brewster Survey. — Mrs. Joanna Coats, widow 
of Welcome H. Coats, remembers the village of 1836 and 1837. In Novem- 
ber, 1836, she came with her husband from Alfred. It was the proposed 
construction of the Erie railroad that brought them. In '37 they built a 
frame house on the site of the present Coats homestead next to the city 
building. Mr. Coats was a cabinet maker and in 1838 established a small 
shop in his house. The turning-lathes were run by horse power. In 1852 
the first steam engine used in the village was put in the shop, which had 
been moved from the dwelling, and occupied the site of the present brick 
store. W. H. Coats was the villages pioneer manufacturer. The present 
Coats Furniture Company, of which he was the founder, is our oldest man- 



Wellsville. 



ufacturing concern. Other than the early settlers already mentioned Mrs 
Coates remembers that Stephen Taylor, E. A. Smith, Jno. F. Goddard, Sam- 
uel Shingler and A. E. Bronson were here in '37. " Eph." Smith soon after 
his arrival in '37 purchased the Mill street grist and saw mills and conducted 
them for a few years. He afterwards owned the greater portion of lot 3 as 
well as considerable property along Main street farther down the river. He 
built the homestead now remodeled and occupied by E. C. Bradley. The 
river road then ran directly by the house. The highway then was not as 
straight as Main street; for instance, the road took a sharp turn to the north 
near Furnace street and ran through about where the lane is in the rear of 
the business blocks. After passing around the deep gully which lay be- 
tween Furnace and Pearl, the street swung back toward the river again. 
The ravine was not " filled in " for years after the street was straightened. 
Ambrose Coats, who was born at Riverside in 1837, says, that as a boy he 
remembers a valley between two hills on Main street. The sides seemed 
steep and precipitous. To-day on either side of the street the gully remains 
unfilled. Where O'Connor Bros, store was erected it was not necessary to 
excavate for the cellar. Not till L. D. Davis became the first street com- 
missioner of the village was the road made really level. Mr. Davis' efforts 
at that time (1867) were saluted with these verses from the pen of the versa- 
tile Dr. H. M. Sheerar; 

Davis! spare our street, That old familiar street, 

Touch not a single stone Whose mud and pumplog down 

Where oft our children's feet Btlow the surface neat, 

Have trampled in mud alone. Take water through the town. 

'Tvvas our forefather's hand Davis ! forbear thy stroke, 

That laid it near our lot. Spoil not the rugged grade. 

There, Davis, let it stand, I tell you 'tis no joke. 

Thy spade must harm it not. Your army with a spade. 

In '37 and for many years afterwards the village extended dowm the 
river only to Furnace street. When in 1842 a school house was built upon 
the Academy site its location was said to be "out in the country in the 
woods," though the site was in the village as surveyed by Sheldon Brewster 
in '37. The Baptist church site was not then in the village. The Brewster sur- 
vey plotted the settlement into village lots and located 15 streets. The village 
comprised about 75 acres and lay entirely within great lot 3 of the Willing 
and Francis Tract, Morris Reserve. The south line began at the junction 
of Dikes' Creek with the river at State street bridge and crossed Main 
street and took in the Hanrahan blacksmith shop. The west boundary was 
the river. The east line was nearly parallel to Main street and about 56 
rods distance therefrom. The present central business section lies within 
these boundaries. Main street extends from the south to the north line of 
lot 3. Broad, Harrison, and Washington streets were parallel to Main. 
Clinton and Lafayette w^ere south of present State street and 10 degrees off 
from a right angle to Main. Franklin, Mineral, Jefferson, Genesee, Nelson 
and Pine were on the east side of Main. State and Mill crossed Main, 



388 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Clementina Square of li acres was bounded north by Washington, east by- 
Jefferson, south by Harrison and west by Genesee. Capt. Geo. H. Blackman's 
residence is on this square. 

Old Residents and an early Wedding. — In the spring of 1839 Mr. John B. 
Clark stopped at the VanBuren tavern. He says: "There were few build- 
ings on Main street then. Gardiner Wells, James Posbury, H. VanBuren, 
A. M. Taylor and Nelson and Cornelius Seely I remember well. The night 
I reached Wells ville 16 couples attended a dance at the VanBurens'. The 
pretty girls at that dance had much to do with my settling here," said the 
old man with a twinkle in his eye. " In '40 I purchased some timber land of 
Judge Bartlett and also the John F. Godard farm." In 1848 Mr. Clark mar- 
ried Miss Anna L. Knight who, of all our residents, has had the longest con- 
tinuous residence here. She was born in 1832 in a log cabin which stood on 
Genesee street near the Clinton House. Their wedding on Nov. 22, 1848 > 
was a great event. The ceremony took place in the Thompson ' ' Castle ' ' at 
Riverside, the finest mansion within a radius of many miles,* where Mr. 
Clark's mother was living. The mansion this night presented a gay appear- 
ance. It was illuminated not only with hundreds of wax candles, but with 
lamps, in which whale oil at $1.00 a gallon was burned. One hundred guests 
were present. They came from the whole surrounding country. One room 
of the castle was set apart for the liquid refreshments which were furnished 
the guests. Costly wines and old liquors, such as a new country seldom 
tasted, were free as water, yet it is said there was no intoxication. Elder 
Hammond of the Congregational church performed the ceremony. The 
"castle" was certainly not haunted with ghosts that night. The last bit of 
this interesting structure formed a part of the Riverside Sanatorium which 
burned a few years ago. The DePeyster house, built by a friend of Captain 
Thompson's below the ''castle " is still standing, and owned by Dr. E. V. 
Sheerar. 

The Erie Railroad. — In 1839 the New York and Erie Railroad Co. began 
to build the road through this section. The original plan of construction 
was to raise the rails some distance above the ground. A few of the timbers 
used for this purpose are now in use as sills under the Z. H. Jones residence, 
built in 1840. Horace Riddle had the construction contract for this section. 
He boarded his men in a rough shanty on the corner of Genesee and Loder 
streets. From 1840 the growth of the town was remarkable. The railroad 
was coming and the canal had come to Dansville. Pine lands now had a 
value. Settlers came in rapidly. A new era dawned. Sawmills sprang 
into existence and a spirit of activity and prosperity resulted. Wellsville 

* This was owned by Captain Thompson, a wealthy old seaman and an aristocrat. Just before its com- 
pletion the Captain, who was superintending the c<(nstruction, received word of the death of his wife in New 
York City. Painters were at work on the house and he ordered them to paint the sash and other woodwork 
black, and stopped all other work. This uncanny proceeding and the large unfinished rooms that echoed and 
re-echoed steps and voices gave rise to a story that the house was haunted. Captain Thompson went to New 
York and never returned to live in Wellsville. Edwin, his son, however, resided here many years and was 
long town clerk of old Scio. 



Wellsville. 339 



began to feel sure of its future. It remained however a typical lumber-town 
for many years. In the summer its streets were piled full of lumber and 
in the sleighing season it was not at all unusual for 100 teams to start in a 
day for Dansville. The decades preceding and following the completion of 
the Erie, in "52. saw this town outstrip its neighbors in population; there 
were a great many new comers. 

CirU History of Township. — The imj^ortance and rapid growth of Wells- 
ville, the extent of territory of the township of Scio, and the great incon- 
venience caused our residents thereby led to the formation of Wellsville 
township, Nov. 22, 1855. It was set off partially from Willing and Andover, 
but mostly from old Scio, and is bounded north by Scio and Andover, east 
by Andover and Independence, south by Willing and Alma and west by 
Scio, with an area of 22,647 acres.* At the first town meeting, held at the 
house of Harmon VanBuren, March 4, 1856, were elected: Supervisor, J. 
Milton Mott; town clerk, Jonathan Wyatt; justices of the peace, Zenas H. 
Jones, Samuel Sturgess, Levi S. Thomas and Alanson Holt; assessors, E. 
W. Wells and W. H. H. Wyllys; collector, Hiram Parish; constables. Hiram 
Parish, David G. Sterling, Geo. A. Farnum, Clark C. Abbott and E. E. Enos 
overseers of the poor. Harmon VanBuren and Elijah Stow ell; commissioners 
of highways, C. L. Farnum, S. O. Thomas and David Jones. In 1855, before 

* The story of how and why we of present Wellsville hold right and title to the soil on which we live is 
of great interest. It demonstrates how indissolubly the history of all places on the earth's surface is connected. 
It shows conclusively that to appreciate local history one must read it in the light of broader knowledge. The 
story, not considering at all the early claims of the Dutch, carries us back to the early part of the 17th century, 
when, by alleged right of discovery, King James I. of England, on Nov. 3, 1620, granted the Plymouth Com- 
pany all that vast and unexplored tract of land extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans between the 
40th and 48th parallels of latitude. By force of arms the English maintained possession of the eastern part of 
this grant against the claims of France. By the success of the American armies agamst the British in the 
Revolutionary War the title of the soil passed to the several states and a serious dispute arose between Mas- 
sachusetts and New York regarding the lands in what is now Western New York. Massachusetts claimed the 
title by virtue of the Royal Charter to the Plymouth Company whose preemptive right had been passed to 
that state. New York claimed title by virtue of the grant of Charles I. to the Duke of York, dated March 12, 
1664, and the voluntary submission to the crown of the Iroquois Confederacy of Indians in 1684. There was 
justice in the claim of each state, for the grants had been carelessly made and unquestionably conflicted. Hap- 
pily the historic dispute was amicably adjusted and by a compact made Dec. 16, 1786, New York secured 
the sovereignty and jurisdiction which meant the right to govern, and Massachusetts the title to the soil on 
condition of purchasing from the native Indians. On April i, 1788, Massachusetts agreed to convey to Phelps 
and Gorham, who were acting for themselves and others, all its right and title to 6,000,000 acres of land for 
$1,000,000, if the purchasers would buy of the Indians. Phelps and Gorham, at the treaty of Buffalo Creek, 
July, 1788. purchased the natives' title to about 2}o' million acres of the eastern portion of their purchase. 
This tract is what is known as the Phelps & Gorham purchase and included Independence and a part of An- 
dover, the eastern boundaries of Wellsville. Phelps and Gorham were unable to fulfill their contract with 
Massachusetts, and on the loth of March, 1791, induced that state to resume its right to that portion of West- 
ern New York to which the Indians still held title This tract included all the land that is now comprised in 
the town of Wellsville. On May 11, 1791, Robert Morris, the illustrious financier whose services were of such 
vital importance to the nation during the Revolution, bought this land of Massachusetts for $333,000, 3,750,- 
000 acres in all. Phelps and Gorham retained the property to which the Indian title had been extinguished at 
Buffalo Creek. In 1792 and 1793 Morris sold this land excepting the eastern portion, which became the Mor- 
ris Reserve, to the Holland Land Company, agreeing to extinguish the Indian title by purchasing of the Seneca 
Nation of Indians their native right. This was done at the Treaty of Big Tree at Geneseo in September, 
1797. The " Morris Reserve" was a strip of land, six miles in width, extending through the state from north 
to south. It included two ranges of A'legany county townships beginning with Alma and Willing on the 
south. Wellsville was entirely within its confines. The present village is mostly included in the Willing and 
Francis tract and the Morris Reserve, though on the northwest the Church estate owned some of its acres and 
a part of lot 24 of the Schermerhorn tract embraced a bit of it. The business portion of the village is all in 
the Willing and Francis tract. Let us follow (not considering the early Dutch claims) the title to the soil on 
which the Union School building on Main street stands : i. Indians, Seneca Nation of Iroquois; 2. English 
Royal Charter to Plymouth Company; 3. English Royal Charter to Duke of York, claims conflicted ; 4. New 
York and Massachusetts, claims conflicted ; 5. Massachusetts ; 6. Phelps and Gorham ; 7. Massachusetts ; 8. 
Robert Morris, purchased the native Indian right as well as Massachusetts title ; 9. Willing and Francis ; 10. 
Gardiner Wells; 11. E. A.Smith; 12. School Trustees. 



340 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Wellsville was erected, Scio had a population of 3,184; in 1860 it had but 
1,631. In 1860 WellsviUe had 2,432 inhabitants; in 1865, 3,070; in 1870, 3,781; in 
1875, 4,243; in 1880, 4,259; in 1890, 4,765. The state enumeration of 1892 record- 
ed 5,000 residents. It was said at the time that it was not growth as much 
as inaccuracy in the federal census of 1890 accounted for the difference. The 
town has had a steady and prosperous growth during every decade. Prom 
1865 to 1875 there was a considerable boom, in the first 5 years after the war 
711 people were added to our population. Prom 1870 to 1875 there was little 
growth but no backward tendency, from 1869 to 1875 was our era of build- 
ing and substantial improvement. The census of 1890 gives the assessed 
valuation of real and personal property of the town as total, $1,277,472; per 
capita $268.09; total tax levy $27,478, rate per $100, $2.15, per capita $5.77, 
true value of real estate $1,928,582, assessed value of real estate taxed $1,- 
142,722. The state, county and town tax laid upon the town in 1895 is $13,- 
296.13. With the return and non-resident taxes, the total amount to be col- 
lected is $13,929.70. The assessed value of real estate is $1,266,755; of per- 
sonal property $322,500. Total equalized value $1,426,746. Amount assessed 
to corporations $410,670. 

Business Men. — Between '50 and '60 there came to Wellsville scores of 
men the effect of whose lives are indelibly impressed on the character of 
our town. Julius Hoyt and Henry N. Lewis succeeded Conklin & Lee in the 
dry goods and grocery business. E. B. TuUer, Prank and George Russell, 
H. G. White, Samuel and John Carpenter, * Alexander Smith, Libbeus Sweet,. 
Daniel Dobbins, Dickenson Clark, H. M. Sheerar, R. & J. Doty, O. L. Mather, 
A. A. Howard, H. G. Taylor, A. S. French, Harvey Alger, Alfred S. Brown, 
James Swift, L. D. Davis, I. W. Passett, A. A. Goodliff, Duncan McEwen, A.N. 
Cole, Thomas L. Smith, Wm. P. Jones, Henry L. Jones, Dr. H. H. Nye, W. H. 
Stoddard, Joseph Macken, and later his sons, and many who came before 
the war expended their energies in establishing prosperous professions or 
branches of trade, which, though perhaps not now conducted under the 
original firm names, will continue so long as the village exists. 

War Times. — ^Pron '60 to '65 local events were overshadowed by the 
awful War of the Rebellion. The intense excitement of the presidential 
camimign of '60 was followed by the firing on Port Sumter in the spring of 
'61 and the defeat at Bull Run in July. Within Wellsville were felt and 
enacted the tragedies of the times. Men went wild and there were many 
volunteers, boys and men, rich and poor; Capt. J. A. Brown raised the 
first Wellsville company which joined the 85th N. Y. The gallant Capt. 
Hiram A. Coats went out as a lieutenant and Charles Parnum was one of the 
non-commissioned officers. f President Lincoln's call in "62 for 300,000 men 

* Samuel Carpenter was born in 1828 in Orange county. In 1855 he came to Wellsville, and with his 
brother John formed the mercantile house of J. & S. Carpenter. He continued in trade until November, 
1893 and was justice for many years. 

t Company G of the 64th New York was organized in Wellsville in the fall of 1861, with Joshua Pettin- 
ger, captain ; I. W. Fassett, ist lieutenant ; George Rowley, 2d lieutenant ; and James Meservey, orderly 
sergant. It saw active service first at Fair Oaks in the summer of 1862. 



Wellsville. 341 



was handsomely responded to. Companies of the 27th and 64th N. Y. ; the 130th 
N. Y. or 1st Dragoons. 93d N. Y., 5th N. Y. cavah^y, and the 13th artillery 
were in part composed of our people. Public meetings were held, the news 
of battle was received with bated breath, wounded, dying and dead men 
were brought home, fathers, brothers and lovers languished at Libby, An- 
dersonville or Belle Isle. One night a " copjjerhead " was carried through 
the streets on a rail. The windows of another were painted black. Enlist- 
ments were made in the Baptist church, where the Deity was implored to 
favor the armies of the North against slavery and secession. In '61 and '62 
General McClellan was cursed for his inactivity. In '63 and "64 Sheridan 
was applauded and blessed for devastating the beautiful Shenandoah Valley. 
Such was war. It purged us of the National disgrace of slavery and main- 
tained our Union, but it awoke the beast in man. America will never again 
see such a struggle. The news of the linal surrender of Lee, though antici- 
pated, came like an electric shock of joy to the North. Bells were rung, 
guns fired, parades organized, meetings held, speeches made, and, most de- 
lightful and enjoyable of all, the "Boys in Blue" were welcomed home. 
Welcomed, however, with decimated ranks, ruined in health, and blasted 
fortunes, and yet to-day there lives a class of unpatriotic agitators who be- 
grudge the volunteers of 35 years ago a i3ension from the richest, most pros- 
perous and most powerful government on earth, which owes its life to the 
heroes of the Rebellion. 

The 10 years succeeding the war period witnessed a very great change 
locally. Values shot rapidly upward. Many business men of energy, in- 
telligence and honesty became citizens. Among them was C. H. Simmons, 
who came in April, 1864, from Oswayo, Pa., where he had been in business. 
His goods came via. the Erie to Wellsville and thence by the old plank road 
to Oswayo. For 15 years this road had been in use, extending down the 
present Plank-road street (better called West Main) and up the river. It 
was of immense benefit to Wellsville. In '64, however, it was getting out of 
repair and Simmons, who always acted on impulse, decided one day that 
there was no use carting goods over a bad road when he could do more busi- 
ness by moving to Wellsville. He came and conquered. The volume of his 
trade became remarkable. Tke first day's business aggregated $400, and it 
was not long before he had made a $3,000 sale in one day. In April, 1874, 
the month's business was $25,000, and in the year $200,000 worth of goods 
were sold by him. '• Charlie " Simmons, as he was familiarly known, did 
more for the town than any other man who has ever lived here. Though 
his career was short, only 10 years in length, for he died in April, 1875, his 
business influence and his name will live forever. As public-spirited as he 
was shrewd and sharp in business, he made the interests of the municipality 
his own. After the great fires of '67, which swept away at least 40 build- 
ings, in fact almost the entire Main street, Simmons was the first to begin 
to build. He erected Pioneer block, a two-story brick building. This was 
not completed however so soon as the York and Barnes block (the Beever 



342 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

meat market), which was the first brick store finished in the village. Sim- 
mons built the 3-story Opera House block in 1871, and several other brick 
buildings about the same time. He purchased considerable property at 
Riverside and began a systematic "boom'' of that locality, erecting a 
splendid residence and other dwellings, and contemj^lated building a street 
railway to Riverside from Wellsville. He was the founder of Riverside Col- 
legiate Institute, which had a prosperous and useful existence for many 
years. Simmons was certainly a man of extraordinary business ability. He 
amassed a large fortune, which after his death disappeared as rapidly as he 
had made it. But the marks his career left in this community will never 
disappear. His energetic life erected his monument. 

In 1870 the Howard tannery employed 75 men and was our principal in- 
dustry. Hill's tannery employed about 40 men and the Baldwin tannery 15 
hands. Hatch's tannery was the smallest, though the oldest in the village. 
In '70 the principal industry was lumbering, though the forests were rap 
idly disappearing. In 1854 Carlton Farnum noted in his diary that the yearly 
shipment of pine was 50,000,000 feet. E. J. Farnum, I. W. Fassett and A. 
A. Goodliff were extensive lumber dealers. L. D. Davis, E. J. Walker, 
Clark & Easton ran planing mills. Coats Bros, cabinet shop employed 13 
hands. The McEwen machine shops and Swift's grist mill did a good busi- 
ness. James Thornton, who had come to Wellsville directly after being 
mustered out of the service at the close of the war. employed 10 men in the 
manufacture of harness. R. & J. Doty kept a wagon shop which employed 
several men and the L. Sweet machine shop did a large business. In 1868 
the amount of freight forwarded from here via. Erie railroad was 12,553 tons 
against 7,478 received. An article published in the Free Press, April 29, 
1868, says: 

Wellsville, though one of the youngest towns in this section, is already the largest town 
in the county, and to-day contains more inhabitants than any village between Hornellsville and 
Dunkirk. There are more goods sold here than at any other point on the Erie between Elmira 
and Dunkirk. It is not likely that trade will ever be diverted from this point. It is peculiarly 
adapted to manufacturers, and should a railroad ever open to the cheap fuel lying south of us, 
we should become a large manufacturing town. We now have one of the best markets for all 
kinds of farm produce. The town has suffered severely from fire and presents a ragged and 
rather otifre appearance, but we soon shall have sidewalks, shade trees and graded streets. We 
now have churches, a good school, two daily mails each way, and daily lines of stage to the 
country south of us. 

The Free Press had good reasons to thus wax eloquent, for Wellsville was 
at the time growing more rapidly than ever before or since. In 1871, 12 
brick stores and the Fassett House were erected and 150 buildings put up 
in various parts of town. From '66 to '71 inclusive the town added 1,000 inhabi- 
tants, and enumerated 4,000 people. Ithastakennearfive times as long since '71 
to gain another thousand. The growth, however, has been sure and steady 
with never a backward step.* The decade from '70 to '80 was both ushered 

* Some might think this history incomplete with no mention of the earthquake shock which frightened the 
school pupils (and others) in the summer of 1870. It was so slight as to merit nothing more than a mere 
mention. 



Wellsville. 343 



in and concluded with a boom. Business activity, lumbering and farming 
made things hum until the panic of 73 which quieted, though it did not 
seriously affect, our business. In June, 1879, petroleum was discovered in 
paying quantities in Scio, 4^ miles away. Great things were predicted and 
there began an era of excitement and speculation. In the production of oil 
much money was made, but in the speculative exchange hundreds of thou- 
sands of dollars were lost by our business men. There was a considerable 
influx of monied men, and, though we were only on the border of the oil 
field, the oil business did much for us in many ways. The era of substantial 
improvement, the decade from '80 to '90, was one of the most remarkable in 
the history of Wellsville, characterized as it was by the erection of a number 
of brick blocks, the purchase of our beautiful park, the construction of 
water-works, the introduction of natural gas, the building of a line theatre, a 
new church and two new railroads. 

Railroad Boom. — The location of WeUsville on the direct line of the New 
York & Erie railroad, which was in its early days the greatest railroad in 
the world, gave a wonderful impetus to the growth of the town. The com- 
ing of the railroad had been heralded since the early thirties, but bankruptcy 
and misfortune had overtaken it so many times that the people had despaired 
of its final completion, and, so when in 1851 the line was formally opened 
with a jubilee at Dunkirk at which the great Daniel Webster was the orator, 
all the Erie towns in Southern New York went suddenly wild with ideas of 
their importance. The boom, however, had a substantial foundation. Wells- 
ville became the shipping point and general market for the country south of 
here and has so remained. Carlton Farnum wrote in his diary in 1850, that 
" Our village, under the expectation of the early completion of the New York 
& Erie, is growing rapidly. The census for '49 gives us a population of 400. 
Village lots are selling briskly and many cheap buildings are being erected." 
In March, 1851, he wrote, "Pine lands are changing hands and Eastern 
lumbermen are erecting mills and building roads, etc., in order to manu- 
facture the pine. Tradesmen are rushing in and stores and wooden blocks 
ar6 springing up like mushrooms in all parts of the village." 

The Wellsville, Coudersport & Pine Creek R. R. was chartered Nov. 14, 
1881. The company was capitalized at $100,000, and stock to the amount of 
$68,554 in actual cash, was sold in and about Wellsville. The road was con- 
structed along the west bank of the Genesee, 10.45 miles to Genesee Forks, 
Pa., and later to Perry ville. The road began immediately to do a paying 
business. In 1894, 25,512 passengers were carried, earning the road $5,809. 
Freight receipts amounted to $19,899, making the total net income. $10,234. 
Six per cent, annual dividends were declared. The officers were John Mc- 
Ewen, president and general manager; W. B. Coats, vice president; E. C. 
Bradley, secretary; Oak S. Duke, treasurer; Chas. E. Davis, auditor and 
general freight agent; C. A. Farnum, attorney. In September, 1895, F. H. 
and C. W. Goodyear of Buffalo purchased the road for $110,000. It makes a 
northern extension of their Buffalo & Susquehanna system and aifords a 



344 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

direct connection with the Erie at this place. In the fall of 1895 25 miles of 
road were constructed, connecting Galeton with Perryville, and Jan. 1, 1896, 
the new system was opened to the public. Wellsville was thus made the 
northern terminus and Erie connection of a line of railroad tapping the rich 
forest lands and mines of Potter county, and connecting Gold, Austin, 
Gaines, Galeton,etc., and Ulysses and Coudersport by an intersecting line. 
This road may ultimately run to Buffalo. The Buffalo & Susquehanna affords 
the best connections for all points south via. Williamsport, and the shortest, 
though not the quickest, route to New York City, and restores the old 
supremacy of Wellsville as the business supply point for Potter county. 

The Bolivar, Eldred & Cuba narrow-guage railroad, chartered May 11, 
1881, connecting Wellsville with the oil field became a source of considerable 
profit to the merchants in bringing trade this way. The main line was 
originally from Cuba to Little Genesee. The line from Wellsville to Petro- 
lia, Allentown, Bolivar and Ceres (24 miles) came at length to be the main 
division. The company owned 58^ miles of road, including branches and sid- 
ings, costing $600,000. In 1883 the road was abandoned and the iron removed. 

United Pipe Line Station. — Three miles from the village, on the Andover 
road, the Standard Oil Company, as the National Transit Company, in 1883, 
erected a station of the United Pipe Lines. Hundreds of men were employed 
that summer in putting up the 35,000 barrel iron tanks. The 70 tanks 
now standing have a storage capacity of 2,500,000 barrels. Oil from the 
Allegany field and from the main pipe line is received. 

The Duke Lumber Company's mill, a mile and a half up the river, man- 
ufactures great quantities of hemlock timber. This firm employs 22 men 
in this mill, and many more in their other plants, doing one of the largest 
liemlock lumber businesses in the Empire State. Wm. Duke of this place and 
Charles Duke of Duke Centre, Pa., comprise the company. A mill on the 
site of this mill and the Hull & Morse plant at Riverside were very early 
sawmills. Of the score or more of these mills once doing a thriving busi- 
ness but one other than the Duke remains, the Matthew Mess plant on 
Brimmer Brook, where several hands are employed. The days of remuner- 
ative lumber manufacturing here are about ended, as the hemlock, like the 
pine of long ago, has been pretty thoroughly cut from our forests. Hakes 
& Williams' mill on Dike's Creek; Mead's mill 3 miles east of the village; 
Lewis' mill and the Johnson mill, all established at quite early dates, cut at 
least 5,000,000 feet annually in the seventies. 

Crovv^ner Cheese Factory, situated on Dike's Creek, w^as built in 1892 
by Samuel Cornelius. It is owned by Wilham Wahl. The milk of 250 cows 
is used. 

lUverside. — Our beautiful residence suburb, appropriately called •' River- 
side,'' is an ideal place for a home. Located on high ground above the river, 
hills rise yet hundreds of feet above and beyond giving a grand view. 
Riverside extends practically from the western boundary of the village cor- 
poration to and beyond Scio line. Central Riverside is one and a half miles 



Wellsville. 345 



from the postoffice. It lies along the river road, comprises rich farms, many 
comfortable homes, and sevei'al elegant residences. The Robertson man- 
sion, valued at $30,000, one of the finest houses in the county, the Barnes' 
home with its well-tilled acres and^pleasant house and grounds, the Baldwin, 
Wilcox, Coats, King, Woodward, Sheerar and Burt places and scores of other 
houses make up the settlement. Prosperity began when the energetic 
Charles H. Simmons x^urchased the district, erected a house and began to 
systematically "boom" the neighborhood. In 1873 he built and endowed 
the Riverside Collegiate Institute. Rev. J. S. Bingham, the first j^resident, 
was succeeded by Prof. A. G. Slocum. In 1877 Rev. A. W. Cummings pur- 
chased the institution and successfully conducted it for several years. The 
buildings burned in 1888 and were not rebuilt. At intervals there has been 
a sanitarium at Riverside. Dr. Dargitz conducted one with a goodly number 
of patients for some years. Destroyed by fire in '92 it was not rebuilt. 

We have had three great and many lesser floods. Sept. 20, 1861. the 
river and tributaries rising rapidly tore out dams and bridges. Half Brook- 
lyn was under water. Cattle and horses were drowned. Dike's Creek bridge 
carried away and water filled the road from Hanrahan's shop to the Advent 
church. The water cut a channel 93 feet in width beyond the State street 
bridge. The awful flood of 1865 occurred March 17th. A warm rain melted 
the four feet of snow. The State street and lower bridges and several dams 
were swept away. Jacob Weaver lost his life while trying to cross the rope 
and one-plank footbridge temporarily strung across where the lower bridge 
had been. In June, 1889, the storm that produced the Johnstown, Pa., 
disaster caused the most disastrous flood in our history. Both our railroads 
were greatly damaged, crox)s and many cattle were destroyed, numerous 
buildings carried away or injured and dams swept down the river. The 
water covered the fairground and park, marking 14 feet above the stream's 
bed. Edmond Fitterer was drowned in the rear of his residence opposite 
*' Brooklyn " schoolhouse. 

Supervisors.— 'S. Milton Mott, 1856; Zenas H. Jones, 1857; C. L. Farnum, 1858; Wm. S. Johnson, 
1859-1861 ; 1. W. Fassett, 1862 ; Hiram York, 1863 ; Adolphus Howard, 1864-5-6; Sumner Baldwin, 1867-8; 
Tie vote, 1868 ; Sumner Baldwin, 1869-70-1-2 ; John Carpenter, 1873 ; Sumner Baldwin, 1874 ; Wheeler 
Hakes, 1875-6; Dickinson Clark, 1877-8-9; Wm. R. McEwen, 1880-1 ; Hiram A. Coats, 1882; Thomas 
O'Connor, 1883; A. A. Almy, 1884-5; Wm. Duke, Jr.. 1886; E. A. Osborn, 1887-8; Harry W. Brecken- 
ridge, 1889: O. D. Browning, 1890-1-2 ; G. H. Witter, M. D., 1893-4-5. 



346 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 

WELLSVILLE VILLAGE. 

THE TOWN had existed but a short time when the question of village 
incorporation was agitated, and in October, 1857, application was 
made to the state for power to submit the question to the people for 
decision. It was made in the names of James V. Brown, Mason M. Hill, 
Geo. W. Russell, C. L. Farnum, and Isaac W. Fassett. An election held at 
the public house of J. C. Stannard, Nov. 26, 1857, decided to incorporate by 
a vote of 142 to 8. Upon the filing of the necessary certificates, Mar. 20, 1858, 
the incori3oration took effect, and Feb. 23d, at Stannard 's Hotel, these officers 
were elected: Trustees, C. L. Farnum, Hiram York, I. N. Stoddard, Henry 
Taylor, Julius Hoyt, Angus Williams; Clerk, G. W. Russell; Assessors, 
Jesse C. Easton, Wm. E. Armstrong, Samuel Carpenter; Pound Master, Eli 
Potter. 

The proceedings of the village trustees contain much matter of general 
interest. In 1858 an appropriation of $100 was voted to the owner of " the 
small fire engine called ' Union ' which has been for several years at the 
service of this village." This was the first fire engine used. The records, 
by showing the number of votes cast at the different elections, demonstrate 
how greatly from year to year interest varied in village affairs. In '58, 
Stoddard received 164 votes. For the next ten years the vote averaged 
about half of that. In '63, but 23 ballots were counted. In '65, 13; in "66, 12; 
in '68, 246; in '72, 237; in '73, 444; in '85, 1,275. The first bylaw of the village 
adopted by the trustees was: " No person shall at any time allow any of his 
cattle, horses, sheep, or swine (except milch cows) to run or be at large in 
any of the roads, highways, or streets of this village; nor shall any person 
allow any such cow to run or be at large in any such road, highway or street 
except in the day time between the first day of May and the first day of 
November in each year. Whoever shall offend against this provision shall 
forfeit for each and every offense one dollar." Another of the early bylaws 
read: " Each owner of an occupied building shall procure a wooden or leather 
fire bucket for each fire kept in such building, with the initials of owner on 
bucket, which shall be kept in some place of easy access. Also a ladder of 
sufficient capacity to reach roof shall be kept on premises." The early 
bylaws granted a rigid power of quarantine to the Board of Health. This 
was a wise provision, for in March, 1861, small pox visited the village. 
There were 23 cases and one death. A second epidemic broke out in Nov- 
ember, 1862. By prompt action of the board of health the scourge was con- 
fined to about a dozen cases and one death. During these visitations the 
town was panic stricken and business paralyzed. 



I 



Wellsville. 347 



Tlw vllhujc III ISJ^l and in 1845. — Mrs. Harriet Hills came here in 1841 
with her father David June. She says: 

A man named Gibbs lived where Gardiner Wells had resided. James Fosbury's was 
across the road. The father of Henry Gordon lived where Dr. Macken's house now is, next 
the Ackley House. Sam'l Shingler's tavern stood on the same side near State street. The 
dwelling of Uan'l Tuttle was opposite the hotel. Norman Perry had a store on the corner of 
State and Main. The store of Thos. Conklin and Hezekiah Lee stood about where McEwen's 
office now is. Speaking of Conklin, it was he, who with Johnson in 1840 built the first mill 
where the Duke sawmill now stands. Trees had been felled on the land between State and 
Mill, along Main street, but the lots had a sorry appearance. The VanBuren tavern,- Henry 
Gordon's store and Myron Fuller's house were on the corners of Mill and Main. The Taylor 
house was not far from Fuller's on the same side. Dr. G. B. Jones lived in a frame house 
opposite the Thornton Block. W. H. Coats' dwelling was just opposite the present site of the 
1st Nat'l Bank. Jonathan Seeley lived near the present Johnson (Genesee St.) cemetery. There 
were three painted houses ; A^anBuren's and Shingler's taverns had white fronts, and Taylor's 
house had the front and one side painted white. W. D. Spicer lived quite a distance up State 
St, David June had a dwelling where Opp's residence is. Lewis Foster lived where I. N. 
Fassett's house stands. There was a bridge across the river on State St., built by Silas Hills 
and others in 1833, and was carried off by a flood in 1842. The river had previously been 
crossed by rafts and boats. For many years, Joe Crowner, Justus Brimmer, Billy Weed and 
Mr. Dunham were the only residents south of the Genesee. About a mile down the river there 
was a bridge near the Hull and Morse gang sawmill. Our Main street then was a rough 
country road and the settlement was of little account. 

In 1845 Mr. G. B. Gordon came with his father Groves Gordon. He says: 

At that time E. A. Smith had a store near where Scoville, Brown & Co.'s is now. Stumps 
and trees, heaps of rubbish and refuse on partly cleared land lay between State and Mill streets. 
Across Mill from VanBuren's stood the Gordon store. This remains today about as when 
erected, one of the few relics of early Wellsville. The Taylor, afterwards the England House, 
erected in 1835, stood east of the gas company's office. Enlarged and remodeled it is now 
the oldest structure in town. It is now in the rear of the gas company's office. For years it 
was the only tenement house and all newcomers between 1840 and 1870 lived in it. Samuel 
Palmer's house and blacksmith shop stood just above the present Baldwin Block. A. E. Bron- 
son's wagon shop was near it. The Bronson residence was near the site of the First National 
Bank. There was no Madison street. The frame schoolhouse of '42 was near the site of the 
Academy. 

General Training. — Where the race track of the Wellsville Fair Associa- 
tion is now situated, militia encampments or "general trainings " were once 
periodically held. Samuel A. Earley tells of his visit to one in 1835. He 
was but a mere stripling- of a boy, but can remember the affair well, for it 
v/as an episode in his career. Boys and girls, men and women, everybody 
was there. It was more than a circus, better than a Fourth of July. There 
were bands of martial music, to the strains of which the proud civilian sol- 
diery marched and maneuvered. Peddlers and auctioneers were numerous. 
Gingerbread, peanuts, cider, honey, and yankee notions found a ready sale. 
Captain Wm. Cowles of Bolivar, Capt. Jonathan B. Potter, the "old Indian " 
of Almond, Capt. Thos. Aj)plebee of Friendship, and Col. Knight of Scio. who 
had command of the " training " were among the ofticers present. 



348 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Fourth of July Dance. — The dance in 1849, at McClane's tavern, situated 
on Main directly across State street from the present McEwen site, was an 
affair typical of the lumber country. Rustic swains with their sweethearts 
walked or rode in from the surrounding country. Sam and Ed. Wilkins, 
the best fiddlers in all Allegany, played their way into the hearts of the 
dancers. Sam's quaint calling of the "French Pour" and the " Monie 
Musk" was an entertainment in itself. At 4 o'clock in the afternoon the 
dance began, and some of those present never missed a step till 10:30 the 
next forenoon. An elaborate si:)read, a regular dinner, was served at mid- 
night, after which those of the ladies who were "in style " made anew toilet 
with a change of gown and came on the floor sweeter and prettier than ever. 
Mr. and Mrs. Henry Johnson. Mr. and Mrs. J. B. Clark, Mr. and Mrs. E. A. 
Smith, Mr. and Mrs. Richard Burchell, Mr. Ephraim Proctor and Miss 
Mary Ann Jones, now Mrs. Tallman, were at the party. 

Railroad Times. — Edward J. Parnum of Bath, a railroad surveyor, set- 
tled here in 1847, He became an extensive lumber dealer and one of our 
leading business men. Carlton, his brother, came in June, 1848, from 
Pennsylvania. In 1849 the Parnum store, still standing opposite the home- 
stead, was erected. Carlton, who had been keeping the postoftice in a store 
on the McEwen corner of State and Main streets, moved his goods and the 
postoftice across the river into the new building where he remained till 1851. 
This location of the postoffice out of the business section gave rise to con- 
siderable fault finding. Until the railroad had actually been completed, 
however, there was a question about its crossing the river. When it became 
evident that it would remain on the east side, Mr. Parnum moved the post- 
office into the Empire Hall block which he built on the Opera House corner 
of State and Main streets. This building now stands on Main street near 
the Dike's Creek bridge. March 11, 1851, marked an epoch in our history, for 
then the first railroad train ran through here, bringing prosperity to the 
pretty hamlet which had sent each winter loads of " clear stuff '" pine or 
shingles to Dansville in exchange for pork and flour.* Wellsville itself, 
thenceforth became the active, bustling market for a large section of sur- 
rounding country. New industries resulted from the energizing influence 
of the new business men who infused the village with a spirit of vital activ- 
ity and substantial prosperity. Lumbering, however, remained the princi- 
pal business of the community for some time. It was the basis for the 
making of many fortunes. Por some months after the completion of the 
railroad the station was on Mill street. It is claimed by old residents that 
E. A. Smith and Nathaniel Johnson put such a price on lands along the road 
that the Erie hesitated long before purchasing real estate sufficient for 

* In 1851 there was not a church edifice in the village. Wm. Pooler tells an interesting incident relative to 
this religious backwardness. Early in '51 the Erie brought a stranger here who put up at the tavern for a few 
days to look the village over and decide upon the wisdom of making it his permanent home. He became well 
satisfied, it is said, with everything unftl he realized that the settlement had existed 19 years without a church. 
This turned him against the place and Wellsville lost a wealthy and influential settler. At this time both the 
Methodists and Baptists were holding meetings, but it was not till '52 that the M. E. church was erected. 



Wellsville. 349 

switch yards, station, etc. There is a tradition (which the writer has found 
impossible to verify) that, had it not been for the exorbitant demands of our 
property holders, Wellsville instead of Hornellsville would have been made 
the division terminus. However, the same tradition honors Nathaniel John- 
son by ascribing to him the making of a most excellent contract with the 
Erie, requiring it to stop every passenger train here. 

CJicnuje of Name.. — In 1852 the Erie railroad officials named the station 
at this place Genesee, because here the Erie first touched the Genesee river. 
The citizens, however, preferred Wellsville, and when in '55 a township was 
set olf from Scio. Andover and Willing, it was by common consent called 
Wellsville like the village wiiich for twelve years had been known by that 
name. There were those, however, w^io preferred the melodious and in 
many ways appropriate "Genesee," and on April 4, 1871, a few inlluential 
ones succeeded in getting through the legislature an act changing the name 
of the village to " Genesee. " This was very quietly, if not- secretly, done 
and considerably surprised the good people of Wellsville, the majority of 
whom favored the old name. April 11, 1871, the electors voted to reincor- 
porate under the law of 1870. The certificate as filed reincorporated the 
village as "Wellsville." Here was confusion indeed; our legislative name 
was Genesee; the corporate name. Wellsville; and the Erie station, Genesee; 
while the people called the place Wellsville. June 14, 1873, a special act of 
the legislature, which had been petitioned for and urged by citizens, changed 
the name from Genesee to Wellsville, to be so designated in all courts and 
places. Section 2 of this act changed the name of the Erie station to Wells- 
ville, and instructed the officials to recognize and adopt such name on and 
after Jan. 1, 1874. The Erie very reluctantly did so, changing baggage 
checks, tickets, printed matter, etc.. from Genesee to Wellsville. Thus the 
largest southern settlement on the far-famed and beautiful Genesee river 
lost a melodious name. It was not that our citizens failed to appreciate the 
beauty of the word Genesee. There was already a Geneseo in the state, a 
Genesee township and a Little Genesee postoffice in the county, and a Gen- 
esee Forks, but eleven miles distant. And thus it was that to avoid confu- 
sion Wellsville retained its first name in honor of its pioneer land owner 
Gardiner Wells. 

Wellsville village was reincorporated in April 1871, H. H. Nye, presi- 
dent. It then covered 590 and 61-100 acres. It was enlarged Nov. 16, 1883, 
and reincorporated in 1884; the survey being made by R. H. Lee. It has 
1,297 acres of land and 16 j miles of streets. The assessed valuation in 1894 
was $1,100,000. The boundaries in 1895 are: 

Beginning on the northwesterly line of the residence of Ambrose G. Coats on Main street the corpora- 
tion line passes to the rear of the home of the late John Crowner on High St., includes in the village the resi- 
dence of Mr. W. C. Ross, above High St., thence to Niles Hill road taking in W. H. Dawson's property, 
crossing King St., at the junction of King with Clark St., cutting West Main St., at the Serena place, on 
through the Genesee river taking most of the Fair Ground, thence through Main St. at the north line of Thos. 
Morrison's lot (south line of Great lot 5 which runs to the south east corner of said lot) thence north, taking in 
Morris Wilson's and the N c rsery lot, crossing Rauber St. on the west line of the Rauber farm, onward north 



350 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

to the northeast corner of lot No. 4. Easterly crossing the land of W. H. Miller, taking in all of the village 
lot on Dike St. at the point of junction of Trapping Brook road with Dike St. thence due west cutting Dike's 
Creek and State street, so as to pass through the dwelling of Mr. Lewis Johnson, west to the southeast corner 
of lot 28, onward North including the lots of R. H Lee, Dr. Gena and Wm. Stevens, crossing Madison St. 
through the residence of Geo. Cross, to the northeast corner of lot No. 27, to a point about 40 rods east of 
Briggs St., thence north parallell with Briggs St. taking in the residences on Briggs St. to a point north of 
the junction of Briggs and Farnum Sts., and then south westerly to the place of beginning; comprising an 
area of 1,297 acres. 

The corporation is composed of these lots and parts of lots. Numbers 1, 
2, 3. 4, 5, 20, 21, 22, 27. parts of lots 31, 34, of Willing and Francis Tract, in 
Range 1, and parts of lots 2, 5. 40, 41, of the Robt. Morris Reserve in Range 
2, and part of lot 24 Schermerhorn Tract, Range 1, and contains 46 streets 
which have a length of 16^ miles. Beginning on the " Brooklyn " side of the 
Genesee River the streets are: King, Fassett. Clark, Pine, Pleasant, High, 
Factory, Earley, Stevens, Howard, Chamberlain, Seneca. On the east side 
of the Genesee: Main, Rauber, Hanover, Osborne, Dike, West Dike, State, 
Jefferson, Mill, Broad, Harrison, River, Madison, Second, Third, Furnace, 
Jefferson, Pearl, Lee Ave., Genesee, Depot, Loder, Elm, Martin, Grove, 
Lombard, Chestnut, Briggs, Furnace, Farnum, O'Connor, Coats, West Main, 
and Lewis Ave. State, West Main, and West Dike Sts., cross the Genesee 
river. State, Mill and Genesee streets cross Main St. Loder, a private 
street, belongs to the Erie Railway. 

The village presidents have been: I. N. Stoddard, '58; W. H. Coats, '59; 
Nathaniel Johnson, '60; Austin Dunton, '61; Wm. Bartlett, '62, '63; L. D. 
Davis, '64, '65, '66; D.L. Vaughan, '67, '68; Dr. H. H. Nye, '69, '70; John Poland, 
'71; E. J. Farnum, '72; Hiram A. Coats, '73; James Macken, '74; A. A. Howard, 
'75, '76, '77; James Thornton was elected to fill unexpired term caused by 
Howard's death, but did not accept, and, failing to qualify, W. B. Coats was 
elected, '78; George Howe, '79; S. F. Hanks, '80; O. P. Taylor, '81; Henry L. 
Jones, '82; D. C. Ackerman, '83, '84; Joseph Doty, '85; A. S. Brown, '86, '87; 

D. C. Ackerman, '88, '89; A. J. Applebee, '90; W. C. Kendall, '91, '92; A. S. 
Brown, '93; Grant Duke, '94, '95. The present trustees (1895) are: Grant 
Dukepres. ; W, C. Kendall, E. D. Clark, Martin Moogan and Wm. L. Rogers. 

E. J. Farnum, elected in 1872, was the first president chosen by the people. 
Under the incorporation of '58 the trustees chose their own presiding ofiicer, 
the reincorporation in '71 empowered the electors to chose a president and 
granted him new powers of administration. 

It is decidedly doubtful if ever again in the history of Wellsville any 
decade will see over 20 new business places equipped in substantial new 
brick blocks. Such was the case in the years '80 to '90. During this decade 
as many old stores were thoroughly repaired and furnished with plate-glass 
fronts. Beginning at Pearl street the new blocks on the west side of Main 
street were: The Reporter; Thurston, now Cummings; Thornton and Bald- 
win blocks. On the east side: the Wm. Duke; O'Connor; 1st Nat'l Bank; 
block adjoining bank; Lewis Bank & Gas Co's. and the Grant Duke block. 
In '88 there was erected in the rear and connected with Baldwin block a fine 
and large ground-floor theater. It has seats for 500 and can accommodate 



Wellsville. 351 



1,200 by using the very deep stage. Tlie history of this wonderful '80-'90 
decade would be incomplete with no mention of the remarkable roller- 
skating craze. We had a great rink at the foot of River street with the 
finest hardwood floor ever built in the county. During the winter of "84 a 
band of music was in attendance every evening and gay crowds were skating 
away for dear life. The craze passed away as suddenly as it came and the 
rink was transformed into a theatre by Thornton & Dobbins. It was totally 
destroyed by fire a few days before it was to have been opened. It was in 
this decade that the village saw its wickedest as well as liveliest days. With 
the oil excitement came scores of reckless men and dissolute women. In 
'84 we had 55 places where liquor was sold and a half-dozen houses of ill- 
fame. A law and order league was organized and finally succeeded in driv- 
ing out the greater ^xn't of the most depraved element and closing many of 
the saloons. Prominent in this league were Samuel Hanks, L. S. Anderson, 
A. O. Very. T. P. Otis, James Thornton, A. R. Hill and others. 

Following this decade came reaction. The town had " boomed " on the 
basis of the oil business, which saw its palmiest days in '82 and was to find 
its dreariest period just ten years later. In '92 the oil market touched the 
lowest point in the history of this field's development, averaging but 55 cents 
a barrel. Sharply following this came the financial panic of '93 spreading 
disaster from the Atlantic to the Pacific. A year saw two banks and a num- 
ber of business firms forced to make assignments. Real-estate values and 
rents, which had been steadily going down for several years, reached the 
lowest point. The Lewis bank failure, Aug. 14, 1893, and the Baldwin bank 
failure, Jan. 9, 1894, tied up the currency at the very time depositors were 
most in need, and disastrous results to all our people were narrowly averted. 
That the town has recovered so remarkably is characteristic of its stability. 
In the year '93, the very worst of the depression, an electric light company 
was franchised. The plant is now owned by the water company, whose 
pumps and machinery, with the electric dynamos, etc., are located in a brick 
structure on the " Brooklyn " side of State street. In the spring of '95 the 
sudden rise in the value of oil wonderfully brightened the outlook for local 
business. This advance in price has stimulated drilling and put considera- 
ble money in circulation. The absorption of the W. C. & P. C. R. R. by the 
Buffalo & Susquehanna system brought another element of prosperity. The 
Citizens National Bank was organized and began business early in '95, while 
the prospect in all dei:)artments of trade brightened materially. Though 
the past five years saw the greatest depression in our business affairs, they 
also marked the construction of our most costly buildings. The theater had 
just been completed; the Methodist church, corner of Broadway and Mad- 
ison streets, was erected in '93; the Union School building at a cost of $28,- 
000, in '92; an $18,000 City Hall in '94. The new station of the B. & S. R. R. 
on State street, and several fine residences, including those of W. C. Ross, 
A. S. Brown and Sidney Prisbey, and the Baptist and Congregational par- 
sonages were all built within five years. The Stillman & Ross greenhouses 



352 History op Allegany County, N. Y. 

were recently built. The church of The Immaculate Conception to cost 
$50,000 is under construction on Harrison street. " The village has always 
been considered an important point on the Erie railroad and all through 
passenger and mail trains on the western division stop here. The Erie's 
pay-roll in Wellsville approximates $2,500 a month and its local cash receipts 
aggregate $25,000 a month. These figures tell a business story which needs 
no comment. The transactions at the postoffice repeat the tale. Prom 1888 
to 1890 the receipts more than doubled, and, despite the financial depression, 
have increased $1,000 in five years, gaining pretty nearly half that amount 
in the past 18 months. The First National Bank has deposits of $350,000 
and transacts a conservative loan, discount and collection business of great 
volume. The Citizens' National, recently chartered, already holds deposits 
of $125,000 and publishes an excellent report of its condition." 

Schools.- — The first public school was kept in 1832. As the town grew 
other district schools were founded and the one of '32 was moved succes- 
sively from the corner of State and Main to Broad and Mill in '37, and in '42 
to the present Union School property, where is now, after being twice de- 
stroyed by fire, a substantial brick structure. There are now 10 whole 
districts, 5 joint districts and 12 schoolhouses in the township. The lives 
of the district schools, with the exception of those which have united with 
Union Free School District No. 1, have been decidedly uneventful. Progress, 
however, has been yearly made, the schoolhouses are more convenient, the 
methods of instruction improved and the teachers much better qualified to 
impart instruction. District No. 2 (Brooklyn) employs 4 teachers. In 1858 
the Main street schoolhouse was a small building with a single room. April 
12, 1859, it was voted to erect a new house which was completed by Jan. 1, 
1860, and cost $1,868.50. Nov. 16, 1859, it was resolved by a two-thirds vote 
to create a Union Free School District. The members of the first board of 
education were: Charles Collins, Hiram York, H. M. Sheerar, G. W. Russell, 
Wm. Peebles, W. H. Coats, Edmond Baldwin. W. S. Johnson and I. W. Fas- 
sett, [n 1860 the average attendance was 209. The teachers were: Prof. 
A. C. Spicer, principal; Mrs. A. C. Spicer, assistant; Mrs. T. L. Smith, in- 
termediate; Miss L. A. Wildman, primary. The principals have been A. C. 
Spicer, F. A. Williams. A. H. Lewis, G. S. Hicks, M. B. Rankin, D. A. 
Blakeslee, D. L. Freeborn, Prof, de la Rochette, C. B. Macken, J. L. Burritt, 
C. M. Harding and L. W. Craig. Mrs. Addle Elwell has had the longest serv- 
ice in the school, having taught there 25 years. April 1, 1865, the legislature 
ratified aU the acts of the trustees and incorporated the school. Feb. 27, 
1876, the schoolhouse was burned. A new one costing $7,000 was immedi- 
ately erected on the old site. Until this was comj^leted school was held in 
the Keystone block, and five teachers were employed. 

The Regents System. — In February, 1882, the board of education was made 
up of A. O. Very, James Thornton, J. H. Preasall, G. W. Pierce, M. Macken, 
Mrs. B. C. Rude, L. S. Anderson, Mrs. T. P. Otis and W. W. Nichols. The 
faculty consisted of C. B. Macken, principal; Mrs. Bingham, 1st assistant; 



Wellsville. 353 



Miss Flora Parish, A intermediate; Miss Ida Ross, B intermediate; Miss 
Bridget Shaughnessy, primary. April 3, 1882, by a vote of 7 to 2 the trus- 
tees voted to establish an academic department under the government of 
the Regents of the University of the State of New York, to take effect July 
1, 1882. Considerable opposition was manifested. June 3, 1882, the board 
elected a new principal and added one teacher to the faculty which was now: 
J. L. Burritt, principal; Miss Carrie Coats, 1st assistant; Mrs. Bingham, 
Grammar department; Mrs. Elwell, A intermediate; Miss Sarah Yorke, B 
Intermediate; Miss B. Shaughnessy, primary. Prof. Burritt thoroughly 
reorganized the school, and the entire course of instruction was revolution- 
ized. He was aided and encouraged by the board, whose faithful endeavor 
to care for the best interests of education among us, has been crowned by 
lasting success. 

At the annual election of trustees following the introduction of the 
Regents" system. 200 votes were cast, a very unusual number, and James 
Thornton. A. O. Very, T. Frank Fisher were re-elected by a good majority, 
though not without a heated opposition. Prof. Burritt's salary of $1,000 
was increased May 7. 1883, to $1,250, and July 1, 1884, to $1,500. Dec. 1, 
1884, C. M. Harding of Canton. Pa., was engaged as vice principal at a salary 
of $600. In 1885 a large addition was made to the building and a new system 
of heating and ventilation costing $5,575 was put in. Dec. 18, 1885, Prof. J. 
L. Burritt resigned. Prof. Harding became principal at a salary of $1,000 
(increased in March, 1887, to $1,250). Mrs. Hallock became vice principal, 
she was succeeded by E. M. Lake iii 1886, who was followed by Prof. Noll. 
The school building and contents was destroyed by tire in the spring of 1891. 
The insurance covered the loss and the building now occupied was immedi- 
ately commenced. In 1893 Prof. L. W. Craig became principal, at a salary 
of $1,250. The faculty now is, Lewis W. Craig, A.M., principal, Greek and 
Latin; Chas. E.Bryant, vice principal, Science and Mathematics; Louie J. 
Sackett, Training Class and History; Mary E. Passett, Language and Litera- 
ture; Ella lone Foster, eighth grade; M. Ad ell Fuller, seventh grade; Mary 
S. Wilcox, sixth grade; Mrs. A. T. Elwell, fifth grade; Sarah Plain, fifth 
grade extra; Charlotte R. Boothe, fourth grade; Nellie E. Devore, third 
grade; B. T. Shaughnessy, second grade; Kate Day, first grade. 

Wellsville Union and High School has now a building which in beauty, 
conveniences, and sanitary conditions is not surpassed by any in Western 
New York. Completed in 1892, it is built of brick and stone, and contains 
ample grade and recitation rooms, a large laboratory, a well-arranged library 
room, and a hall, for literary and other exercises, with a seating capacity 
for 650 people. The chemical laboratory is furnished with desks, gas and 
water for individual experimental work. Four 60 count, two 70-count, one 80- 
count, one 90-count and 21 academic dipk)mas were granted in 1894-5. A 
teacherstraining class is maintained. 559 students were in attendance in 1894- 
5; 127 in the High School. There are 111 non-resident pupils. Since the first 
class graduated in 1885, 86 have received Regents' diplomas. The board of 



354 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

education is A. G. Coats, president; Geo. E. Brown. A. S. Brown, O. L. 
Mather, Rev. Geo. Buch, O. A. Fuller, Geo. Rosa, Mrs. MaryL. Bruce, Mrs. 
L. A. Marvin. O. D. Browning is clerk and P. H. Fur man treasurer. 

Churches. First Seventh-day Baptist Church. — The Seventh-day Baptists 
have been long represented in Wellsville. On March 4, 1830, Deacon Jesse 
Rowley made his home in the dense forest then occupying the site of Wells- 
ville village, when only a few families were scattered from Stannard's 
Corners to Amity. The deacon, a godly man, sought religious associations 
and held meetings. A council held at his residence, May 16, 1834, organized 
a church with these members: Jesse, Charles, Nathan and Mary Rowley, 
Amos L. Maxson, William Davis, Joseph and Elizabeth Flint, Justus Seeley, 
Jonathan and Achsah Fisk, Stephen Tanner, Joseph Flint, John D. Green, 
Sally Straite and Lydia Ammadown. This body was weak in numbers and 
in funds and affiliated with the Amity church, and was in the course of years 
merged with the Scio organization. No other organization of this faith ex- 
isted here until 1885, when the church named above was formed, September 
9th, with these members: Dr. Jasper W. CoUer, Mrs. Ardoette G. , his 
wife, Mrs. Prudence Smith, Hosea B. Mariojiv Mrs. Esther A. Miller, Mrs. 
Eliza Rowley, Mrs. Ida M. Irish, Ira S. Crandall, Mrs. Mary E. Almy, Mrs. 
Hattie E. Goodliff, Mrs. Waity A. Witter, Simeon B. Smith, Minerva E. his 
wife, Abram W. Sullivan, Delia M. his wife, Joshua Green, Sarah C. his 
wife, Lorenzo Witter, Mattie'A. his wife. Three of the constituent mem- 
bers, Hosea B. Marion, Mrs. Eliza Rowley and Mrs. Minerva E. Smith, have 
died. The additions since organization have been, 44; the dismissions by 
letter have been, 10; the exclusions, 2; the deaths, 6; present membership 
(34 resident, 11 non-resident) 45. The succession of pastors is: Rev. Leander 
E. Livermore, Sept. 9, 1885, to June 1, 1888, Rev. Joshua Clarke from June 
1, 1888,toAug. 13, 1892, Rev. Henry L. Jones from Nov. 16, 1893, to the present. 
The deacons have been, Ira S. Crandall since September, 1885, Henry L. 
Jones from Dec. 12, 1888, until his removal April 1, 1892, to Verona, N. Y., 
where he was ordained. He returned and became pastor in November, 1893. 
J. W. CoUer, M.D., has been church clerk from the beginning. Services 
are held at 11 A. M. in the Disciples' church on Mill street east of the rail- 
road. Sabbath school immediately follow^s the morning service. Mrs. E. 
E. Crandall is superintendent. 

First Congregational Church."^ — In 1841 Angelica Presbytery appointed 
Revs. A. S. Allen of Andover, Benjamin Russell of Belmont and Elder Perry 
a committee charged with the special duty of "organizing a Presbyterian 
church in Wellsville. This committee met 17 professing Christians of 
Wellsville, July 6, 1841, in the schoolhouse standing on the corner of Mill 
and Broad streets where is now the residence of Miss Anah Baldwin. These 
persons related their experience and became members: Mr. and Mrs. Nor- 
man Perry, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas G. Conklin, Mr. and Mrs. James Dunham, 
Mrs. Perces Y. Johnson, Mrs. Lucinda Gow^dy, Mrs. Betsey Ann Lee, Mrs. 

* By H. M. Sheerar. 



Wellsville. 355 



Polly Shingler, Mrs. Louisa Harmon, Misses Betsey, Sally and Catherine 
Bellamy, Miss Mary Dunham (Mrs. Dwight Goodrich). Miss Louisa Dun- 
ham and Miss Charlotte Finn. The confession of faith of Phillipsville (Bel- 
mont) church was adojDted. Prayer was offered by Rev. B. Russell. The 
'' charge " was by Rev. A. S. Allen, and then " A resolution made them the 
first Presbyterian church of Wellsville." James Dunham and Norman 
Perry were chosen elders, and Thomas Conklin clerk. These persons united 
by letter: (Those with a * annexed and Mrs. D wight Goodrich were mem- 
bers in March, 1895.) JohnF. Godard and wife, Josph Shaut and wife, Geo. 
F. Ely, Mrs. Hannah Purple, Mrs. Emahne Hills, Mrs. Phoebe Taylor. Miss 
Anna Reynolds, Miss Margarette Pratt, Miss Nancy Cole, Mrs. Silas Hills, 
Mrs. John Carpenter,"^ Mrs. John Dayton, Mrs. Sarah Johnston, Julius 
Hoyt,* Henry Lewis* and Myron Puller. The first communion service was 
in December, 1842, Rev. Mr. Reynolds ofliciating, when John F. Godard 
and wife united bj^ letter. The first infant baptism was administered by 
Rev. Mr. Reynolds to John L., son of John F. Godard. The first addition 
by profession of faith was Myron Fuller. The first death was that of Polly 
Shingler. The first preparatory lecture was by Nathaniel Hammond in 1847, 
when he became im>stor. He continued in this relation until Feb. 26, 1853, 
when he delivered his last preparatory lecture, and, on the Sunday follow- 
ing, administered the holy sacrament for the last time to this church. 

After the close of Mr. Hammond's labors only 14 members could be 
found. May 18, 1856, this small church invited Rev. Stewart Sheldon to 
preach in the Baptist church, and he became pastor May 25, 1856. July 1, 
1856, a meeting was held in Metropolitan Hall (corner of Pearl and Loder 
streets) to re-organize as a Congregational church. Rev. Stewart Sheldon 
w^as chosen chairman, and H. M. Sheerar secretary. Of the members were 
present, James Dunham, Julius Hoyt, Joseph Shaut and Myron Fuller. A 
resolution was passed bringing into existence the First Congregational 
Church, and a constitution, articles of faith and covenant were adopted. 
The church then consisted of these charter members: Julius Hoyt, Myron 
Fuller and wife, Mrs. John Dayton, Mrs. Silas Hills, Miss Nancy Cole, Joseph 
Shaut and wife, Mrs. John Carpenter, Mrs. Sally Johnston, H. N. Lewis, Mr. 
and Mrs. James Dunham, Mrs. Dwight Goodrich. The first services were 
held in Metropolitan Hall. The store under this hall was used as a whole- 
sale liquor store, and the church members could not enter their place of 
worship without being forcibly reminded that man had a depraved sjnrituous 
as well as a spirihiaf nature, and sometimes their devotion were disturbed 
by the devotees of Bacchus beneath them. The Free Press, edited and pub- 
lished by A. N. Cole, gave this small but vigorous church a compliment in 
one of his bright editorials thus: 



The spirit above is the spirit of love, 
The spirit below is the spirit of woe ; 
The spirit above is truly divine, 
The spirit below — adulterated wine. 



356 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



Services were held from April 28, 1856, until Nov. 7, 1857, in this hall. 
The new church went to work with faith and zeal. A lot was purchased of 
John Carpenter on the left bank of the Genesee river; the contract for build- 
ing the church let to Wm. Gifford; ground broken in May, 1857, and the 
church was finished and dedicated Nov. 10th of the same year. The dedi- 
cation sermon was preached by the pastor, Mr. Sheldon; text, "And the 
glory of the Lord filled the house." Mr. Sheldon remained pastor four 
years, preaching his farewell sermon May 6, 1860. Rev. Eusebius Hale, the 
next pastor, entered upon his duties Nov. 18, 1860, and remained three and 
one-half years. Rev. Charles Livingston succeeded him May 22, 1864. Aug. 
10, 1866, Mr. Livingston was ordained an evangelist by the Genesee Valley 
Presbytery, then in session in this church. Nov. 14, 1867, Mr. Livingston 
resigned, preaching his farewell sermon Nov. 18, 1867. Rev. T. H. Quigley 
was the next settled pastor, serving from May 30, 1868, to Ai3ril 30, 1870. 
Rev. E. W. Brown became pastor Aug. 20, 1870, and resigned May 7, 1873. 

With the growth of the village the Congregationalists began to think 
they ought to have a larger, a more central and a more commodious house 
of worship, and October 17, 1870, a special meeting was called and this 
building committee appointed: Julius Hoyt, E. J. Farnum, A. Howard and 
Thomas PuUar. Dec. 20, 1870, a contract for the lot now occupied was made 
for |4,000, and the first payment of $1,000 on it was made by the ladies. In 
the autumn of 1871, $12,000 was subscribed, and in the spring of 1872 a con- 
tract was made with a Mr. Henry for the brick work. The first blow to- 
ward the new church was struck by workmen June 10, 1872, in demolishing 
an old woodshead in the rear of the Stevens' dwelling which stood where 
the church now stands. Excavation was commenced on the cellar June 3, 
1872. The corner stone was laid with appropriate ceremonies Aug. 12, 1872, 
Rev. E. W. Brown, the pastor, read a poem, and Dr. Niles of Corning, 
preached the sermon in the Baptist church. There was placed in the cor- 
nerstone a box containing one copy each of these papers, pamphlets and 
magazines: 

New York Independent, Evangelist, Christian Union, American Messenger, Sunday School World, Ad- 
vocate and Guardian, Golden Censer, Child at Home, Good Words, Good Cheer, Old and Young, Sunday 
School Times, The Nation, Harper's Weekly, Frank Leslie's Ladies' Journal, New York Times, Tribune, and 
World, Illustrated Zeitung, Albany Argus and Evening Times, Rochester Union and Advertiser, Buffalo 
Daily Courier, Elmira Daily Advertiser, and Gazette, Corning Democrat, Bath Courier. Hornellsville Times, 
and Tribune, Springfield Republican, Canaseraga Advertiser, Andover Advertiser, Cuba Patriot, Allegany Coun- 
ty Reporter, Wellsville Free Press and Democrat, Friendship Register, Scio Express, Baxter's Record (Friend- 
ship), Godey's Ladies' Book, Our Young Folks, Golden Rule, Golden Hours, Family Christian Almanac (1872), 
Report of the 7th Annual Convention New York State Teachers' Association, Home Missionary, Presbyterian 
Monthly Record, S. S. Paper for August 18, 1872, Foreign Missionary, Bistoury, Wood's Household Magazine, 
Scribner's Monthly, American Educational Monthly, Bookseller's Guide, Bible Society Record, College Advo- 
cate, North Pacific Railroad Business Routes, etc., 7th Annual Announcement of the Phila. College of Dentis- 
try, Farmers' Almanac, 1872, Illustrated Catalogue of Estey Organs, Program of S. S. Teachers' Institute 
held at Rushford in 1872, Dental Cosmos, American Agriculturist, 48th Annual Report of American Sunday 
School Union, Sunday School Journal, 1872, Sunday School Teacher, 1872, Copy of Articles of Faith and 
Covenant of this church. History of this church and list of members, pewholders, officers and members of 
Sunday School, A copy of the subscription list for the church ; also a complete set of postage stamps, fur- 
nished by L. D. Davis, P. M., with a characteristic letter ; Complete set of revenue stamps given by York & 



Wellsville. 35'3 



Chamberlain, Coins contributed by Hoyt & Lewis, (silver) half-dollar, quarter-dollar, dime and lialf-dime ; 
(nickel) five-cent piece and three-cent piece ; (copper) cent and half-cent ; the last was given by Murray Carl ; 
U. S. fractional currency by Baldwin Bros., 50, 25, 10, and 5-cent scrip ; 25-cent fractional currency (first issue) 
by H. B. Marion ; Pocket diary, 1875, by Arnold & Ellis ; Patent ink-eraser by Palmer & Elliott, Watch-key 
by Kendall Bros., Stereoscopic views of E. J. Farnum's residence, Union Schoolhouse, E. B. Hall's residence, 
Fassett House and Howell House ; three views of A. N. ("ole's trout-ponds, six views of Nile's Hill in Alma, 
■where the cornerstone and other stones of this church were quarried ; two views on Genesee river below Jef- 
ferson's dam, one view of the old bridge by J. A. Rider, one certificate of stock issued by the Cong. Sabbath 
School in favor of said school, 62 shares, $6.20 ; Pocket-mirror and pinholder with pins, Steel pens and pen- 
holder, One set of artificial teeth mounted on rubber base, by H. M. Sheerar, dentist ; Lead pencil and slate 
pencil. One bottle of hair oil to be sold 100 years hence for the benefit of this church, One bottle of perfume, 
furnished by E. B. Hall, druggist, with this sentiment : " My love for life is so strong that I would like to live 
forever. August 11, 1872. E. B. Hall"; A set of cut nails from the smallest tack to a heavy "double-ten," 
by E. B. Tuller, hardware merchant. 

March 7, 1874, the church was completed at a cost (with lot) of $27,000, 
and March 12th it was dedicated free from debt with three dollars in the 
treasury.* Rev. Thomas K. Beecher preached the dedication sermon. 
Rev. P. W. Beecher (nephew of Thomas K.) offered the dedicatory prayer, 
and entered upon his duties as pastor, Sunday, March 15, 1874. He held 
the longest pastorate in Wellsville, 18 years and 3 months, and preached his 
farew^ell sermon June 26, 1892. Rev. Edward A. Leeper, D.D., the present 
pastor commenced his labors Nov. 6, 1892, and was installed Dec. 13, 1892. 
He was born in Princton, 111., in 1847, graduated from Oberhn Theological 
Seminary in 1877, received his degree of D.D. from Amity College, Iowa, 
in 1889, and came to Wellsville from York, Neb. 

In 1894 extensive repairs were made, consisting of an inclined elevated 
floor, a lowered celling of beautiful Georgia pine, new and convenient curved 
seats. The parlors were improved, electric lights put in and other changes 
made. The audience-room is now as line as any in this section. The cost 
in round numbers was $2,500. The pulpit is made of black- walnut and 
birds-eye maple. The communion table is the handiwork of Mr. Gaede, an 
accomplished wood-carver of Wellsville. 

First Things. — The prayermeeting was held in Metropolitan Hall, May, 
25, 1856. The first Sunday school session occurred May 11, 1856, H. M. 
Sheerar acting superintendent. He was elected June 8th, and has filled the 
office the greater part of the time since. The first " collection " ($3.90) was 
taken July 15, 1856. First admission by letter Mrs. Sheldon, Aug. 1, 1856. 
First admission by profession Polly Atwood. First baptism Edith Sheerar, 
Aug. 24, 1856. First instrument used in any church service in Wellsville, 
was a bass-viol played by H. M. Sheerar in Congregational choir. First 
meeting in Genesee street church, Nov. 15, 1857. First Sunday school teach- 
ers' meeting held at Samuel Carpenter's house, Jan. 17, 1878, H. M. Sheerar 
leader. Uniform series of lessons adopted by this Sunday school Jan. 10, 

* These articles were contributed to the church, and most of them are now in use : Pulpit Bible ($30) by 
C. E. Niles, druggist ; Hymn Hook, Stillman & Very ; a fine chandelier ($20) for the church parlors, by four 
young men of the church ; a chandelier for the vestibule, by Mrs. A. Howard ; a lamp for the pulpit ($5) by 
Miles Reckard ; a lamp for the organ ($5) by Mrs. Sutfin ; and Sarah and W. H. Johnson (sister and brother) 
presented a fine communion-service, consisting of an elegant tankard, four gold-lined chalices, a superb bap- 
tismal font, and two heavy salvers. 



858 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

1869. Blackboard, mai^s, charts aiid pictures introduced into this school 
before any other school in this county. The brick church was the first brick 
church erected in the county, and the first meeting in it was on March 15, 
1874. First session of Sunday school in the new chapel was Jan. 11, 1874. 

Dec. 7, 1874, Rev. Thomas K. Beecher lectured here giving the proceeds 
toward the purchase of a pipe organ for the church. To the same object 
$775 was pledged at the meeting held the next day. Mr. E. J. Farnum said 
at this meetingc " I will give one-tenth of the cost of the organ, and you may 
get as good a one as you are a mind to." This offer secured our splendid 
organ, which was placed in the church and first used in an organ concert 
May 14, 1875. The organ has 24 stops and over 800 speaking-pipes. Miss 
Edith Sheerar, the present organist, was the first regular organist. 

Methodist Eiriscopal Church* — On the 12th day of December, 1851, the 
following notice was issued: "The members of the Methodist Episcopal 
church of Wellsville will meet at the schoolhouse in the village of WeUs- 
ville on the 6th day of January, 1852, for the purpose of forming a corpora- 
tion and electing officers to build a Methodist Episcopal church or place of 
worship, to be located at Wellsville." Previous to this, meetings were held 
once in four weeks in the schoolhouse. A subscription had been circulated 
by Lewis Foster, and pledges of over $1,000 secured. At the meeting held 
pursuant to the above call, legal steps for the organization of the society 
were taken. John Carpenter, Lewis Foster and Dwight Goodrich were 
elected trustees, and instructed to procure a site for a meeting-house, super- 
intend the planning and building and to collect and use the subscription. 
Of the names recorded on that subscription but few (I think ten) would ap- 
pear in a present directory of Wellsville. The largest pledge was $50, one 
$30, six $25, four $20, a few $15, and the rest from 50c. to $10. On the 26th 
of August, 1852, a contract was made with S. Wyllys of Scio, for the erec- 
tion of a church 36x54 ft., for the sum of $1,354, not including the frame, 
mason work, or inside painting. Rev. John Shaw was pastor in 1852-3, and 
during his pastorate the church was built. He came before his apj^ointment 
on the Scio charge (which included Wellsville), held a quarterly meeting in 
the schoolhouse, and found 44 Methodists here. He accepted the appoint- 
ment at a salary of $500 for the support of his family of seven children; he 
received $350, partly made up by "donations," in which the value of the 
provisions furnished for the supper, and eaten by the donors, was included 
in the pastor's salary. Lewis Foster, in the movement which culminated 
in the building of the church, was the moving spirit. The subscription was 
secured by him, the contract for the building, and the records for some 
years afterward, are in his handwriting. For years his house was a home 
for Methodist preachers. 

In the summer of 1853 the church was dedicated. The writer came, a 
boy of 13, from Almond with his mother, to hear Bishop James preach the 

* Principally condensed from the historical sketch of the society read at the dedication by Mr. L. S. An- 
derson. 



Wellsville. 359 



dedicatory sermon. The impression made on his mind by the number of 
big pine stumps on Main street has outhved that made by the dedicatory 
exercises. On the 11th of February, 1854 a judgment was confessed by the 
trustees, in favor of S. Wyllys, the contractor, for $875, amount due him on 
contract. Rev. Mr. Manning was pastor in 1854-5. Services were held 
every Sunday afternoon and evening, the morning services being at Scio. 
During 1855-6 Rev. C. C. Goss was pastor. He was followed in 1856 by 
Rev. John Spinks, who remained until 1858. In March. 1857, Bro. John 
James Speed undertook to raise the money to pay the church debt of over 
$600. He continued in this 11 months, visiting 130 towns of the state in 
w^hich he collected $1 from most of the contributors, and from 10 to 25 cents 
for his expenses. The detailed statement of these contributions, together 
with the smallest item of his expenses, etc., and the resolutions, signed by 
Rev. John Spinks, pastor, Dwight Goodrich, W. H. H. Wyllys, and Eli Potter, 
trustees, approving the fathfulness and fidelity of his work, are among the 
interesting items of our church history. 

January 18, 1858, it was "Resolved unanimously that we approve 
congregational singing in our church," also, " Resolved that the trustees be 
authorized to sell the melodeon as best they can." At the annual meeting 
in 1859 the trustees were authorized to purchase a melodeon for the church, 
" if they can be provided with funds," and E. D. Rosa, Daniel Vaughn, and 
G. G. Bennett were elected as a committee to secure such funds. Also, 
"Resolved that the second resolution passed at the last annual meeting (ap- 
proving congregational singing) be rescinded. " As this resolution stands on 
record as the latest action of the church, such members as have indulged 
in congregational singing should understand that they have no official sanc- 
tion for so doing. 

Rev. E. D. Rosa in 1858 succeeded Rev. John Spinks. his term extending 
until 1860. During his pastorate the work and influence of the church were 
largely extended. The church at Scio was built. Preaching in several 
places where there had been no religious services was begun. Brother 
Rosa had appointments at Wellsville, Scio, Vandermark, Knight's Creek, 
Hallsport, Stannard's Corners, and Proctor schoolhouse. Preaching at 
Hallsport was in the schoolhouse, controlled by an Universahst. He closed 
the schoolhouse, and a hotel keeper offered his ballroom, which was accep- 
ted, and a series of meetings held, in which so many were converted that a 
preacher was sent to Hallsport and Stannard's Corners. Soon after the 
war of the rebellion Mrs. Grant was being congratulated on the general's 
work, when she replied that she was not surprised, "for the general was 
always a very wilful man." The writer was not acquainted with Brother 
Rosa, but it would seem that, fortunately for Methodism in Wellsville, he 
might be characterized in the same way. Realizing the necessity of a par- 
sonage he desired the church to undertake the work of securing one, which 
was refused. He then purchased the ground where our new church now 
stands. It was well covered with pine stumps. He employed Bro. Walter 



360 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Statham by the month to assist in church work at the outside preaching- 
places, and dig- stumps. After he had dug the dirt from the roots and got 
a large lever in position, he would invite the workmen going by to dinner, 
to "give him a lift. " In this way the stumps were removed. After Brother 
Rosa had done this and secured a donation of |50 in lumber from E. J. 
Farnum, and |125 in timber from Bennett Rowland, the trustees were in- 
duced to take the lot, and the parsonage was built. 

From 1860 to 1862 Rev. S. H. Aldridge was pastor, from 1862 to 1864 
Rev. C. J. Bradbury, 1864 to 1866, Rev. Wm. Armstrong. The records 
show but little of the work, as the war overshadowed all other interests. 
The writer came to Wellsville in the spring of 1866. Preaching services in 
the afternoon were well attended, but a large share of the congregation were 
members of other churches, while many Methodists went elsewhere in the 
morning, and were too tired to come in the afternoon. The chorister and 
some of the members of the Baptist choir constituted the larger part of our 
choir. Mr. Henry L. Jones, a Baptist, was our Sunday school superintend- 
ent. That year we raised as our share of the pastor's salary ^300, to which 
was added a very liberal " donation," Brother Armstrong being very popu- 
lar. The ladies cleared about $90 at a festival held July 4, 1866, in the un- 
finished store of Mr. John B. Clark. A receipted bill for the strawberries 
for that festival at 40 cents a quart was found not long ago. During 1866 to 
1869 Bro. E. P. Huntingdon was pastor. He saw that if we were ever to 
have a congregation and Sunday school in Wellsville of our own it must be 
by having services in the morning, and decided to have services here in the 
morning and at Scio in the afternoon. This deprived us, at once, of the out- 
side help we had had in choir. Sunday school and congregation, and for a 
time it was hard rowing up the stream. During Bro. Huntingdon's pastor- 
ate the fund in the hands of the ladies started by the festival July 4, 1866, 
was used to make needed repairs and the pulpit platform in its present 
appearance was built. During Bro. Huntingdon's pastorate we were able to 
add one-third to the amount previously raised for pastor's salary, and our 
congregation, choir and Sunday school became established as Methodist. 

Rev. Daniel Clark was pastor from 1869 to 1871. During his second 
year a large revival at Scio added so many to the church there that the 
charge was divided at the ensuing conference. Rev. David Nutten was 
pastor from 1871 to 1874. During his pastorate our congregation increased 
until it was necessary to enlarge the church in 1872 at a cost of $1,600. 
Pledges covering the amount were secured, but so much time was taken by 
some who paid, and so many failed to pay, that when all the pledges possible 
were collected there remained a debt of $900. The annual interest on this, 
together with the last end of the pastor's salary, were usually paid by draft 
on the Ladies' Aid Society. Bro. D. Leisenring was pastor from 1874 to 
1876. His faithful labors, together with those of his equally faithful wife, 
resulted in a widening and deepening of the hold of the church. Rev. Mr. 
Bradbury was pastor from 1876 to 1878. 



Wellsville. 361 



Our beloved Father Rice was pastor from 1878 to 1881. During the last 
two years he lived in his own house and gave the rent of the parsonage to 
the church and it was applied in reducing the church debt. During his 
pastorate a revival occurred, the fruits of which are among the most potent 
factors of our church life to-day. Bro. C. G. Stevens was pastor from 1881 
to 1884. His work among us was ably supported by his wife. It was during 
his pastorate we had our last "donation" for the pastor. It was largely 
attended and the amount realized was unexpectedly large, testifying to the 
general esteem felt for him by the community. It was determined at the 
beginning of the conference year 1884 and 5 to make the seats free and to 
adopt the plan of securing pledges payable weekly. Its success was immedi- 
ate and a happy surprise. This change in our financial plan marks distinctly 
the beginning of an improved condition in our finances. 

During the pastorate of Brother L. D. Chase, commencing with our 
change of plan in 1884 and closing in 1887, the remainder of the church debt 
(then 1500) was paid. All incidental debts were paid, and at the close of each 
conference year we were able to report " pastor paid in full " without call- 
ing on any of the "supplements." In 1887 Rev. E. P. Hubbell became 
I)astor, the first under the five-year limit, and remained the full five years. 
Among the enduring monuments of his labors stands the new church. The 
coming of Rev. F. H. Cowman as Brother Hubbell's successor is a demon- 
stration of the successful working of the church economy, and his pastorate 
so far has carried on well the good work done by Bro. Hubbell. The number 
of communicants is over 400. A large Sabbath school is doing good work 
for the young. This church has several vigorous auxihary societies: 
Ladies' Aid Society, Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, Epworth League, 
Junior Epworth League, Wrecking Band, etc. 

In the pastorate of Mr. Hubbell it was decided to build a |10,000 church 
on the corner of Madison and Broadway streets. By 1892 $9,000 was raised 
and the contract to build the church was let to John Prest of Andover. It 
was completed at cost of $13,000 and dedicated April 23, 1893, Bishop Vin- 
cent attending to that function. The Ladies' Aid Society paid $1,300 to the 
building fund, and on the day of dedication $6,000 was pledged to free the 
house from debt and $2,000 for an organ. The church is an " up-to-date " 
edifice, a credit to the village. The bell is the oldest church bell of Wells- 
ville, having called Methodists to worship for over 40 years. 

The ''First Baptist Cliurch of Wellsville" was organized May 21, 1852. The 
following persons were constituent members: A. A. Goodliff and wile. Wel- 
come H. Coats and wife, Charles Hatch, Bartholomew Coats and wife, I. W. 
Fassett, S. Lowell and wife, Wayne Spicer and wife, Robert Vorhees and 
wife, E. Gowdy and wife, W. H. Harrison and wife, Mrs. Tuthill, Mrs. 
Spicer, Mrs. Sally Farnum and Mrs. and Miss Carpenter. February 7, 
1854, the first meetinghouse was dedicated. The number of members 
at this time was 64. The growth of the organization from the beo-inning was 



362 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

very flattering, and although the early years of the enterprise were filled 
with perplexity and trial, the church continued to advance steadily. One 
edifice and its furnishings has been destroyed by fire, and again a cyclone 
unroofed the building, but the noble band of working and praying brethren 
and sisters grappled successfully with all these difficulties and maintained 
a prominent place in the village. Few, if any. Baptist churches can boast of 
such a membership, comprising the choicest and best of earth. The society 
has been always noted for loyalty to its pastor and for unity and harmony 
among its members. The first pastor of the church was Rev. G. W. Hunt- 
ley. He was followed by Rev. L. W. Onley, Rev. James DeBois, Rev. F. F. 
Emerson, Rev. E. F. Crane, Rev. J. W. Spoor. Rev. Albert Coit, Rev. M. W. 
Covell and Rev. Charles B. Perkins who is the present pastor. Under his 
ministry a beautiful parsonage has been erected upon a corner lot given by 
Mrs. W. B. Coats. A flourishing Young People's Society of Christian En- 
deavor is maintained, and the sabbath school, numbering 250. has for the 
superintendent Charles E. Davis. During the revival in December, 1895. 
the church increased its membership about 25. 

Rev. Charles B. Perkins, A. M., was born in Newburyport, Mass., Oct. 
12, 1845. He was graduated from the college now Colgate University in 
1871 and in 1873 from Hamilton Theological Seminary. October 9, 1873, he 
was ordained pastor of the Clinton Avenue Baptist Church of Trenton, N. J., 
where he laboredfour and one-half years. He was next pastor of theFirst Bap- 
tist Church of Binghamton for two years, then had charge nine years of the 
First Baptist church of Amsterdam and came to Wellsville in 1893 after a 
five year pastorate at Corning. His wife, formerly Miss Mary Northrup, he 
married in 1873 at Binghamton. They have one child, Fannie White. 

St. John's Ejjiscopal Church was organized according to the constitution 
and canons of the Protestant Episcopal Church and the laws of the state of 
New York, May 30, 1859, and admitted to union with the diocese of Western 
New York in the next August. Rev. John A. Bowman w^as then missionary 
in charge. He was followed by Rev. Robt. Dobyns in 1864. Rev. J. H. 
Waterbury took charge of the parish in December, 1865. These officers 
were elected April 2, 1866: Senior warden, W. G. Johnson; junior warden, 
Elijah Stowell; vestrymen, E. A. Smith, Geo. Russell, Hiram York, Nathanael 
Johnson, D. C. Judd, Lebbeus Sw^eet, J. L. Williams, R. R. Helme. The 
corner stone of the church edifice, erected during the rectorship of Rev. J. 
H. Waterbury, was laid Aug. 13, 1866, by the rector, these gentlemen partici- 
pating in the service: Rev. Lewis Thibou of Belmont, Rev. M. Scofield of 
Angelica, and Rev. Dr. H. N. Strong of Clean. The Rev. Adolphus Rumpff 
succeeded Rev. Mr. Waterbury as rector. The church building was moved 
to its present site, corner Main and Genesee streets in July, 1872. Rev. J. 
Wainright Ray was rector at that time. The year previous a commodious 
house was purchased to be used as a parsonage. Among the early officers 
of the church were Brigham Hanks, D. C. Judd and C. M. Bucher who 
served as wardens. In April, 1887, Rev. E. H. Edson became rector. The 



Wellsville. 363 



present (1895) officers are Brigham Hanks, senior warden; Oscar A. Fuller, 
junior warden. Rev. S. A. Whitcomb is the present rector. He is a very 
scholarly gentleman, with fine literary abihties. The ladies of the church 
organized and for years have maintained two very efficient societies for 
benevolent work; they are known as St. John's Guild and St. Margaret's 
Guild. 

The Broad Street Church of Christ [D isci pie f<)wds the immediate outgrowth 
of a series of revival meetings held in the opera house in February, 1886, by 
the Rev. H. B. Sherman of Canada, afterward state evangelist for Pennsyl- 
vania. An organization was eft'ected that winter and on Dec. 4, 1888, the so- 
ciety was legally incorporated with 80 members and these officers: David 
S. Jones. W. M. Bellisle, and T. J. Applebee. trustees; David S. Jones and 
T. J. Applebee, elders; W. M. BeUisle, Samuel F. Hanks and T. J. Applebee, 
deacons; and S. F. Hanks, clerk; all of whom still hold their respective 
offices. The pri me mover in organizing the church was T. J. Applebee, a 
member of the Church of Christ of Scio. Services w^ere at first held in the 
opera house and later in a brick store which the society had rented of W. F. 
Jones and fitted up. A frame church building was begun, which, on Jan. 
24, 1889, was formally opened and dedicated. Rev. B. B. Tyler of New York 
City preached the dedicatory sermon, assisted by Rev. J. M. Trible of 
Buffalo, and local pastors of other denominations. The edifice, including lot, 
cost about $6,000 and the society is free of indebtedness. The present 
membership is 125. The first pastor was Rev. George P. Slade, who came 
from Centralia, 111., and assumed charge in the spring of 1886. He continued 
until January, 1887, when he moved to Missouri and was succeeded by Rev. 
John Encell, from Syracuse, who remained till August, 1889. He went to Sus- 
pension Bridge, N. Y., and his successor was Rev. D. H. Patterson of Indiana, 
who continued in charge until Nov. 1, 1892, when he went to Auburn. The 
next pastor was Rev. C. A. Kleeberger. Nine months later he was succeeded 
by John L. Phoenix of Troy, Pa., for one year. The present pastor, Rev. A, 
R. Miller, formerly of Canton, Ohio, commenced his pastorate Nov. 1, 1894. 
The church is rapidly growing and prosperous, 35 additions to its member- 
ship occurring in the winter of 1894-5. The Sunday school membership is 
about 100 with 12 teachers and William Wilson superintendent. 

German Evangelical Lutheran Church.^' — As tall oaks from little acorns 
grow, so did this congregation grow^ from very small and slender begin- 
nings to its present strength and importance. It is about a score and ten 
years ago that a few Lutheran families, who had cast their lot amongst the 
forest-clad hills of old Allegany, banded themselves together to form what 
is to-day the flourishing Evangelical Lutheran congregation of this place. 
They had shaken the dust of the fatherland from their feet primarily to 
amehorate their i)hysical welfare. They found what they had hoped to find, 
a land of milk and honey; honey trickling even from the forest tree. What of 
the primeval condition of the country? What of the toil and struggles to con- 

* By H. A. Laewen. 



364 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

vert this wilderness into homes'? They were able and willing to cope with 
them unflinchingly. But no sooner did they see their physical wants in a 
measure supplied, when their spiritual wants came home to them. Echoes 
from their childhood and youth, when they used to chant the battle hymn of 
the great reformer: '' Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott!^^ when they were wont 
to listen to the inspired words of the sacred volume on the sabbath day after 
the toil and turmoil of the busy week. They cast about for a proper person 
to preach to them the way to salvation in their own tongue even as it had 
been taught them in the fatherland. Such a man they found to be the Rev. 
I. H. Doermann, at that time pastor of a Lutheran congregation at Olean. 
He was prevailed upon to visit them from time to time, and to perform what 
pastoral ministrations were necessary until they sent a call to Mr. Conrad 
Engelder, who had, in June, 1860, been graduated from the Concordia Semi- 
nary at St. Louis, Mo., an institution of learning belonging to the Lutheran 
synod of that state. They were in all 17 persons who resolved to form a 
congregation with Mr. Conrad Engelder as their chosen pastor, who there- 
after successfully administered the affairs of this little flock. They pros- 
pered and grew in number until they felt sufficiently strong to secure some 
suitable place of worship of their own, having until this time held their de- 
votional exercises in the various houses of the several members, A house 
and lot on Martin St. was bought from Mrs. Judd for $800. The building 
was transformed into a schoolhouse which was also used as a place of wor- 
ship on the sabbath. This modest structure was the witness to many a 
physical exertion on the part of the i^astor to ground the young idea in the 
three R"s during the week, which exertions were turned into spiritual ones 
on the sabbath to ground the adults in the fundamental principles of Luth- 
eran theological lore, and all the glories of the Solomonian temple in the land 
of milk and honey under the old dispensation, did not seem so precious to 
these early worshipers as did this unpretentious temple in the valley of 
the Genesee under the new. 

In the year 1860 Mr. John Himmler succeeded Mr. C. Engelder in the 
pastorate, the latter having accepted a call to the city of Pittsburgh. By 
this time the number of communicants had risen to 200. The congregation 
had built a parsonage costing $1,120 on the Judd place, and must necessarily 
have a larger building for church purposes. They were offered and bought 
their present church building on Genesee St., for |2,700. At the close 
of 1872 the number of communicants had grown to 266 and although Mr. 
Himmler accepted a call to Cohocton, N. Y., and C. A. Geyer, a recent gradu- 
ate of Concordia Seminary was called to occupy the pulpit. The change of 
pastors did not retard the growth of the congregation; for at the end of the 
year 1874 we find the number of cojnmunicants to have been 305. Mr. C. A. 
Geyer was installed Aug. 6, 1873, and continued 2 years, when he resigned. 
Mr. Carl Zollmann, another recent graduate of the same theological semi- 
nary of the Missouri synod, taking up the reins which had to be relinquished 
by his predecessor for reasons of sickness, continued to guide the fortunes 



Wellsville. 365 



of this Lutheran band until the year 1882 when he accepted the responsible 
position of director to the Martin Luther Orphan's Home at West Roxbury, 
Mass. At this time the number of communicants amounted to 486. The 
work to care not only for these adults, but also instruct the young in secular 
knowledge, devolved upon Mr. Geo. Buch the present incumbent of the pas- 
torate, who was called from New York City to succeed Mr. Zollmann. He 
was installed on the 11th of September, 1882. Under the efficient, careful 
and discreet management of Mr. Buch the congregation continued and does 
continue to prosper. The number of communicants has risen to 700. The 
church edifice has been enlarged. A two-storied schoolhouse has been built 
and the congregation is numerically one of the strongest in this village. 
Their property is valued at about $10,000. At this time of writing (Febru- 
ary. 1895,) the ofticers are: president, Rev. Geo. Buch; secretary, Fritz 
Sievers; treasurer, John Gallm ami; trustees, Messrs. Henry Putzmann, Fred 
Kaufmann and Louis Dornow; deacons, Messrs. Christian Gallmann Sen., 
Christian Gallmann, Jun., Andrew Braunschweiger and Charles Biermann. 
It is a law unto themselves with Lutheran congregations to establish 
and maintain parochial schools, so that the young may be instructed not 
only in secular knowledge, but also in those things which are after all of 
paramount importance to any Christian and which enter the composition of 
the most desirable type of citizenship. For these reasons the various pas- 
tors of this flock administered not only to the spiritual wants of old and 
young, but since a secular education must not in anyway be neglected they 
also instructed the young idea in the three R's as mentioned above. Truly 
they had withal a busy time of it laboring in season and out of season. Since 
this congregation had grown to such an extent that the pastor was found 
unable to serve two masters — church and school — a resolution was passed 
May, 1891, to send a call to Mr. H. A. Laewen of Bergholz, Niagara county, 
to look after the interests of the young generation. He commenced the 
labor in September of the same year. In the interval of 1891 to 1895 the 
number of pupils has grown to 100 and the school has been arranged into 
grades. The pastor gives religious instruction throughout all grades. The 
younger pupils are caught by a lady teacher, whose place is at this time 
filled by Miss Ottilie Sievers of Wellsville. The older pupils from the age 
of 9 to 14 are instructed by Mr. H. A. Laewen. It is the aim and object of 
the school to make the pupil proficient in: 1st, "Religion as expounded by 
the Lutheran church." 2d. English and German reading, 3d, Enghsh and 
German spelling, 4th, English and German penmanship, 5th, Arithmetic, 
6th, English Language Lessons, 7th, Deutsche Sprachlehre, 8th, Geography, 
9th, United States History. Time of instruction from 9 to 12 M., and from 
1 to 4 P. M. The educational course closes with the 14th year, when the 
average pupil is supposed to possess an education, founded upon a Christian 
basis, which will enable him to successfully cope with the hardships and 
adversities of life, and in time make him a good citizen of this world and of 
the world hereafter. 



366 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Rev. George Buch was born in Koenig, Germany, June 6, 1854, and came 
to America in February, 1872. He studied in Darmstadt, Germany, the 
Polytechnical School in Philadelphia, and finished his education in the Evan- 
gelical Lutheran Seminary in Philadelphia, Pa., graduating therefrom in 
1877. He began his ministerial career as a missionary in Narrowsburg, 
Sullivan county, and has also preached in Binghamton, Great Bend, and 
Lackawaxen, in this state. In 1879 he was called to New York City as second 
pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Immanuel church on 86th street. Six 
months later Mr. Buch assumed pastoral charge of the Evangelical Lutheran 
Immanuel church on 83d street, which position he held until 1882, when he 
came to Wellsville, where he has since been pastor of the First German 
Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Holy Trinity. Rev. Mr. Buch is much 
respected as a pastor and a citizen. He takes great interest in educational 
matters and is a member of the school board. It was through his influence 
and personal activity that the German church at Hornellsville was started. 

The German Methodists, Rev. C. Haef eli, pastor, have an organization of 
some years standing, and a small church in Brooldyn on West Main St. 

The Church of the Immaculate Conception. For many years an earnest 
Catholic society has existed here, which now numbers about 180 families, 
with a Sunday school of 200 attendants. Under the pastorate of the Very 
Reverend Dean Leddy the church has been broadened and strengthened, 
and. in 1895, one of the finest church edifices in Western New York was 
erected at a cost of $50,000. The building is a large Gothic structure, cruci- 
form in shape, with two spires respectively 148 and 96 feet in height, and 
two transepts 26 feet in width, containing handsome cathedral windows 24 
feet high, and is entirely constructed of the beautiful Warsaw blue stone. 
The exterior dimensions are 144.5x91 feet. The auditorium, 96x90 feet, 
seats 750 persons. It is an ornament to Wellsville. The stone for the 
foundation came from a valuable quarry on the Rauber farm, presented to 
the congregation by John Rauber. A parochial school is connected with the 
church and is spoken of elsewhere. Very Rev. Henry M. Leddy, V. F., was 
born in county Clare, Ireland, in 1842, received his preparatory education in 
Ireland, and, coming to America, attended St. Francis College at Albany 
where he was graduated in 1865 as A. B. and in 1866 as A. M. Taking holy 
orders in 1870 he was sent to Buffalo as assistant to Vicar-General Gleason 
at St. Bridget's church and served there 14 months. In 1872 he was 
stationed at Watkin s and for eight years ministered to the congregations 
there, at Horseheads and at Van Ettenville. In November, 1879, he took 
charge of the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Wellsville and now 
resides here. He is esteemed by the entire community, beloved by his con- 
gregation, and is building up a strong and useful church. 

Cemeteries. — The very earliest burying grounds were private ones, but 
the Farnum Cemetery, recently enlarged and improved, was used in the 
days before ever the village had a name. The earliest recorded burial there 
was that of the infant son of landlord Samuel Shingler in 1839. The stone 



Wellsville. 367 



now stands over this grave. This cemetery is on good high ground, at a 
convenient distance from the village. The Roman Catholic Cemetery is 
above the Farnum and nearer IMain street. The old Johnson graveyard on 
Genesee street, though not now much used is well kept. 

Wellsville Free Public Library.* — The history of the organization and 
growth of this institution is very interesting and instructive, showing what 
the influence of public-spirited and enterprising women can do for the bene- 
fit of a community. The library, as its name implies, is free to the residents 
of the incorporated village of Wellsville, and is owned by the corporation. 
It has a charter from the University of the State of New York, and a board 
of trustees, appointed by the trustees of the village, pursuant to chapter 387, 
of the laws of 1892. It is now, after a ^Deriod of less than two years from 
its creation, one of the best equipped and most successful libraries in West- 
ern New York, having 2,000 volumes of the choicest literature, and a weeldy 
circulation of 500 books, and is the direct result of the untiring efforts of a 
women's literary society known as the Monday Club. This club in pursuing 
its courses of study soon discovered the need of an institution of this 
character and sought how the need might be supplied. It was known to 
some of them that in the past there had been a public library in the village, 
but it had fallen into disuse and the books were scattered far and wide. 
Upon inquiry it was learned that the old library was a stock company, its 
shares of stock owned by men and women, several of whom had died and 
others who had long ago left their old homes. Some of the books were 
found in the rooms of the Y. M. C. A., Avhich had for a time used them, with 
the consent of some of the stockholders, others were packed away in boxes, 
and many were in the hands of individuals who had taken them from the 
library and never returned them. The women determined to try and get 
these books as a nucleus for better things and try and organize a hbrary 
which should be of a permanent character, and of the benefits of 
which all might share. As a first step they at their own expense procured 
of the University of the State of New York one of its Traveling Libraries, 
consisting of 100 volumes. These books they loaned to the public free, 
themselves acting as librarians, and one or more of the members becoming 
responsible for the value of the books. Then they obtained the consent of 
many of the stockholders of the old association and took possession of such 
of its books as they could find, procured the consent of the board of educa- 
tion of the Union Free School that they might use a room in the school build- 
ing for library pur j)oses, and after fitting the room at their own expense, put 
the books in there and gave the public access to them. By this time the 
public had become interested in the movement and they found little difiticulty 
in getting the stock of the old library association turned over to them. The 
Y. M. C. A. gladly released such claim as it had to the books in its possession, 
and gradually all that was left of the books were accumulated and got ready 
for circulation. When this had been accomplished the women went before 

*By Mrs. F. B. Church. 



368 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

the village trustees and asked them to appoint, pursuant to statute, library 
trustees, and to accept the books they had secured as the foundation of a 
free public library for the village. They also petitioned the board to set 
apart in the new City Hall, then barely begun, rooms for library purposes. 
Both of these requests were gladly granted, and the enterprise promised 
to be a success. 

These persons were appointed as the first board of library trustees, 
viz.: Mrs. Alfred S. Brown, Mrs. Enos W. Barnes, Mrs. Frank B. Church, 
Mrs. Waters B. Coats, Mrs. James Macken, T. Frank Fisher and Hon. 
Clarence A. Farnum. Very much remained to be done to carry out the 
plans of the club. No funds had been provided by the village, nor had any 
been asked, it being the determination of the ladies to put the library on a 
thorough working basis and turn it over to the authorities perfect in all its 
details. As a first step, after getting the books mentioned, they called upon 
the state for an appropriation, based upon the value of the books they had 
secured. This was granted and the money expended in the purchase of 
new books. In the mean time Mrs. F. B. Church, the president of the club, 
went to Albany and at the State Library learned the most approved meth- 
ods of library work. Under her direction the members of the club have 
carefully catalogued and classified the books by the Melville Dewey system 
of "decimal classification," a dictionary catalogue, also a subject catalogue 
of cards has been made and is kept revised to the latest purchase and 
the most approved library methods have been put in practice by them. 
In June, 1895, the city hall was completed, and beautiful rooms set apart 
for the library. These rooms the ladies of the club have fitted with shelves 
and furnished with chairs, desks, tables, draperies, rugs, and all things 
necessary to make it a model library and reading room. They have them- 
selves twice moved the books, first into the school building and from there 
to the new rooms. Up to the present time members of the club have volun- 
tarily acted as librarians, devoting at first three afternoons, and now, owing 
to the largely increased demand for books, four afternoons of each week to 
the work Money has been raised by subscription and by lectures and other 
entertainments to meet the expenses, and as a basis for application for state 
aid, so that when the library was established in its permanent quarters, 
there were 1,525 volumes, and $500 in the treasury. This sum is now being 
expended for good books, under the supervision and approval of the Univer- 
sity of the State of New York. 

The Monday Club is composed of energetic and progressive women, full 
of the spirit of the age. Mrs. Frank B. Church, president since its organi- 
zation, Mrs. Alfred S. Brown, vice president, Mrs. E. W. Barnes and Miss M. 
Fannie Lewis have been the leaders in the enterprise, while every member 
of the club has worked with the proverbial energy and zeal of women for the 
accomphshment of their aim, an excellent pubhc hbrary, free to all. They 
are justly proud of their success and the people of Wells ville are loud in their 
praises, and eagerly grasp the opportunity to enjoy with them the benefits. 



Wellsville. 369 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

POSTAL HISTORY, MANUFACTURING, SOCIETIES, ETC. 

THE PIONEER physician, Dr. George B. Jones, was made the first post- 
master of Wellsville Feb. 25, 1835. A route from Angelica was estab- 
lished, and mail received and sent once a week. It was said that the post- 
master either carried the entire mail about with him in his hat, or dumped 
it into a basket and permitted all comers to look it over. The mail for years 
was very light and so was the postmaster's remuneration. The U. S. Official 
Register records Dr. Jones' compensation for 18-43 as $36.28. Of the 45 post- 
offices then in Ahegany county 8 did a larger business than Wellsville. 
Tradition says that the first postoffice, the doctor's residence, was on central 
Main street opposite the Thornton block. It remained there a few years 
until the doctor built a house Avhere the Farnum block stands. From 
here it was moved into the Conklin & Lee store, corner of Main and State 
streets, where Carlton L. Farnum found it when he became postmaster, June 
13, 1849. Dwight Goodrich, deputy under Jones, remained during Farnum's 
administration. The office was very soon located in the large building op- 
posite the E. J. Farnum homestead on State street until 1851, when Mr. Far- 
num built the Empire block on the opera house corner of State and Main 
streets, where the office remained from that time until E. A. Smith's ap- 
pointment July 27, 1853. Previous to the establishment of the Erie railway 
mail service in 1851, Wellsville was not on the line of the principal mail 
route, which ran from Angelica, via Belvidere, Friendship and Cuba to Olean 
via Point. Our mail was carried weekly on horseback to and fro from Angelica, 
Phillips ville, Scio, Wellsville, Hallsport, Whitesville, White's Corners, Harri- 
son Valley, Westfield, Knox ville, Elkland to Lawrenceville, Pa. Early in 1850 
Mr. Farnum obtained stage service and semi-weekly mails. No postage 
stamps were used and every letter had to be recorded. The postal charges 
were 5 cents for 30 milesor less; lOcents for from 30 to 80 miles; 12 cents from 
80 to 150 miles: 18 cents for 150 to 400 miles and 25 cents for over 400 miles. 
Under Ephraim A. Smith the office was kept in what became the "Blue 
Front " opposite the present Congregational church. December 28, 1857, 
Nathaniel Johnson was appointed, but H. P. Talcott supervised and con- 
ducted the office, which he moved into a building on the site of the Commer- 
cialhotel. Luther F. Philhps was postmaster from Sept. 20, 1861, to May 10, 
1866, when William T. Barnes succeeded him and served until April 11, 1867, 
when Mrs. Minerva Phillips was appointed. Under Mr. Phillips, Barnes 
and Mrs. Phillips the office was kept in a store between the Coats and Far- 
num blocks on Main street. Lorenzo D. Davis held the postmastership 
from April 19, 1869, to Dec. 16, 1881. He erected a brick block for the office 
on the east side of Main street, now occupied by a crockery and jewelry 



370 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

store. In 1881 postmaster Alfred S. Brown moved the office to its present 
location, corner of Main and Madison streets. January 27, 1886, Brown was 
succeeded by Wm. W. Nichols. Thomas O'Connor held office from March 
7, 1887, to July 24, 1890, when James Thornton was appointed; under whose 
administration the office facilities were much improved, additional clerks 
employed, and the lobby, which had been occupied by .tobacco, candy and 
jewelry shops, was enlarged by their removal. On Feb. 22, 1893. a fire so 
injured the office that for three months it was kept in the Lincoln block while 
the office was being remodeled and repaired, before the repairing ad- 
mitted of its return. August 29, 1894, John H. Wolverton was made post- 
master. His assistants are: Miss Mary Frances Dobbins (in office since 
Jan. 1, 1882, and deputy postmaster for 10 years). Miss Helen Nichols, 
money order clerk, (in the office since 1886) and Mrs. J. H. Wolverton. In 
ten years the amount of mail matter has increased 50 per cent, and the cash 
receipts 25 per cent. In 1888 the receipts were |6,096; in 1892, $7,934. In 
1893 the receipts fell off $150. The business of 1895 however will equal if 
not exceed that of 1892. About 2,000 letters and 250 registered articles are 
handled daily. In the money order department |500 a week is the average 
business. Mail for 23 " dis " offices is handled. This includes stage or " star " 
routes. Seven Erie trains bring mail daily, 5 from the east and 2 from the 
west. Mail is sent on but 5 trains, 3 eastern and 2 western. Four stages 
carry mail. 

Banks. — E. P. Clark, the first banker, had an office in his store on Pearl 
street early in the fifties. In 1868 Wm. A. and Sumner Baldwin estabhshed 
the "Bank of WeUsville," a private institution which continued in business 
until January, 1894, when a disastrous failure was made. Yorke & Cham- 
berlain's bank, established in the early sixties, failed in 1877. The sohd 
First National Bank had its foundation in the old Hoyt & Lewis bank which 
began in a small way in 1856, when arrangements were made by Hoyt and 
Lewis (dry goods merchants here) with a dry goods house in New York City 
to make deposits and draw drafts. Until February. 1879, business was con- 
ducted in an office partitioned off from the store in the Union block, then 
the bank was moved into the Yorke & Chamberlain bank building on Main 
and Furnace streets, now the Beever meat-market. Mr Lewis conducted 
the bank business while Mr. Hoyt attended to the store. December 26, 1881, 
another removal was made into the present bank building, constructed by 
Hoyt & Lewis on Main and Madison streets. F. H. Furman became cashier. 
The business increased rapidly, and Jan. 3, 1883, a national bank was or- 
ganized. H. N. Lewis was elected president, Hon. E. J. Parnum, vice president; 
and Frank H. Furman cashier. January, 1886, Hon. E. J. Farnum was elected 
president and in 1891 was succeeded by Hon. W. F. Jones. The present 
officers are: Hon. W. F. Jones, jjres.; Hon. C. A. Farnum, vice president; 
F. H. Furman, cashier; J. B. Jones, assist, cashier. Wm. Duke and 
George E. Brown with the officers named constitute the board of 
directors. The deposits at the close of September, 1895, were $336,187.02. 



Wellsville. 371 



The bank is capitalized at $100,000. In 1886 H. N. Lewis established a 
private bank which succumbed in the panic of '93 and had to shut doors 
in August of that year. The Citizens National Bank began business in the 
spring of 1895 in the banking rooms formerly occupied by Baldwin Bros. 
It has a capital of 1^50,000, with deposits aggregating in Sept., 1895, 
$113,231.62. The officers are T. P. Otis, pres.; E. A. Willets, vice pres.; 
C W. Curtis, Jr., cashier. The directors are these officers and Wm. 
K. Paul, W. J. Richardson, L. W. Rockwell, Charles Day, A. E. Cowles, W. 
C. Farnum, and C. W, Curtis, Jr. 

Lawyers. — The first attorney who settled here permanently was Zenas H. 
Jones. He came in 18-11. Richard Burchill was one of the early lawyers. 
Sheldon Brewster practiced in 1845. The attorneys now are: Rufus Scott, 
"William Spargur, Clarence A. Farnum, O. A. Fuller. William F. Jones, 
JohnF. Rumpff, W. J. Whitwood, F. H. Church, F. B. Church, Geo. H. 
Blackman, C. S. Hall, A. L. Purdy, Charles F. Vincent, Wm. E. Smith, Henry 
L. Jones, Claude R. Scott, Willett L. Ward. (See "Courts and Lawyers.") 

Physicians. — The successive physicians here have been: Dr. Jones, Dr. 
Babcock, Loren Leonard, H. H. Nye, Dr. Purple, Dr. Whitney (first hom- 
eopathist), M. Macken and Drs. Pelton, Merriam, Allen, Doty, Purman, Gish, 
Van AntwerxD, Witter, Hanks, Coller, Crandall, Koyle, and Gena (botanic). 

Court Stenograj)her . — E. A. Childs. 

Dentists.— R. M. Sheerar & Son, J. G. Wilson. F. H. Ellsworth. 

Insurance. — S. F. Hanks, Brigham Hanks, Paul Hanks, J. S. Norton, 
Opp & Kendall. 

Puhlications and Printing Houses. — Besides the new^spapers mentioned in 
the general history, Wellsville has had these: Tlie Eural Budget, R. O. Shaut, 
publisher, existed from October, 1856, to 1860. In 1877 Ed. Goodrich and 
R. C. Hill pubhshed a few numbers of The Wellsville Union. In 1881 A. E. 
Cowles published The Daily Bepuhlican for a time as a campaign organ, in 
the interests of Wm. R. McEwen. The Daily Democrat was issued by W. W. 
Nichols for a month in the spring of 1881, and a brief period in the fall of 
1885, and The Daily Free Press was issued from about 1883 to 1887. 

The Reporter Printing House, E. Willard Barnes and Charles H. Barnes 
proprietors, is the largest printing establishment of the county. A ten- 
horse power steam engine and a gas engine give the power to run its nu- 
merous presses; while the plant occupies the entire lower floor and basement 
of a beautiful brick building erected by Enos W. Barnes, occupied in 1881. 

The Deniocrat job office is also well-appointed, and turns out excellent 
work in the printing line. 

Merchants. — Quite an amount of capital is invested in merchandising. 
We can here note only the oldest and most prominent firms. The Carpenter 
general store on Main St. is an old landmark. The dry goods houses are: 
T. F. Fisher & Co., H. H. Rockwell & Bro., George Chamberlain, S. F. Fisher, 
Mrs. G. Olivey. Grocers: Scoville, Brown & Co. (wholesale and retail), C. 
H., William and George Frederick (three stores), J. A. Wetherby & Co., J. 



372 HiSTOKY OF Allegany County, N. Y. 

W. Gallman & Co., O'Connor Bros. Furniture: Coats Bros., Nicholas Rauber. 
Undertaking; D. S. Jones, N. Rauber. Hardware: Otis, Day & Co., Hakes 
& Boyce, Hoyt & Vincent, E. B. Curtis. Clothing and Tailors: C. P. Wein- 
hauer, Levi Frank, Joe Levey, R. A. Wells & Son, J. B. Schreiner, A. H. Leo, 
A. Kruger. Drugs, etc. : E. B. Hall (established 1852, the largest drugstore 
of the county), H. B. Sutfin, Smith & Teeple. Lumber: I. W. Fassett. S. F. 
Hanks, C. A. Farnum. Boots and Shoes: George Alger, J. D. Rathbone, E 
Hanrahan. Agricultural implements: Hakes & Boyce, J. M. Rathbun. 
Jewelry: F. W. Ward, C. F. Kendall, P. H. Torrey. Photographers, etc.: J. 
A. Rider, Thos. Sweney. Books, stationery, etc.: Alfred S. Brown. Pianos, 
etc, : E. A. Osborn. 

The Genesee Club is an element of the social life of the representative 
business men that should be mentioned. It has elegant apartments over 
the postoffice and has a decidedly select membershij). 

Freemasonry. — This ancient and honorable fraternity was first given a 
home here in 1851 when Scio Lodge, No. 230, was instituted by three breth- 
ren, who filled the three chairs. They w^ere: Augustus Beach, W. M.; 
Nathaniel Covell, S. W.; Nathaniel Johnson, J. W. Since this small com- 
mencement hundreds have here been initiated and '-raised." The name 
was changed June 12, 1868, to Wellsville Lodge, No. 230. Meetings were 
held for a long period in the PuUar block, but the lodge now has an elegant 
home in the William Duke block, where it has been located for several 
years. The present officers are: J. W. Newman, W. M.; Wm. H. Bellamy, 
S.W.; L. W. Craig, J. W.; O. S. Wight, Sect.; B. Hanks, Treas., and the 
membership is 150. 

Wellsville Chapter, No. H3, R. A. M., organized Feb. 3, 1853, with Joseph 
Enos, H. P.; Jonathan Richardson, K. ; B. L. BaU, S., has now about 75 
members. The officers are John Fay, H. P.; R. McQueen, K.; C. L. Farnum, 
Scribe; O. S. Wight, Sect.; B. Hanks, Treas. 

St. Elmo Conclave, No. 76, Knights of the Red Cross and of Constantino, 
was instituted April 4, 1872, with these officers: W. A. Baldwin, M. P. S.; T. 
F. Fisher, Vice; H. A. Coats, Sen. Gen.; H. K. Opp, Jun. Gen.; C. L. Farnum, 
H.P.; Thos. PuUar, Treas.; R. P. Beecher, Rec; John Poland, P.; J. C. 
Easton, S. B.; S. S. Truex, Her.; Hiram York, Sent. It had existence only 
for a few years . 

Knights of St John and Malta. — "At a meeting of the charter members 
held at the Masonic rooms, Wellsville, N. Y., on the evening of Mar. 18, 1889, 
an encampment of this order to be known as Wellsville Encampment. No. 71, 
was instituted by W. Van Curen, Dist. Deputy, and visiting knights from 
Bradford, Pa., Richburgand Bolivar." Thirty-four members were initiated 
and these officers were elected: P. H. Furman, E. C; W. H. Miller, Lt. C; 
O. A. FuUer, C. G.; P. H. Church, Prel.; C. A. Schaffer, Chan.; D. O. Batter- 
son, A. C. ; J. A. Rider, Aim.; Grant Duke, H. A.; Wm. Spargur, S. B.; P. 
E. Brown, Mar.; W. J. Dean, 1st. G.; Kenyon Applebee, 2d G.; Geo. Elwell, 
Mus. Dir.; Geo. H. Witter, Med. Ex.; Chas. Scott, Warder; W. H. Hurd, 



Wellsville. 373 



Sent.; Ruf iis Scott, J. J. Freeman, Charles H. Fisher, Trustees. There has 
been a high degree of prosperity and a fehcitous existence granted to the 
encampment which now numbers 65 members, and embraces representa- 
tives from all of the best elements of the community in its ranks. The 
present officers are: N. C. Dexter, E. C; W. L. Wood. Lt. C; Mack Fulmer, 

C. G.; E. P. Burt, P.; Ghas. T. Scott, Chan.; J. A. Rider, A.; J. H. Wolver- 
ton, H. A.; E. A. Osborn, S. B.; Grant Duke, M.; C. J. Williams, 1st G.; F. 

D. Rice, 2d G.; O. F. Cummings, M. D.; Dr. G. H. Witter, M. E.; J. J. Free- 
man, W. ; John McPherson, S.; E. A. Osborn, Grant Duke, J. H. Wolverton, 
Trustees. 

Odd FelloiosMp. — This fraternal organization had early foothold here. 
In June, 1851, Tamanund Lodge came into being for a short life. Talmud 
Lodge, No. 204, was created in 1868, with these members: George Howe, D. 
L. Vaughn, A. E. Merriam, William Gifford, W. P. Cowles and Byron Budd. 
It evidently did not llourish long, for the community was not large enough 
for two lodges, and Wellsville Lodge, organized in 1866 with 20 members, 
had all the elements of vitality, and has had great prosperity and accom- 
plished much good. The present membership is 60 and the officers installed 
Jan. 1, 1896, are: Noble Grand, I. L. Kress; Vice Grand, L. M. Bradley; 
Secretary, C. A. Black; Permanent Secretary, J. D. Wheeler; Treasurer, 
Ed. Ward; Warden, J. N. Whitcomb; Outside Guardian, M. K. Aldrich, 
Inside Guardian, John Cashore; Conductor, S. D. Spicer; R. S. N. G., L. 
Voorhis; L. S. N. G., C. Bixby; L. S. S., H. C. Angel; R. S. S., F. P. 
Leo; Chaplain, C. B. Perkins; R. S. V. G, O. H. Perry; L. S. V. G., J. B. 
Tompkins. 

Orient Encamjrment No. 53, was created Jan. 13, 1871, with these charter 
members: George Howe, Richard H. Lee, B. C. Rude, C. J. Cornwell, 
Daniel L. Vaughn, Alfred S. Brown, I. N. Stoddard, Byron Budd. It 
continued its work here and was quite a local power until the larger portion 
of the membership were residents of the western portion of the county, and 
in 1895, voted to remove the encampment to Cuba, its present location. 

Bebecca League, Martha Briggs, N. G., is a flourishing auxiliary order to 
the Odd Fellow organizations. 

There are numerous other organizations; prominent among them are the 
K. O. T. M. Lodge and Hive, A. O. U. W. and others. 

Wellsville manufacturing plants, 20 in number, support about 350 fami- 
lies, which with the unmarried men employed, comprise certainly a third, if 
not half of the population of the village. Ever an important factor in the 
life of the community from the days when 60,000,000 feet of pine lumber 
were annually shipped from here, to the present when 500,000 sides of hem- 
lock sole leather can be turned out each year at our tanneries, manufactur- 
ing was never more prosperous than at the present, nor was the outlook for 
future growth ever more promising, as the Buffalo & Susquehanna railroad 
system now affords competing and excellent shipping facilities, fostering the 
present and inviting additional manufacturing plants. In 1832 Kent, Wells 



374 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

& Tuttle erected, at the foot of Mill street, a gristmill and a sawmill. In '37 
the gristmill came into the possession of E. A. Smith and was later owned by- 
various individuals, among them the Brown Bros. , until 1864 when it was 
purchased by Swift & Phillips who ran it for a long period. No vestige of 
the property remains except the buried timbers of the old dam. 

The Tanning Industry. The manufacture of hemlock sole leather is 
our most important industry, the plant being the largest in New York state 
and ranking high among the most modern and extensive tanneries in 
America. Tannage, after the making of black salts and lumbering, was the 
county's earliest manufacturing interest. In 1805 Nathanael Dike had con 
structed a rude vat on his property at Elm Valley and was tanning hides. 
As early as 1845 Mr. Hatch was doing quite a business at his tannery on 
Dike's Creek near Main street. In 1858 Bush & Howard of Buffalo erected 
a plant at "Brooklyn." A. A. Howard was the general manager and the 
plant did a large business up to the time of his death in 1877. In 1883 this 
tannery, known as the "Wells ville," was purchased by A. R.Hill. At his 
death in 1885 it came into the possession of A. A. Healey & Sons of New 
York who abandoned it in 1887. In 1891 it was burned and has not been re- 
built. Seventy-live hands were at one time employed. In 1863 Mr. L. C. 
England erected a plant, just south of the Hill tannery, for distilling extract 
from hemlock bark to be used in tanning. In 1866 the firm became a stock 
company consisting of Wright, Baldwin Brothers, England & Son, PuUar, 
Sayres & Lee, and later Baldwin Bros, were the owners. In 1870 the 
property was sold to Bush & Howard, who enlarged and operated it until 
1872, when it was purchased by A. R. Hill, who added it as the " Allegany " 
tannery, to his other plant the "Genesee." The "Genesee" had its foun- 
dation in 1856. by A. S. French. In 1862 French sold to Holmes & Hill of 
Boston, who ran it under the management of the junior partner, A. R. Hill, 
until in 1864 Mr. Hill became sole owner. In 1885 the three plants produced 
600 sides of leather daily. 

A. A. Healey & Sons became owners in 1885. George E. Brown, who 
had charge of the "French " tannery from 1868 to 1875, and had also acquired 
large experience in the business in Pennsylvania, was made general mana- 
ger and still continues in that capacity with the United States Leather Com- 
pany, who became proprietors May 1, 1893. A large "annex," practically a 
complete tannery, was erected in 1892. The entire capacity of the tanneries 
is 700 or 800 hides (1,400 to 1,600 sides of leather) daily, the number depend- 
ing on the weight of the sides " worked in."' The chief element of this kind 
of tannage is hemlock bark. From 27,000 to 28,000 cords have been used 
annually for several years. In 1894 and 1895 only 24,000 cords were used, a 
new and more economical system of leaching having been introduced. The 
bark comes chiefly from Potter, McKean and Elk counties, Pa. , the country 
about here having been mostly stripped of hemlock timber. Both "dry" 
and "green salt " hides are used, the former coming from Guatemala, the 
West India Islands and South America, the latter from the large packing 



Wellsville. 375 



firms of Armour and Swift & Co. of Chicago. The Chicago hides are taken 
from cattle raised on Western ranches and are usually of a superior quality. 
The leather manufactured is shipped direct to New York, where it is stored 
until sold. At least half the product is exported, mostly to England and 
Norway. The plant gives employment to from 175 to 275 hands (the largest 
number in the summer and fall, when bark is being received) who are paid 
$85,000 per annum. Railroad switches form a net work about the tanneries, 
running into the barksheds, grinding mills, and hide house and to the doors 
of the shipping room. Electricity, generated on the premises, is used for 
illuminating purposes. Steam power is produced by the use of spent bark 
for fuel. Those in charge of the plant are George E. Brown, superintend- 
ent; W. M. Lee, book-keeper; Enos Shepard, outside foreman; Prank Taylor, 
tanning foreman; John Metz, beam foreman. 

McEwen Bros. In 1854 Duncan M. McEwen, who had been employed 
by Smith & Williams machinists, began business for himself on a small 
scale in the Coats' cabinet shop. A lathe and drilling machine comprised 
his machinery. In 1861 he erected a building and set up the first wool-card- 
ing machine used in the village. After the death of Mr. McEwen in 1864 
the business was conducted by Mrs. McEwen until 1868, when the sons 
John and Wm. R. formed a partnership. The establishment was burned in 
1876 and at once rebuilt. After the death of Wm. R., in 1886, the firm name 
remained unchanged. In 1893 the plant, situated at the corner of Main and 
State streets, was rebuilt and additions made. A large quantity of improved 
machinery has recently been added making the shops rank among the largest 
and best in Western New York, and the leading one of the county. The 
factory employs 60 men under the foremanship of Duncan and general man- 
agement of John the elder brother. The product is boilers, engines, saw- 
mills and miscellaneous iron work. 

Dickinson Clark, who had been established for several years in a sash, 
door and blind factory, corner of Stevens and Chamberlin streets, formed a 
partnership in 1869, with Jesse C. Easton, who died in 1880. The founder 
with his three sons, Edwin D., Wm. C. and Charles E., now carries on the 
business, which employs 10 hands, contracting house building and manu- 
facturing sash, doors and blinds. 

The Coats manufacturing business was founded in 1837 by W. H. Coats 
who at that time opened a small cabinet shop where the Coats brick resi- 
dence stands, next to the City Hall. During its history the plant has been 
three times burned to the ground. After the fire in the spring of 1894 the 
firm then known as Coats Bros., though Hiram had been dead for many 
years, was reorganized as a stock company with W. B. Coats, president and 
general manager. An entire new factory with the latest machinery was 
erected at the old site on the river bank in the rear of the City Hall, and 25 
men are employed. Folding beds, chamber suites, etc., are the principal 
output of the plant. 

In 1866 James Thornton established>a harness factory v/hich at one time 



376 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

employed ten men and enjoyed a steady growth and prosperity until 1891, 
when Mr. Thornton sold his extensive stock and retired. The C. L. Rice 
Co. now does a wholesale and retail harness business. Eight hands are em- 
ployed at the factory on Main just above Mill street. 

The firm of Freeland & Bradley was organized in 1889, to manufacture 
their patent carriage pole which shifts to fit carriages and sleighs. This is 
•the only factory in the United States that makes exclusively carriage poles. 
The annual product is about 10,000 poles. The plant is situated in the rear 
of the Gas Company's office. Twenty men are employed. 

The Empire Novelty Company had its origin in Belmont. In 1890 the 
factory was moved to Wellsville and reorganized with L. H. Scoville. A. O. 
Scoville, L. M. Leonard and C. J. Williams as proprietors. In November, 
1890, F. A. Raymond bought the interest of A. O. Scoville and became gen- 
eral manager. January, 1891, Mr. Williams sold his interest to George W. 
Smith and, in July, 1892, George B. Wilcox bought in. The firm manufac- 
tures over 150,000 worth annually of advertising novelties, toothpicks, cigar 
lighters, school rules, signs, etc. At present 35 hands and 8 traveling agents 
are employed. The j^lant, at which steam power is used, is situated east of 
the Erie railroad and near the station. 

In 1866 O. P. Taylor established a cigar factory. In 1874 he employed 
19 hands and exported cigars in large quantities. N. Schubmehl made 
cigars here in the seventies. Ed. Williams now does an extensive business 
in the old Opera House block employing 6 hands and manufacturing several 
superior brands. James Carey and E. P. Glauche also make cigars. 

Other Manufacturing. — Robert Wells and Bronson blacksmith shops and 
John B. Clark's harness shop were early in the village. The machine shop 
of Sweet, Whittaker & Co., who began business in 1852, was the leading in- 
dustry. The " Iron Slave " and " Royce reaper " were made here. L. Sweet 
became sole proprietor in 1860. The plant is still in existence. The R. & 
J. Doty wagon shops, established in 1851, are situated on Furnace street. 
At one time 25 men were employed. The firm recently assigned to Joseph 
S. Norton who is carrying on the business with 10 or 12 men. The Magner 
carriage shops, which made a bad failure several years ago and have never 
been revived, once employed 25 men. Frank Higgins' carriage manufactory, 
moved a few. years ago from State street to the foot of River street, is now 
doing a large business. Hanrahan's blacksmith and wagon shop on Main 
above State street, employs several hands. Brown's planing mill, on Depot 
street was established over 20 years ago. The Wellsville Steam Laundry, 
Mack Fulmer proprietor, established in 1893, employs 4 hands. The Water 
Works and Electric Light plant gives employment to 4 men, The Genesee 
Grist Mills on West Main street employ 4 hands. Tompkins & Son are 
proprietors. James Swift erected the mill and was for many years the 
owner. The Lake Marble Works on Pearl street, the co-operative cheese 
factories, several blacksmith shops, shoe shops and tailor shops comprise 
other manufacturing interests. 



Wellsville. 377 



Natural Gas. — Since 1881 Wellsville has enjoyed the luxury of natural gas 
for fuel and light. The Empire Gas Co., which supplies It, had its founda- 
tion in 1882. The firm consists of E. C. Bradley, president, and J. B. Brad- 
ley, secretary and treasurer. The gas used in Wellsville comes from Os- 
wayo, Potter county. Pa. According to the best expert opinion the sup- 
ply is capable of filling the local demand for 25 years. The monthly rates 
average from $2 to r$4 per stove, and 25 cents per burner for lights. There 
is but little gas metered, but. when metered, the price is 22 cents per thous- 
and feet. The average daily consumption of the village is 1,000,000 feet. 
See page 158. 

The Wellsville Fair Association was organized in 1887, and the first exhibi 
tion, the most successful of all. was held in 1888. The grounds are situated 
on the flats south by east of the park, and are supplied with suitable build- 
ings. The first officers were D. C. Ackerman, president; Wm. Baldwin, 
treasurer; C. H. Fisher and H. G. Dobbins, secretaries. At present D. C. 
Ackerman is president, John McEwen treasurer and Charles T. Earley sec- 
retary. The association has never declared a dividend and has lost heavily 
by floods. 

Water Works. — The village corporation on March 26, 1883, granted a 
franchise to W. S. Kuhn. et al. to construct a system of water works. In 
the hills, one mile and a half a little west of south from the postoffice, a 
reservoir, to be filled from the flowing springs, was built and lines were 
laid through the village. The natural supply was insufficient and a pump 
station was soon erected on State street, between the riv^er and millrace, and 
water forced from here into the lines. In 189-1 substantial improvements 
were made, a brick structure erected with new machinery, and artesian 
wells drilled. The water and the electric plants are under the same man- 
agement. James Macken is president and J. A. Morrow superintendent. 

Public Park. — One of the most noteworthy dates in the history of the 
village's improvement is Nov. 26, 1887, when 23^ acres of beautiful wood- 
land, in the heart of the corporation, was bought of Hon. E. J. Parnum for 
$1,000 for a public park. W. H. Adams, a landscape gardener, admirably 
laid out the grounds. An annual appropriation is made for its maintenance. 
This park is highly appreciated by the jjeople. 

Wellsville Fire Department. — The Empire state 'has no better volunteer 
fire department than that in Wellsville . Thoroughlj'- and practically organ- 
ized and splendidly equipped, its efficiency is one of the chief prides of the 
community. The earliest means of protection after the " bucket brigade " 
was the old hand engine. The small fire engine "Union" did service in 
the fifties. It was not till fire had thrice swept Main street nearly from end 
to end, and the burned district had been as many times rebuilt, that a fire 
deimrtment was officially organized. This was in June, 1874. Harvey Alger 
was elected chief engineer. Of the four companies then existing not one 
remains under the original name or plan of organization. The Genesee 
Steamer Co., organized June 4, 1874, passed into Genesee Hose Co., when 



378 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

the city water works were put in. There is now no regular steamer com- 
pany. A salaried engineer however is employed. The James Macken Hose 
Co., organized June, 1874, after years of good, hard work was disbanded. The 
Brooklyn Fire Company No. 1, organized in 1874, used a hand engine which 
was at length superseded in usefulness by the steamer and water works. 
The Howard Hose Co., organized 1874, was changed in name successively to 
the A. A. Almy Hose Co. and the Grant Duke Hose Co. It is now known by 
the latter name. The Emerald Hook & Ladder Co. was organized June 11, 
3878, as a hose company, but re-organized Apr. 9, 1879, under the present 
name. The Baldwin Hose Co. has been in service since 1880. The officers 
of the department are: J. J. O'Connor, chief engineer; Thomas Sweney, 1st 
assist, chief; Wayne Scott, 2d assist, chief. Of the Baldwin Hose Co.: 
President, Hon. Sumner Baldwin; first vice-president. Earl D. Jones; second 
vice-president, Mack Fulmer; secretary, B. D. Danks; treasurer, J. H. 
Fisher; trustees, J. C. Frederick. T. H. Sweney, Frank Chamberlain; auditor, 
P. D. Frederick; foreman, B. D. Danks; first assistant, H. S. Teeple; second 
assistant, Jacob Gena; members of fire board, Louis Slough, F. M. Leonard; 
delegates to county convention, P. D. Frederick, E. A. Rathbone, E. W. 
Barnes. Of the Duke's: President, Grant Duke; vice-president, C. H. Gall- 
mann; secretary, W. C. Clark; treasurer, H. C. Buehring; foreman, William 
L. Rogers; first assistant, John Kaufman; second assistant, William Wack; 
trustee, Charles T. Earley; fire trustee, William Dornow; drill master, F. 
Houslett. The Emeralds: President, William Cary; vice-president, William 
Egan; secretary, Edward Egan; treasurer, Patrick Monyhan; foreman, 
James Sullivan; first assistant, P. F. O'Connor; second assistant, Daniel H. 
Hanrahan; trustees, P. Hanrahan, William Cary and John T. SuUivan; drill 
master, William Steffy; assistant drill master. Peter Petory. Of the Gene- 
see's: President, O. D. Mather; vice-president, D. M. McEwen; secretary, 
H. W. Sackett; treasurer, J. A. Rider; auditor, C. S. Lee; trustees, Ed. 
WiUiams, L. Dornow, E. B. Judd; foreman, Percy D. Green; first assistant, 
George F. Wells; second assistant, Harry Smith; delegates to county con- 
vention, J. A. Rider, C. S. Lee. 

The fire apparatus consists of the Silsby steamer, recently thoroughly 
overhauled and repaired at a cost of $1,300. It originally cost, bought second- 
hand from the city of Titusville, Pa., |3,000. Each hose company has a 
"jumper " and the Genesee's have one of the finest parade carriages in the 
state. The Emerald's have a hook and ladder truck and the necessary 
paraphernalia. The Duke's are "at home" in a fine hose house on the 
Brooklyn side. The Genesees, Baldwins and the Emeralds store their 
apparatus in the City Hah. The steamer is also kept there. Sufficient hose 
of the best quaUty is owned by the corporation. 

The City Hall built this year (1895) was constructed particularly as a 
home for the fire department. Rooms in the second story are occupied by 
the Baldwins, Genesees and Emeralds and the apparatus room on the 



Wellsville. 379 



ground floor is especially arranged for conveniently storing the hose jump- 
ers, the trucks, hose, etc. 

Orand Army of the Republic — The local Grand Army post was organized 
at a meeting attended by 45 old soldiers at the Moore House (now Commer- 
cial) Jan. 26, 1883. Of the informal organization Col. Stephen B. Moore was 
elected president, Capt. W. R. Bliss secretary and James Thornton treas- 
urer. Feb. 9, 1883, the Post was formally mustered in and Capt. W. R. Bliss 
elected commander; Capt. H. U. Schlick, senior vice com.; Geo. W. Greene, 
junior vice com.; I. L. Kress, adjutant: Miles F. Jones, quartermaster; Dr. 
A. W. Greene, surgeon; L. C. Hakes, chaplain. The record book says: "On 
motion the name of the post was called "Dexter Post," in honor of the 
Dexters, formerly of this place, now dead." The successive past com- 
manders have been Capt. W. R. Bliss, E. Geer, Capt. G. H. Blackman, 
James Jump. Russell Tremaine and A. M. Boyd. The present officers 
are: Commander, James Thornton; Senior Vice Commander, M. D. Pal- 
mer; Junior Vice Commander, Russell Tremaine; Officer of the Day, 
William Miller; Quartermaster, G. Eugene Farnum; Chaplain, I. L. Kress; 
Surgeon, Dr. King; Officer of the Guard. Ezekiel Johnson ; Inside Guard, 
Charles Gardner ; Outside Guard, J. C. Jump; Delegate to State Depart- 
ment, Russell Tremaine; alternate, I. H. Kress. Auxiliary to the Post there 
is an efficient Woman's Relief Corps. 

The enrollment of membership affords a fairly complete list of the 
veterans of the Rebellion who have lived in Wellsville since 1883. A star 
opposite a man's name indicates that he is dead. The list is taken from the 
post record book which, unfortunately, is, in many ways, incomplete. 

I. W. R. Bliss, served May i. i86i-Aug. i, 1865, Co. G, 13th N. Y. Vols. ; 2. H. U. 
Schlick, Aug. 4, 1862-fuIy 18, 1865, Co. K, 130th N. Y. Vols.; 3. A. M. Bovd, September, 
i86i-Jan. 5, 1865, Co. H, io6th Pa. Vols. ; 4. S. W. Greene. Dec. 26, i863-Feb.'i, 1865, 147th 
N. Y. ; 5. Wm. Steffy. April i, 1861-Sept. i. 1865. 13th N. Y. ; 6. I. L. Kress, October, 1861- 
March. 1862, 86th N. Y. ; 7. L. C. Hakes, September, 1862-Novembcr, 1865. i6oth N. Y. ; 8, 
John Sarsfield, 1861-1862, 105th N. Y. ; 9. James Thornton, Aug. 12. 1862-June 30, 1865, Co. 
G, 130th Vols., or 1st N. Y. Dragoons; 10. Miles T. Jones, Sept. 16, 1861-Nov. 21, 1862, Co. 
H, 85th N. Y.; II. Peter Murray. Oct. 14, 1864-Oct. 15. 1865, Co. H, 2d N. Y. H. A. ; 
12. Horace Marshall, Dec. 5, i86i-Dec. 5, 1864, Co. G, 64th N. Y. ; 13. Darien C. John- 
son, Sept. 5, 1864-July 20, 1865, 3d N. Y. Lt. A. ; 14. Wm. B. Voorhees, Aug. 12, 1862-June 
20, 1865, 136th N. Y. ; 15. Geo. H. Rowley, September, 1862-November, 1865, i6oth N. Y. ; 
16. Christopher Hoffman, Jan. 7, '64-June 30, '65, Co. G, ist N. Y. Dragoons; 17. R. M. 
McDaniels, Aug. 12, '62-June 30, '65, Co. G, ist N. Y. Dragoons ; 18. Henry Brandes, Sept. i, 
'61-N0V. I, '65, 64th N. Y. ; 19. Jacob Gardner, Sept. 12, '6i-June 1. '63, 85th N. Y. ; 20. M. 
D. Palmer, records incomplete ; 21. Charles Clarke, records incomplete; 22. U. B. Grames. 
i6ist N. Y. ; 23. G. H. Avery, 56th N. Y. ; 24. Charles Chambers, i6oth N. Y. ; 25. James 
Garrigan, 83d Pa. ; 26. Wm. E. Leo, 14th N. Y. ; 27. E. Geer, 6ist Pa. ; 28. Henry Mclntire, 
ship " Sonoma " ; 29. Jacob O. Wilhelm, 12th Pa. Cav. ; 30. John Wedge, no record ; 31. Chas. 
Pryor, 86th N. Y. ; 32. C. F. demons, G. H. A. ; 33. Walter C. Smith, 5th N. Y. Cav. ; 34. 
James K. Voorhees, 107th N. Y. ; 35. E. B. King, 189th N. Y. ; 36. Geo. W. Wheeler, 20th N. 
Y. Bat. ; 37. Wm. Little, no record ; 38. Fred Peters, 45th Pa. Vols. ; 39. Peter Olden, 8th N, 
J.; 40. Nelson Mosher, 156th N. Y. ; 41. Newell Judd, 93d N. Y. ; 42. Thos. Williams; 43. 
John H. Miller, nth P. V. R. C. ; 44. Ross Paddock, 5th N. Y. Cav. ; 45. Christ Gerry, no rec- 
ord; 46. O H. Perry, i6ist N. Y. ; 47. E. B. Curtis, no record ; 48. W. B. Mason, i6ist N. Y. ; 
49. Peter Dudley, no record ; 50. Manny Hills, 65th N. Y.* ; 51. Ithamer Moore, 130th N. Y. ; 
52. Edward Kinney, 5th N. Y. Cav.*; 53. Geo, W. Ward, 169th Pa.; 54. Charles Wells, 189th 
N. Y.* ; 55. John C. Wheeler, 93d N. Y. ; 56. Henry Fuller, no record ; 57. John Krine, no 
record; 58. S. D. Spicer, i88th N. Y. ; 59. Jacob C. Arnold, no record* ; 60. Seneca Williams, 



380 History of Allegany County, N. Y. • 

27th N. Y. ; 61. Ira W. Niles, i6oth N. Y. ; 62. Geo. A. Gordon, no record ; 63. R. S. McClure, 
193d Pa.* ; 64. Thos. D.Bradford, io6th N. Y.=^ ; 65. John H. Brown, no record ; 66. Philip Aus- 
tin, 90th N. Y. ; 67. Wm. W. Plants, 189th N. Y. ; 68. Alfred West, 97th N. Y. ; 69. S. M. 
Sorber, 52d Pa.; 70. Michael Gouter, no record ; 71. D. S. Sanger, no record ; 72. Wm. C. 
Bridge, 184th Pa.; 73. Chas. Richardson, 5th N. Y. ; 74. Ferdinand Rockdisher, 41st N. Y. ; 
75. Capt. Hiram A. Coats, 815th N. Y.* ; 76. George Cross, 179th N. Y. ; 77. Fred Simmons, 
130th N. Y. ; 78. Geo. T. Emerson, 86th N. Y. ; 79. John Moore, no record ; 80. John Fellows, 
no record; 81. Elisha Hills, no record ; 82. L. A. Bunker, no record; 83. Dennis Williams, no 
record; 84. Chester Coleman, no record; 85. Ed. Eastman. 126th N. Y. ; 86. John Keller, 
189th N. Y. ; 87. Wm. Helmhold, no record ; 88. Henry Tibbetts, no record* ; 89. Lewis Clark, 
no record; 90. H. K. Opp, no record; 91. Henry Keerse, 189th N. Y.; 92. Tim Barker, no 
record ; 93 James Margeson, 85ih N. Y. ; 94. J. M. Clark, no record ; 95. Frank Angel, no 
record; 96. Phineas Weed, i6ist N. Y. ; 97. Geo. A. Caudy, 4th Pa. Cav. ; 98. A. Randall, no 
record; 99. D. C. Johnson, no record ; 100. L. C. Bentley, no record; loi. Ezekiel Johnson, 
14th N. Y. Art. ; 102. Wallace Moore, 5th N. Y. Cav. ; 103. C. K. Reitmeyer, no record; 104. 
A. K. Steoes, no record; 105. John Shattuck, no record; 106. Merton Hakes, i6oth N. Y. ; 
107. N. L. Waldon, 136th N. Y. ; 108. Jacob Rauber, 64th N. Y. ; 109 Nicholas Rauber, 64th 
N. Y. ; no. Geo. W. Wescott, ist N. Y. Dragoons; in. Geo. Howe, 64th N, Y.* ; n2. Wm. 
F. Blaisdell, 90th N. Y. ; 113. Wm. L. Jones, 60th N. J. Band ; n4. L. Hannegan, 6th N. Y. 
Cav.; 115. Thos. Prentis, ist N. Y. L. Art.; 116. John W. Reed, 85th N. Y. ; 117. Nathaniel 
Tompkins, 35th N. Y. ; 118. Henry McLaughlin, ist N, Y. Bat. ; 119. Charles Stives, ist N. Y. 
Bat. ; 120. Jason Ganoung; i6oth N. Y. ; (21. George Elwell, ist Brigade, ist Div., 2d Corps, 
Band; 122. F. E. Brothers, 90th N. Y. ; 123. Wm. Lasher, i6oth N. Y. ; 124. A. O. Winters, 
13th 111. ; 125. James Messier, 64th N. Y. ; 126. S. A. Wescott, ist N. Y. Dragoons ; 127. Thos. 
Willson, 93d N. Y. ; 128. Col. Stephen Moore, nth N. J. Infantry*; 129. Wm. C. Chamberlain, 
86th N. Y. ; 130. James Welsh, 93d N. Y. ; 131. Frank Butts, 85th N. Y. ; 132. Olio Klingen- 
berg, 29th 111. ; 133. James C. Jump, 53d 111. ; 134. Orville Proctor, ist N. Y. Dragoons ; 135. 
C. K. Reitmeyer, no record ; 136. Daniel West, 5th N. Y. H. Art.*; 137. George E. Farnum, 
26th Mich.; 138. Amos Ritle, no record ; 139. Wm. E. Kemp, no record; 140. I. Root, no 
record; 141. G. P. Slade. no record ; 142. O. A. Fuller, 85th N. Y. ; 143. Rufus Scott, 1st N. 
Y. Dragoons; 144. H. McDaniels, 85th N. Y. ; 145. F. L. Aldrich, 23d N. Y.; 146. 
Norman B. Hills, 67th N. Y.*; 147. W. H. Huffman, 29th Pa.; 148. F. P. Leo, 64th N. Y. ; 
149- A. Hamilton, i6oth N. Y. ; 150. Capt. Geo. H. Blackman, 93d N. Y. ; 151. Russell Tre- 
mame, 2d Bat. ; 152. Arthur P. Maddock, ist N. Y. Cav. ; 153. Thomas Mellody, ist N. Y. M. 
Rifles; 154. Matthias Lehnard. i3thH. Art. ; 155. R. J. Messer, i6th Vt. ; 156. A. D. Lewis, 
i6oth N. Y.; 157. W. H. Miller, 64th N. Y. ; 158. John Maddock, ist Mo. Lt. Art.; 159. Ed- 
wm Preston, 161 N. Y. ; 160. A. L. Witherspoon, 19th Me.; 161. L. King, no record. 

An incomplete list (to which the writer has added 15 names) of the sol- 
diers interred in Wellsville cemeteries is among the post records: It is 

Col. Stephen Moore, nth N. J. Inf. ; Capt. Wheeler Hakes, Co. F, ist N. Y. Dragoons ; 
Capt. J. J. Meservey, Co. G, 64th N. Y. ; Capt. Hiram A. Coats, 85th N. Y. ; Matthew K, Wild- 
man, 13th H. A. ; Dr. James Wright, regiment unknown ; Dr. J. M. Clark, regiment unknown ; 
Lieut. Charles Horton, Quartermaster 136th N. Y. ; M. M. Coleman, Co. H, 85th N. Y. ; Chas. 
O'Neil, 85th N. Y. ; A. S. Palmer, 85th N. Y. ; Charles L. McCrary, 24th Ind. ; Abraham Jew- 
ell, 1st N. Y. Dragoons; A. D. Balthasar, ist N. Y. Dragoons; P. W. Moran, regiment un- 
known; Luther Bray, 85th N. Y. ; James Addison, regiment unknown; Alonzo Fosha, ist N. 
Ayr' ^''^S°°"^ ' Michael Henry, regiment unknown ; Shaderick W. Moore, regiment unknown ; 
Mather Cornelius, regiment unknown ; Benjamin McElhany, regiment unknown ; Caleb Far- 
num, War of 1812; James Gilmore, regiment unknown; Victor D. Smith, 5th N. Y. Cav. ; 
trancis G. Fiske, 5th N. Y. Cav. ; Christian Arnold, 64th N. Y. ; George Burk, 64th N. Y. ; H. 
Lewis Boss, leader 64fh reg. band ; Edward A. Armstrong, 93d N. Y. ; Judson Oliver, 5th N. 
Y Cav. ; Wm. Meek, 64th N. Y. ; Wesley Tompkins, 35th N. Y. ; Charles L. Madison, 69th 
N. \ ; Ole Klingenbervj, 29th III. ; Daniel West, 5th N. Y. H. A. ; Nelson Mosher. 156th N. 
Y.; Norman Hills, 67th N. Y. ; Manny Hills, 65th N. Y. ; R. S. McClure, 193d Pa. ; Thomas 
^^ M X ' '°^^^ ^' ^■'' ^^^^S^ Elwell, ist Brigade, ist Div., 2d Corps, Band ; Newell Judd, 
93d N. \. ; Edward Kmney, 64th N. Y. ; Jacob Arnold, 64th N. Y.; Henrv Tibbetts, regiment 
unknown ; George Howe, 64th N. Y. ; Charles Wells, 189th N. Y. ; Milton Ripenbark, 64th 
N. Y.; William Johnson, 64th N. Y. 



Wellsville. 381 



W. C. T. U. — Previous to 1875 an organization was in active existence for 
some years, but interest abated and, although work of a similar character 
was done by other societies and by the same ladies, among whom were Mrs. 
B. C. Rude, Mrs. Joanna Coats, Mrs. L. S, Anderson, Mrs. Moses Stevens, 
Mrs. Julius Hoyt, it was not until 1881 that a reorganization was effected. 
This Union still is in active and useful life, holds meetings semi-monthly in 
the chapel of the Congregational Church and now has 30 members. The first 
officers (in 1881) were Mrs. Joanna Coats, president; Mrs. L. S. Anderson, 
Mrs. H. York, Mrs. L. Sweet, Mrs. Emily Smith, vice presidents; Mrs. 
Julius Hoyt, treasurer; Mrs. B.C. Rude, secretary. In 1882 four ladies who 
have been most useful and devoted to the cause became members, Mrs. C 
G. Stevens, Mrs. J. R. Freeland, Miss Emma Ross and Mrs. Reuben Doty. 
The officers elected in 1895 were Mrs. Sarah. E. Rosa, president; Mrs. E. E, 
Crandall, Mrs. A. J. Applebee, Mrs. Sidney Prisbie, Miss Emma Ross, vice 
presidents; Mrs. Carrie A. Jones, recording secretary and treasurer; Mrs. 
E. E. Crandall is in charge of the department of temperance instruction; 
'Mrs. Fulmer that of press work;-Mrs. Israel Dildine that of narcotics; Mrs. 
Joanna Coats that of suffrage; Miss Emma Ross that of evangelistic work. 

The progress and prosperity of Wellsville and its manifold advantages 
are shown by its manufacturing industries, its solid banks, its railroad facil- 
ities, its water works, telegraph, telephone, gas and electric light systems, 
its beautiful city hall, jDark and school buildings, its splendid churches, 
its magnificent free library, its many and well-equipped business establish- 
ments, its numerous public houses (the Passett House and Commercial 
House standing in the front), and its fine residences, among which conspicu- 
ous for beauty and elegance are those of Gen. Ruf us Scott, Hon. W. L. Jones, 
Alfred S. Brown, E. B. Hall, the Dukes and many others. Yet it may be of 
interest to future generations to know that in this centennial year of grace, 
1895, with all of our prosperity, there was not a foot of paved street in the 
town, and that cows continue to be driven along the Main street in summer 
to and from their pasturage. But village improvement marches on, and 
another decade should see Main street fully paved and a thorough system of 
sewerage completed. The purchase of the jDark, the building of the brick 
union schoolhouse, and the erection of the city hall, by taxing property 
owners to the amount of $50,000, have delayed the other no less worthy objects 
of public improvement. A Board of .Trade, long in existence here, is 
officered by " live " business men, who lend hearty aid to any worthy enter- 
prise desiring to locate here. Our citizens are progressive, and gladly wel- 
come and generously support any new enterprise coming to them in good 
faith and honesty. With all of these many advantages, the future of Wells- 
ville cannot fail to be happy and prosi^erous, as they combine all the elements 
which conduce to a healthy and hearty growth. 



382 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



Something about Some of the People. — Baldwin Brothers. William A. Baldwin, 
born at Ithaca, N. Y.. Dec. lo, 1830, married, 1858, Minerva J. Hamilton, and had two 
children, Herbert E. and Dr. Evelyn Baldwin, both now residents of Rochester, and died 
March 15, 1895. He was trustee of the Congregational church rnany years, W. M. of 
the Masonic Lodge, H. P. of the Chapter and Commander of St. Johns • Commandery 
of Olean. I^on. Sumner Baldwin, born~Ithaca, N. Y., in 1833, was supervisor of Wellsville 
seven years, member of Assembly in 1876-7 and state senator in 1882-3. William A. Baldwin 
came from Seneca county to Hornellsville in 1853, and, in 1854, with Major Sam Alley started 
a grocery and provision store in Wellsville. In 1855 Sumner Baldwin came and joined the 
firm, which, in 1856, became Baldwin & Brother. In 1866 engaging in tanning, they sold the 
store to James D. Rathbone. In 1869 Bush & Howard purchased their tanning plant, and 
Baldwin Bros, conducted banking operations as the Bank of Wellsville until its suspension in 
January, 1894. For many years Baldwin Bros, were representative business men. They built 
the Baldwin Opera House and the beautiful Baldwin Block. 

William Bellamy, son of Silas and Betsey (Knight) Bellamy, was born in Scio in 1826. He 
-married Jane, daughter of Bartholomew Coats, and in 1849 settled on Niles Hill, where he pur- 
chased land, made the first clearing and assisted in catting the first road from the village of 
Wellsville to his farm, which he made one of the finest in the county. His children were Irwin 
S. and William H. Mrs. Bellamy died Oct. 5. 1892. Mr. Bellamy's death occurred July 28, 
1894. "He was an esteemed and respected citizen and his name was a synonym of honesty 
and integrity." Irwin S. resides in Genesee. William H. Bellamy, born in 1856, married Myra 
Hotchkiss of Pennsylvania. They have one child, Ella. Mr. Bellamy is an oil producer. 

Alexander M. Boyd, son of Joseph, was born Oct. 9, 1844, in Italy, N. Y. In i860 his peo- 
ple settled m Canton, and, in 1861, Alexander went there to live, and Sept. 2d he enlisted in 
Co. H, io6th Reg't Pa. Vols., and was mustered out of service June 30, 1865. He was in 24 
regular battles besides many skirmishes. He was sergeant of his company. The original regi- 
ment was discharged in 1864, and the soldiers formed themselves into a battalion. Mr. Boyd 
is a member of the Wellsville police. In 1867 he settled in Wellsville, and engaged in con- 
tracting and building, employing several men. In 1866 he married Theoda A., daughter of 
John Moore of Angelica. They had 4 sons. Mrs. Boyd died in 1882. In 1884 Mr. Boyd 
married Mrs. Rosella H. Fisk. His children are Herbert G., Fred J., a graduate of Elmira 
Commercial College, Charles A. and Walter F. Mr. Boyd is a member of Dexter Post, G. A. 
R., No. 336, he was elected commander in 1892-3-4, was president of Allegany County G. A. 
R. Association in 1893. and takes an active part in the G. A. R. affairs of the county. 

Alfred Steward Brown, son of David Brown, was born in West Almond, June 20, 1832. 
Went to Angelica in 1840. Served as clerk several years in Bradley Sherman's store. In 1855 he 
came from Angelica to Wellsville, and entered actively into the social and business life of the 
town. For a few years he was employed as a clerk, then engaged in merchandising, which he 
discontinued in 1873 to engage in lumbering. Mr. Brown has also been a large oil producer. In 
1872. when Horace Greeley received the presidential nomination and the Republican paper, the 
Genesee Valley Free Press, endorsed his candidacy, Mr. Brown was largely instrumental in 
establishing the Wellsville Times, with George Howe as publisher. In 1873 an association 
was formed and the Angelica Reporter and the Wellsville Times were consolidated, Mr. 
Brown was chosen president, which position he held until the plant was sold to the late E. W. 
Barnes. He has served as president of the village three terms, was appointed postmaster by 
President Arthur, and served nearly five years. He has been a member of the school board from 
1 891 to the present. He erected Lincoln block and also remodeled the postoffice block and 
other old buildings, thus adding much to the appearance of Main street. In 1866 he married 
Louise, daughter of E. J. Farnum. Their son, Edward Carlton Brown, is teller in the Citizen's 
National Bank and is also an oil producer. The son of the latter, James Farnum Brown, is but 
at the beginning of his career. 



Wellsvtlle. 383 



E. C. Bradley was born Dec. 21, 1833, in Cussewago township, Crawford county, Pa- 
Educated at MeadviUe Academy he was a farmer in his native town until 1861 when he went 
to the Canada oil field and from that time has been exclusively an oil and gas operator. After 
3 years in Canada, Oil City and vicinity 15 years, Bradford 6 years, he rhade his home in Wells- 
ville in 1885. He is president of the Empire Gas and Fuel Company. He married Marian 
L. Whiting of Crawford county. Their son, Harry, is connected with his father in business. 
E. C. Bradley and J. B. Bradley, his brother, of Bolivar, have operated in the Allegany oil 
fields for 14 years, have a large oil business in Ohio, own the Wellsville gas works, formed the 
Cuba Gas Company, and with W. J. Penny are owners of the Mutual Gas Company of Ando- 
ver. Here they have 9,000 acres in one body under lease and supply gas to Andover, Green- 
wood and Whitesville. Their lines run to about 80 farmhouses which they furnish with gas for 
lights and fuel as a condition to their lease of their land. They have a production of 75 barrels 
of oil daily from their Andover lines. 

George E. Brown, born in Stamford, Conn., Nov. 13, 1844, came to Wellsville in 1866 and 
began work in the A. R. Hill tannery, which business he has since followed. In 1868 he was 
made superintendent of the works, in which capacity he continued until 1875, when he went 
to Gouldsboro, Pa., to take charge of Hoyt Bros, tannery. In 1881 he went to Hovtville for 
this firm in the same capacity, and in 1884 was transferred to Limestone. One year later he 
returned to Wellsville to assume the general management of the combined tanneries of A 
Healy & Sons of New York, which position he has since filled efficiently and faithfully. Mr. 
Brown has held the office of excise commissioner. He married Jan. 27, 1870, Elizabeth Mad- 
dock of Wellsville. They have three children, E. Elizabeth, M. Maude and Charles H. 

The Church Brothers, Luther S. and Frank S., are sons of William Wallace Church, who 
was born at Bainbridge, N. Y., Nov. 7, 1831 ; his father, Rufus Church, came to Orleans county 
when W. W. Church was a lad. In 1851 W. W. Church married Electa, daughter of Asa 
Sprague. They had 4 sons and a daughter. Mr. Church owned a canal boat and was on the 
canal for 6 years. He was in Holley for a few years where he was the proprietor of a livery 
stable, and then bought a farm in Bergen, N. Y. In 1872 he purchased the Church House in 
Livonia and was its landlord for 8 years ; after a year at the Nunda House and 18 months at 
Duke Centre, he went to Belfast and was owner and landlord of the Belfast House until his 
death, Aug. 4, 1893. Mrs. Church conducted the hotel until September, 1894, when she sold 
the property and removed to Rochester. Of their children, Harry and Helen reside m Roch- 
ester, Lewis G. in Medina, and Luther S. and Frank S. are proprietors of the Comm ercia 
House, Wellsville. Luther S. Church married Ada Warner in February, 1886. Their children 
are Walter S., Daisy A. and Georgia L. 

Dickinson Clark, son of Calvin, was born in Clarksville, Otsego Co., July 19, 1832, attended 
common schools and Charlotteville Seminary. When 16 years old he went to learn the carpen- 
ter's trade and served 7 years. In 1858 he came to Wellsville where he has been engaged in 
contracting and bu'lding. His saw and planing mill was burned May 19, 1867, and June 20 he 
located in the building which he has since occupied. He has built over 30 houses and 2 churches 
in this town, and many other public and private houses in this vicinity, also the large public 
school building at Bradford, Pa. He married Mary E. Easton and has 4 children. Mr. Clark 
was supervisor of Wellsville in 1877, 1878 and 1879. He is a member of the " blue lodge " and 
chapter of the Masonic order, and was High Priest of the chapter 4 years. He served two years 
on the village corporation board, and one year as chief engineer of the fire department. 

Hon. Asahel N. Cole, born in Freedom, Cattaraugus county, Oct. 21, 1821, was one of the 
noted journalists of this county. After a youth passed in contest with poverty he educated 
himself for a teacher, and won high reputation as one before he was of age. Radically anti- 
slavery in sentiment he for a time entered the ministry of the Free Methodist church, and mar- 
ried in 1843 Margaret M. Wildman, a lady of education and culture, who exercised a great in- 
fluence over him, Mr. Cole was too strongly radical in his views to keep in peace with his 



384 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



brother ministers and soon relinquished preaching for lumbering. A natural politician he was 
the chief organizer of the noted Friendship convention called in 1852 to organize the Free 
Democratic party in Allegany. This convention was so ridiculed by its opponents that Mr. 
Cole in self-defense started the Genesee Valley Free Press at Belfast in 1853 to promulgate his 
opinions and answer misrepresentations. From this time until his death he was a man of mark 
among the journalists of the state. He was an intimate friend of Horace Greeley for 25 years. 
He called the tirst " Republican " convention ever held and presented its nominations in his 
paper as " Republican Nominations." The name was suggested to Mr. Cole by Mr. Greeley 
in a letter written in the summer of 1854. Mr. Cole later made his home in Wellsville, remov- 
ing the office of the -F^^,? /'r<f.y.f thither. In 1867 he became a lawyer but never engaged in 
practice. He contributed articles to the Elmira Aih'ertiser for years under the heading " Our 
Easy Chair." " A man of strong will, opinionated, hot-blooded, with not a little of temper," 
he was a vigorous writer and a dealer of hard blows to his opponents, but his heart was as 
tender as an infant's and a deep well of poetic sympathy was hidden amid the thick under- 
brush of harshness in his nature. In his residence at " Our Home on the Hillside" in Wells- 
ville, he developed a " New Agriculture," which under his manipulation produced wonderfu' 
results. Many inquiries are yet received by his children concerning this. 

Bartholomew Coats was born in Butternuts, Otsego Co., in 1804. His father, Rev. Am- 
brose Coats, was a Baptist minister who came to Alfred in 18 18 where he preached and had a 
shoeshop. Bartholomew and family came to Wellsville in 1826 being guided by marked trees 
on the forest path in their winter journey and bringing fire with them in a caldron kettle. He 
made the first clearing on the land where he settled, and there was then but one house in Wells- 
ville. He was for some time the popular captain of an independent rifle company. He died in 
August, 1890. By his first wife, a Miss Beebe, he had 2 children, William and Jane. By his 
second wife, Betsy, widow of Enos M. Shepard, he had 6 children. His son Bartholomew 
lives in Kansas, William in Wellsville, where his daughter Betsy E. also resides. 

Ambrose G. Coats, son of Bartholemew, was born March 31, 1835, in Wellsville. He com- 
menced to handle lumber when but 1 5 years old and to keep tally for lumber shippers. From 
1852-55 he was employed by J. Langdon & Co., was inspector of lumber from 1855-68, then 
went to Troy, N. Y., as an inspector. Coming from Troy in April, 1882, to Wellsville, he bought 
a sawmill and after manufacturing lumber for four years became a farmer. He has been pres- 
ident of the board of education since 1886. He married Ellen E. Russell of Olean in 1862. 

Welcome H. Coats, born in Otsego county in 181 1, came to Wellsville in 1836 and built a 
furniture factory, the first erected in Wellsville. He conducted the furniture business until 
1872. He married Joanna Burrows. They had 5 children. They were members of the Bap- 
tist church. Mr. Coats held the office of justice of the peace for many years. Walter B. Coats, 
second son of Welcome H., was born in Wellsville in 1833. He was in business with his 
father from 1861 until 1866, when, with his brother Hiram, he established the firm of Coats 
Bros., and since the death of Hiram in 1884, he has continued in the furniture trade under the 
firm name of Coats Bro. Mr. Coats has been village trustee and a member of the school board^ 
He married Ida, daughter of Lorenzo Dow Davis. They have i son, Hiram. The family are 
members of the Baptist church, and in 1894 Mrs. Coats gave to the church a lot worth $1,200 
on which a fine parsonage has been erected. 

A. E. Cowles, son of William P. and Roxsy (Bronson) Cowles was born in Wellsville, Jan. 
6, 1852. He was a nurseryman and farmer until 1872, when he accompanied James B. Bray, 
now of Waverly, to Sherman, Chautauqua county, to aid in establishing the Sherma?i Record- 
From that time he has been a printer, working later on the Wellsville Times, Wellsville Reporter 
and Olean Tt7nes. Jan. 20, 1875, he became ioxema.r\ oiiht Allegany County Democrat ai 
Wellsville. From 1880 until 1882 he was proprietor of a job printing office, and then pur- 
chased one-half interest in the Democrat with which he has since been connected. The pub- 




:yv^^. 



Wellsville. 385 



lishing house was Nichols & Cowles until 1887, when, after the death of Mr. Nichols, Mr. 
Cowles became sole owner. He had, however, practically entire charge of both paper and office 
from 1884. The Democrat has a circulation of about 2,000, is the only paper promulgating 
Democratic doctrines published in the county, and, under Mr. Cowles' able management, has 
become a power in local politics and a successful business enterprise. As evidence of this, in 
April, 1893, when retrenchment was the order of the day, the Democrat was enlarged to a 9- 
column paper. Mr. Cowles as an editor possesses a rare power of discerning, selecting and 
presenting " news," is a vigorous and trenchant writer and " ventilates " frauds and pretenders 
in a brilliant and effective manner. He is connected with many society organizations, and in 
Freemasonry is an esteemed member of lodge, chapter and commandery. He married Mar. 13, 
1877, Ida McKune, and has one child, Edith. 

Prof. Lewis W. Craig, A. M., was born in Farmington, Me., in 1855. He was graduated 
from Wesleyan University, Conn., in 1879, and received a prize of $150 for the best Greek 
scholarship. He taught Greek and Latin at the New Hampshire Conference Seminary and 
Female College at Tilton, N. H., for several years. He was later at Parish, Oswego Co., and 
taught the academy one year. In September, 1893, he came to Wellsville, and took charge of 
the Wellsville Union School and Academy. In 1883 he married Lizzie E. Stevens, A, M. 

Alson Crowner, son of Joseph Crowner, was born in Washington Co., April 22. 1816. He 
came to Wellsville when he was 16 years old, and in 1847, married Mary M., daughter of 
William Wright, of Scio, where they resided a year then moved to Wellsville, and in 1852 he 
purchased a farm on Dike's Creek. Here he resided until his death, August 6, 1887. None 
of his 4 children are living. His widow, with her grandson, Floyd A. Crowner, the only male 
representative of the family, resides on the farm. Walter B., father of Floyd, married Delia 
Phillips. He died Dec. 4, 1892. 

Joseph Crowner came to Wellsville in 1832 and purchased a farm of 300 acres, which has 
since been owned by the family, from a Mr. Wing, and for a time he occupied a log house. His 
son John Duane Crowner was born in Hebron, N. Y., in 1826, and was but a lad when the 
family came here. He married Anna M. Sexton (daughter of Albert R., who came to Wells- 
ville about 1858 and settled in Elm Valley,) and has 2 children, Linnie B. (wife of Elmer E. 
Matthews, resides at Newburgh-on-Hudson,) and Robert C, who married Mary O'Connor, 
and with his mother resides on the ancestral acres of the old homestead. Mr. Crowner was a 
prosperous farmer. He purchased many horses for the army during the late war, and was also 
the inventor and the patentee of the Crowner " Improved " Stump Extractor. He died Dec. 
6, 1894. 

G. Eugene Farnum, son of Carleton L., was born Nov. 9, 1845, at Plymouth, Luzerne Co., 
Pa., removed to Wellsville in 1848 and resided here until 1862 when he removed to Pinckney, 
Liv. Co., Mich., with his parents, enlisted in Co. B 26th Mich. Inft'y, Jan. 4, 1864, was wounded 
at Spottsylvania C. H. Va., May 12, 1864, was taken to hospital and served until close of the 
war as dispensary clerk, after the war was drug clerk for E, B. Hall for a period of 5 years, 
has been a member of the firm of C. L. Farnum & Son, insurance agents, for 15 years, is now 
stamp clerk of the Allegany County Local Board of Underwriters, and town clerk of the town of 
Wellsville. He married Mrs. Mary A. Henyon, daughter of Harvey A. Richmond, Nov. 9, 1881. 
They have 2 children, Inez G. born Dec. 28, 1887, and Gaylord Richmond Farnum born Jan- 
17, 1891. 

Isaac W. Fassett, son of Philo, was born in Springfield, Pa., Feb. 1, 1815. In 1839 he 
married Cynthia P. Brown. He has been engaged in the lumber business for many years. In 
1850 he came to Wellsville as superintendent of P. R. Brayton's lumber business, under a con- 
tract for 5 years at $1,000 per year. At the end of the time he purchased his employer's inter- 
ests and has continued the business since, and has purchased from one to three million feet of 
lumber per year. He owns about 1,000 acres. In 1870 he built the Fassett House which he 
conducted for a short time. He has been supervisor two years and has held other town offices. 



386 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

He has built more houses and blocks in Wellsville than any other man. He has been a Re- 
publican since the organization of the party. He ran for representative on the Whig- ticket and 
received over 300 majority in his own tow^n (a Democratic town), but being on the minority 
ticket he was defeated in the county. Of his 6 children 4 survive. 

Patrick Fay, born in Ireland, in March, 181 1, married Ann Kelley, emigrated to America 
about 1840, and worked on the Erie canal for a short time. They later resided in Friendship, 
and about 1844, Mr. Fay purchased a farm in Bolivar. He had a family of 10 children. He 
died Feb. 17, 1890, his wiie, Dec. 20, 1883. John Fay, son of Patrick, was born in Bolivar, 
March 4, 1850. He was educated at the common schools of his native town. In 1880 Mr. 
Fay commenced producing oil, has 30 wells in Allegany oil field, and an interest in 12 wells in 
Corning, Ohio. In 1883 he married Hattie L., daughter of Lorenzo D. Strayer. His children 
are Cecil, Allen R., Edith I. and Howard D. In 1889 Mr. Fay removed to Wellsville. He is a 
member of Wellsville Lodge, No. 230, F. & A. M., has been master 3 years, and has taken the 
32d degree in masonry. 

George M. Fox, son of Samuel, was born at Fort Herkimer, April 16, 1843. In 1865 he 
came to Belvidere and has been continuously in the hotel business since. He kept the West- 
ern Hotel until 1877, then went to Duke Centre, Pa., where he remained 3 years ; he then kept 
Fox's Hotel at Buffalo for one year. Subsequently he was at Canaseraga for 6 years, and at 
Bolivar for a year. In 1893 he came to Wellsville and is now proprietor of the Fassett House. 
He married Esther A., daughter of Peter Dibble of Belvidere. Samuel Fox was born at Fort 
Herkimer, July 8, 1809. The grandfather of Samuel was born in Germany. George Fox, fa- 
ther of Samuel, was a farmer and born in this country. Samuel married Hannah Reese in 1829. 
For 34 years he owned several boats on the Erie canal, and was engaged in the foundry busi- 
ness. In 1865 he came to this county, purchased a farm, in 1867 bought a hotel at Belvidere 
which he conducted for many years. He has been a resident of Belvidere since. His surviving 
sons are Frederick J., born in Herkimer county, March 30, 1832, resides in Friendship, and 
George M. 

Christopher H. Frederick was born in Brehlitz, Prussia, Germany, May 12, 1832. When 14 
he was apprenticed to a tanner of Meuselovitz without pay. After learning his trade he trav- 
eled, and worked in Berlin, Stettin, Poland (Prussia), and down the Rhine and back through 
the Netherlands, finally reaching Merseburg, Prussia, from whence he emigrated to Ameriea in 
1854. After a stormy passage of 65 days he landed in New York on Christmas day without 
friends or money. He started west, stopped in Dunkirk, then went to Toledo, Ohio. Not 
finding work he walked back to Hamburg, N. Y.. and obtained work in a small sawmill and 
tannery. During the winter he froze his hands and feet and was in a Buffalo hospital 6 months. 
In 1855 he went to work in the Schollkopf tannery, and six months after went to Canada but 
soon returned to Buffalo and went to Lockport where he married Katherine, daughter of Wen- 
dall and Mary (Sannack) Vollett, Sept. 17, 1857. She was born in Furfeld, Hessen, Germany, 
March 28, 1837. Mr. Frederick came to Wellsville Dec. 27, 1858, and became foreman of the 
tannery of A. S. French. He put on the beam the first side of leather" beamed " in Wellsville. 
When A. R. Hill became proprietor of the combined tanneries, Mr. Frederick became foreman 
of the Genesee tannery for 5 years, when his health failed. In 1870 he engaged in merchandis- 
ing with John Fuhs as Frederick & Fuhs in the old Bannister block on Main street. When 
Mr. Fuhs retired Mr. Frederick continued the business. He has served as overseer of the 
poor, excise commissioner 9 years, and trustee of the German Lutheran Church. His children 
are George W., John, William, Charles (died Dec. 27, 1881), Jacob, Christopher, Peter, Kather- 
ine, Amelia, Louis and Carl. All except John and Christopher reside in Wellsville. Mrs. C. 
H. Frederick, a most estimable wife and mother, died June 24, 1895. 

Mrs. Addie Frisbey is a daughter of Benjamin Jefferson, who was born in Johnstown, N. 
Y., came from Lansing, Tompkins Co. to Wellsville about 1854, engaged extensively in lumber- 
ing, and built a sawmill where he cut large quantities of lumber. Before coming here he kept 



Wellsville. 387 



he famous Lansing Hotel for years and was also an extensive farmer. He married Sophia 
Earle and had four children. He died in 1880, his wife in 1882. Their son Furman came to 
Wellsville when a lad with his parents. He enlisted in the 14th Penn. Cav. during the Civil 
War and was killed at Harper's Ferry in 1862. Howard L. Frisbey, son of Sidney, was born 
in Andover, N. Y., Nov. 24, 1835. He was a merchant of Wellsville for over 20 years and died 
May 29, 1885. He married Addie, daughter of Benjamin Jefferson, Sept. 22, 1863, Their son, 
Fredell B., born Sept. 24, 1871, married Harriet Curry and, like his mother, resides in Wells- 
ville. 

E. Mack Fulmer, Jr.. son of Ellery, was born in Independence, Nov. 28, 1868. He was 
educated at the common schools. In 1889 he was clerk in a store at Andover, subsequently he 
was the head weigher for a coal company in Tennesee for 2 years. In 1894 in company with 
N. C. Burlingame he established the Wellsville Laundry, and in March, 1895, became sole pro- 
prietor. His great-grandfather, Joseph Fulmer, came to Independence in 181 9, purchased a 
large tract of land, made the first clearing in that part of the town, and built a sawmill on Hem- 
lock Creek. He had 7 children. His son William, 20 years old when they came, married 
Zeruviah Parker. They had 5 children. William Fulmer was postmaster about 12 years. He 
used to take a bag of grain on his back and carry it to Angelica to mill, and with it would often 
carry a deerskin and trade it for groceries. He paid for his farm with the products of his dairy, 
selling butter for 1 2 cts. per pound and cheese for 6 cts. per pound in Bath. Ellery, son of 
William, born Jan. 21, 1846, married Kate A. Smith of Newfield, N. Y. They had 4 sons and 
one daughter. He was postmaster of Fulmer Valley 4 years. 

Thomas Francis Fisher, son of John P. and Matilda (Jackson) Fisher, is of English birth 
and parentage. His boyhood and school days were passed in Rochester, N. Y. He came to 
Allegany county in January, 1861, and for 5 years was employed at the Genesee Flouring Mills 
in Wellsville. In March, 1866, he formed a co-partnership with H.G. White and purchased the 
dry goods and grocery business of Hiram L. Jones, continuing until 1877 when Mr. White sold 
is interest to T. F. Fisher who sold it to his brother Chas. H. Fisher. They continued the 
business as " Fisher Brothers " until 1883 when T. F. Fisher became sole proprietor. In Jan- 
uary, 1885, Ira E. Jones became his partner and as T. F, Fisher & Co. This firm has continued 
and is one of the leading mercantile houses of Wellsville. In 1868 Mr. Fisher married Eliza- 
beth S., daughter of Elijah and Susan Stowell, and has one son, William Edgar Fisher. In 
1880 he erected a very pleasant and commodious residence on Main street (West). For 35 
years Mr, Fisher has been a resident of this county and, progressive yet safely conservative, has 
always taken an active working interest in its affairs, religious, social and political. For 30 
years he has been intimately connected with the commercial advancement of the town, has been 
a factor in educational matters as a trustee of the Academy and High school, also of the Library 
Association. He is a member of Wellsville Lodge F. & A. M. No. 230, Wellsville Chapter, R. 
A. M. No. 143, and St. John's Commandery K. T. 

Charles H. Fisher, son of John P. and Matilda (Jackson) Fisher, was born Nov. 29, 1843, 
in Budley Saltern, Devonshire, Eng. In 1863 he came to Wellsville from Rochester, N. Y.. and 
was employed as a clerk for " Hoyt & Lewis" in their dry goods and grocery store for 10 
years. After that he went into merchandising for himself and ranks as one of the foremost 
business men of the town. He married Sarah F., daughter of Dwight and Mary (Dunham) 
Goodrich and their children are Walter G. Clark. Julius H. Fisher, and Madge E. Fisher. Mr. 
Fisher is a Congregationalist in his religious affiliations. 

Dwight Goodrich, born in Hartford, Conn., May 25, 1813, came to Wellsville in 1834 and 
engaged in the lumber business with Norman Perry. In 1841 he married Mary, daughter of 
James and Huldah Dunham. They had 5 children : Sarah F. (Mrs. C. H. Fisher), Mary A. 
(Mrs. Texas Angell, of Hailey, Idaho), Charles P., of Elmira, Edwin D., of Eaton Rapids, 
Mich., and Jessie A. (Mrs. W. J. Glenn, of Cuba). Mr. Goodrich died in 1883, his wife died in 
1895. Mr. Goodrich was engaged in merchandising for some years, and was town clerk for 



388 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

several years. He was a member of the M. E. Church and was the first superintendent of the 
first Sunday school held in Wellsville. 

Edwin Bradford Hall, son of Eben Hoyt Hall, was born in Fairfield, Conn. His mother 
was a descendant of William Bradford of Plymouth colony ; his father a descendant of Doctor 
David Hall who came in 1640. He is related to the Booths of Bridgeport and Stratford, and the 
Hoyts of Danbury ; attended public and private schools in Bridgeport and was clerk in his 
father's store until the fall of 1851, when he formed a partnership with Clark Bradford of 
Tyrone, N. Y., and in the spnng of 1852 Bradford & Hall came to Wellsville with a stock of 
drugs, medicines and general merchandise. In about a year Hall purchased Bradford's interest 
in the business and bought the ground upon which his present store stands. In 1856 he built 
his store in " Union Block " and moved into it. He married Miss Antoinette, daughter of 
Hon. E. J. Farnum ; they have one daughter Mrs. J. M. Carpenter. In 1867 his store was 
burned and was rebuilt the next year. Of all the merchants in Wellsville forty years ago Mr. 
Hall is the only one still in business. For a number of years he has been collecting fossil retic- 
ulate sponges from the Chemung Group in this vicinity, until he now has the largest collection 
in the state. A new species discovered by him is the Dictyophyton Halli, in his honor the 
name is given. His best specimens are in Albany at the present time from which engravings 
are being made for Doctor James Hall's forthcoming work on Dictyospongidce of the Devonian 
and Carbo7iiferous Formations. 

Julius Hoyt was born in 1827 in Greene, Chenango Co. After " clerking " several years 
he came to Wellsville in 1851 and engaged in general merchandising until March, 1893. He 
married Martha Hoyt of Chenango Co. Their surviving children are Herbert W., William J., 
Carroll L. (dec.) Mr. Hoyt has been a deacon of the Congregational church since 1858. Mrs. 
Hoyt died March 6, 1888. Herbert W. Hoyt was graduated from Rochester University in 
1S89, and, in 1892, graduated from the Homeopathic Medical College of Boston and is now a 
physician of Rochester. Carroll L. Hoyt was graduated from Cornell University in 1892 as a 
mechanical engineer and went to Scranton, Pa. He died in January, 1895, at Rochester, N. Y. 
William J. Hoyt resides in Wellsville. He married Reta Butler and has 3 children, Herbert, 
Marion and Carroll. 

Seymour Johnson, whose daughter Mary married James Macken, was for years a prominent 
citizen. Mrs. Macken gives us this concerning her people : " My father and mother were mar- 
ried in 1845 at the home of my grandfather John M. Brown, one of the pioneers of Chemung 
Co., and the owner of large parcels of land upon which the city of Elmira now stands. They 
began housekeeping in a house that stood upon the corner of Church and Main streets in that 
city, now occupied by Trinity church. In 1850 they removed to Wellsville, my grandfather 
having some years previously purchased large tracts of land in Allegany and Potter counties. 
Previous to this my father had attained considerable celebrity as a lawyer and stump speaker 
in Elmira. Ill health however sent him into the wilds of Allegany where he entered into the 
lumbering business with his father, Nathanael Johnson, and uncle, Henry Johnson of Afton, 
Chenango Co. My grandfather retired after a few years, but at the time of the death of my 
father he was still interested in certain business concerns with the late Henry Johnston. My 
impression is that the old plank road to the Eleven Mile was owned by a stock company of 
whom my father (Seymour Johnson) was the largest owner and the promoter. He had a great 
many teams drawing thousands of feet of lumber over it daily. Although he never lost his 
interest in public affairs or politics, he withdrew as much as possible from participation in them, 
his immense business interests requiring his constant attention, yet he was elected supervisor 
as often as it was possible to get his consent to act. He died at the early age of 49, leaving a 
fortune in embryo that would undoubtedly have made him the richest man in Allegany county." 
Mrs. Amanda Brown Johnson died in Hornellsville Nov. 15. 1893. 

David S. Jones, son of Lewis, was born Oct. 16. 1 831, in Chautauqua. N. Y. His grand- 
father, Israel Jones, was a native of Coleraine, Mass., and died in 1808. Lewis, son of Israel. 



Wellsville. 389 



was born Feb. 12, 1800, and in '18 located in Alfred, where he was a cabinetmaker, studied 
medicine and had some medical practice. In December, '28. he removed to Hartfield, Chau. 
Co., and practiced law 10 years, then removed to McLean and was in practice there 10 years. 
In '50 he came to Wellsville, engaged in lumbering, and Sept. 18, '55, his buildings were 
burned. He was a deputy sheriff for over 20 years, holding the office until his death Jan. 28, 
'76. July 25, '25, he married Lucy Stillman, who died May 20, '82. Two of their 5 chil- 
dren are living. David S. Jones came to Wellsville with his father, April 28, '50, and was 19 
years of age, and has been a farmer, a merchant and a manufacturer of lumber. In '78 he 
established his present business that of undertaker. He married Jane P. Warfield Dec. 29, 
'53, at Groton, N. Y. They have 6 children, 

Henry Ketchum, a native of Yonkers, when a young man came to Wellsville and married 
Anna E., daughter of Thomas Elwell. They removed to Corning when Mr. Ketchum died in 
'81. Mrs. Ketchum died Dec. ir, '93. They had one son, Earle E., who was born Feb. 18, 
'69, came to Wellsville in '89, and is engaged in business as a mileage broker and dealer in 
transportation. 

Joseph B. Macken came to Wellsville from West Bloomfield, Ontario county, in '52, and 
died here Oct. 15, '81. His wife died March 27, '89. Mr. Macken manufactured wagons 
and carriages, giving employment to a number of skilled workmen, and was a prominent and 
much respected citizen. Of his large family of boys James, Dr. Merntt, Chauncey B., and 
Frank reside in Wellsville. James Macken, born in West Bloomfield, Jan. 6, '43, enlisted in 
May, '61, in Co. C, ist. L. I. Inf. Vols., a regiment raised by Henry Ward Beecher, and of 
this organization Co. C was the foundation. Mr. Macken served until his term of enlistment 
expired and then re-enlisted at Brandy Station, Va., in Co. C, 65th N. Y, Vols., serving until 
the close of the war and being honorably discharged by order of the War Department. He 
served in ail but one of the engagements in which the Army of the Potomac participated, and 
was promoted from private to orderly sergeant. He married Mary, daughter of Seymour and 
Amanda (Brown) Johnson, resides in Wellsville, and is an extensive oil operator. 

Col. Stephen Moore was born at New Brunswick, N. Y., Feb. 12, '21. His father, Stephen 
Moore, was captain of a militia company. Colonel Moore married Ellen Smith, and had 7 
children. He conducted merchandising, and at the first call for volunteers for the northern 
army he raised a company for the 3d regiment, and was made captain. They enlisted for 3 
months, and at the expiration of that time he came home, organized a regiment and was com- 
missioned lieut. colonel of the i ith Regt. N. J. Vols. Col. Moore had charge of the rebel 
prisoners at Elmira. He remained at the head of the regiment until the war closed, and then 
had charge of the Freedmen's Bureau at Newbern, N.C. Colonel Moore was later in the hotel 
business. He located in Wellsville in '76, was proprietor of the Fassett House for 4 years, the 
Moore House 2 years, and the Commercial House for 3 years. He died Aug. 29, 1891. His 
widow resides in town; her sons are Ihaddeus C. and Stephen. 

Albert D. Morrow, son of William and Emily (Mays) Morrow, was born at Freedom, 
Venango Co., Pa., in '58. In '75 he was employed by the Pipe Line Co. to inspect oil at 
Parker's Landing. In '82 he came to the oil field of Allegany county as foreman of District 
No. 13 at Wellsville. He is now residing in Andover. He married Minnie, daughter of David 
and Phebe (Millard) June. They have 3 children, Emily E., William D. and Lydia L. 

Joseph S. Norton, son of Francis, was born April 6, 1837, at Belmont. His father, Francis, 
son of John, born in Sandy Hill in Washington Co. in 1802, married Harriet Scott, and, in '31, 
moved to Belmont, where he was a lumberman and a leading business man who enjoyed the 
esteem of all. He held most of the town offices, was town superintendent of schools and super- 
visor many years, was an active Presbyterian and helped to build the first church of that faith in 
Belmont. He married Harriet Scott in Sandy Hill. They had 9 children. He died Aug. i, 
'61, his wife in '68. November 9, 1869, Joseph S. Norton opened a drug store in Belmont, 
which he conducted 22 years. He then passed 17 years in traveling and selling school books. 



390. HiSTOKY OF Allegany County, N. Y. 



coming to Wellsville in '8 ( ; since '90 he has been in insurance and brokerage business. He 
was president of Belmont 5 years, deputy collector of U. S. internal revenue in '66-7, and for 
several years was chairman of the Republican county committee. He has been twice married ; 
first to Mary W. Cleves, second to Clytie M. Brown. 

George R. Nobles, son of Darius and Cornelia (Leonard) Nobles, was born Oct. 14, 1849, 
in Tioga Co., Pa. His grandfather, Asahel Nobles, emigrated to Tioga Co., Pa., from Wales, 
engaged in farming on the same farm now owned by his son Darius, who still resides there. 
He was a soldier of 181 2 and was at the battle of Fort Erie. In '72 George R. came to Wells- 
ville, entered the hardware store of Anderson, Otis & Co., remained 3 years as clerk, then 
traveled 3 years for Pratt & Co., of Elmira. In '75 he was employed by L. C. Hakes 
in ihe store, then went into the hardware business under firm-name of June, Nobles 
& Co., for about 3 years, when on account of failing health he retired from the firm. He 
was on the police force for 2 years and has been deputy sheriff since 1887. Mr. Nobles is known 
as a " criminal ofificer," and of the 1,000 and more persons he has arrested, not one escaped. 
Since '91 he has been deputy U. S. marshal. He is a Republican and has taken an active 
part in politics. He is a Freemason, an Odd Fellow, and a member of the K. O. T. M. He 
married, June 29, 1875 ]^^^^ Brown, and has twin daughters, Carrie and Clara. 

Frederick S. Osborn, son of Sheldon, was born in Ovvego, N. Y., April 27, 1832. He mar- 
ried Maria Leonard and had one son Wesley. Mr. Osborn is a farmer, a merchant and deals 
in hay and agricultural implements. He has been postmaster at Elm Valley since the post- 
oflice was established in '86. His mother, Huldah (Wooding) Osborn came to Andover and 
settled at what was then "Shoemaker's Corners," now Elm Valley, and was the landlady of the 
hotel there for several years. Loring Leonard settled at Elm Valley, March 4, 1837. He mar- 
ried Eunice Evans. Of their family of 5 sons and 6 daughters 3 are now living. Mr. Leonard 
died April 25, 1876, his wife Oct. 6, 1877. 

George J. Osborn, son of Sheldon, was born at Owego, N. Y., in 1828. He came to An- 
dover when a boy and subsequently kept the hotel at " Shoemaker's Corners." In '71 he pur- 
chased a farm in Wellsville where he resided until '88 when he moved to the village. He died 
in February, 1892. He married Marcia Hincher. They had 9 children. His widow resides 
with her oldest son, Edwin A., who was born in Andover, June 7, 1857. He married Belle 
Proctor in '80 and has one daughter, Maude. Mr. Osborn is the leading music dealer in this 
part of the county, engaged in the business in Wellsville in '85. He was supervisor here in 
'86-7. He is a member of the Wellsville Lodge F. & A. M.. No. 230, Wellsville Chapter, No. 
143, De Molay Commandery of Hornellsville, and Ishmalia Temple of the Mystic Shrine at 
Buffalo. 

Theron P.Otis was born in Bath, N. Y., Feb. 13, 1839. He was educated principally at 
Oberlin, and at the raid of Kirby Smith into Ohio, he and 200 students responded to the call of 
the governor for troops for the campaign and Mr. Otis contracted typhoid fever and for some 
years was unfitted for study or labor and abandoned the idea of a collegiate education. In 1867 
he was a clerk in a store at Kanona, near Bath and in '63 when the firm of L. S. Anderson & 
Co., of Wellsville was formed, Mr. Otis came on salary to represent the interests of Mr. Cham- 
berlain of Bath, the silent partner of this firm. He continued in this relation until 1871 when 
he became a member of the new firm of Anderson, Otis & Co., which was succeeded in Sep- 
tember, 1883, by Otis & Day. The firm since 1891 is Otis, Day & Co. Mr. Otis has been a 
member of the school board, and was elected president of the Citizens National Bank on its 
organization ; he is a Republican in politics, a Congregationalist in religion and has been deacon 
for several years. He married Laura J. Day, of Sheffield, Ohio. They have one son, Norman 
D., a sophomore in Yale. 

Joshua S. Pittenger, son of Daniel S. and Patience (Thomas) Pittenger, was born Nov. 25, 
1823, in Ontario Co. When he wae 16 years old his father " bound him out" to a gunsmith. 
The first year he received $25, the second $50, the third $85, and the fourth year $100. When 



Wellsville. 391 



Joshua was 21 he went to Nunda, and commenced business on his own account, and continued 
there 8 years, when he moved to Angelica, was there one year, then went to Belfast. In 1853 
he came to Wellsville and carried on gunsmithing until 1861, when, Aug. 25th, he enlisted as a 
private in Co. G. 64th Reg. N. Y. S, V. He enlisted his full company, loi men, and was com- 
missioned captain. This was done without any expense to the town. Captain Pittenger was 
with the regiment until 1864 when on account of ill health he resigned his commission. Mr. Pit- 
tenger is a member of J. H. Mullen Post, No 356, G. A, R. Dept. of Pa. He was formerly a 
lieutenant in the state militia. In 1848 he married Sarah A. Chandler. His sons are Frank H, 
of Kansas City, and William E., cashier of a Hornellsville bank. Mrs. Pittenger died March 
15, 1891. Mr. Pittenger married Jan. 20, 1896, Mrs. Alfreta Walsh. 

William W. Plants, son of Edward H. and Lydia (Coller) Plants, was born May 17, 1845, 
in Genesee, Pa. In '64 he came to Willing. He married Ethelana, daughter of Truman Bur- 
ritt. In '64 he enlisted m Co. I. 189th Reg. N. Y. V., was discharged in '65 on account of 
disability, having contracted heart disease and rheumatism. He returned to Willing, resided 
there until '80, when he moved to the town of Wellsville and has resided in the village since 
1892. He is a member of Wesley Rolfe Post, No. 332, of Stanard. He has two children, Marion 
and Aldine. 

Horace E. Purdy was born in Canisteo in 181 5, and had little school education. In 1831 
he entered the Angelica Repubh'can office, thus commencing his long and important newspaper 
career in our county. After ten years passed in various offices east and west, in December, i84i> 
he purchased the Angelica Reporter which he published in company with Charles Horton for 
three years. In '46 he established the Rushford Era, a Democratic paper, which, in '48, was 
removed to Angelica and published until '51 when it was removed to Oramel. Here Mr. Purdy 
was postmaster under Franklin Pierce and supervisor of Caneadea. In '57 he removed to Ohio, 
and, in '59, to Minneapolis where he founded the Plain Dealer. Three years later he came to 
Belmont, connected himself with the Southern Tier, and, in '62, revived the Era at Belmont. In 
'65 he took charge of the Port Huron (Mich.) Commercial, and in '67 joined the editorial stafif 
of the Detroit Free Press. In '72 he became managing editor of the Albany Times, and ih '73 
founded the Free Press at Horseheads which he soon removed to Elmira, and was its manag- 
ing editor until his death, when it was merged with the Elmira Gazette. A plain man of the 
people, possessing rare integrity and great ability with much kindness of heart, his memory is 
cherished. Democratic always, " money never controlled an article he wrote, a word he uttered, 
or a vote he cast," and had he been a fixed star of journalism instead of a wandering planet 
honors of high value would have lightly settled down and rested gracefully upon him. 

Arnon, son of David Rathbone, was born in Scipio, N. Y., in 1790. He was married at that 
place in 181 5, to Martha Ballard. In '37 they removed and settled near Whitesville, where Mr. 
Rathbone engaged in farming. Of their eight children, but three survive. James D. Rathbone 
was born Feb. 16, 1830. He was educated at Whitesville Academy and Alfred University. In 
'55 he went to Mobile, La., and opened a general store. During the Civil War he was employed 
in the navy yard at that place. At the close of the war he returned north and came to Wells- 
ville and since that time has been engaged in the mercantile business. He was married in '67 
to Isadore D. Baldwin. Their children are Edmund A., Rhoda N. (Mrs. H. J. Glenn) and Anah 
B. (Mrs. Paul B. Hanks), Mr. Rathbone is also an oil operator and owns 700 acres of land. 

Jacob Rauber, son of Jacob, was born Nov. 20, 1840, in Prussia, and came in '52 to America. 
In '61 he enlisted in the regimental band of the 64th N. Y. Vols, and later was a member of the 
band of the Twenty-second Army Corps, and was discharged in June, 1865. He returned to Wells- 
ville and engaged in farming. In '68 he began work in the oil country, sharpening tools, etc., 
and in the spring of '79 became an oil producer. He has been three terms a highway commis- 
sioner and three years a member of the excise board. He married Catherine O'Connell of In- 
dependence. His family consists of three children, and all are members of the Church of the Im- 
maculate Conception. 



392 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Nicholas Rauber was born in 1842 in Prussia. When he was 10 years of age, he came 
with his father, Jacob Rauber, to America, and in 1854 they came to Wellsville. Jacob died in 
September, 1891. When Nicholas was 15 he went to learn the cabinet-makers' trade. In '61 
he enlisted in the regimental band of the 64th Regt. In '62 he was discharged, and in '64 he 
joined the First Brigade band, and remained until the close of the war. In '69 he married Mary 
Hartman, and has 8 children, Mr. Rauber continued to work at his trade for some years after 
the war. In '87 he opened a furniture store, and in '90 engaged in the undertaking business. 
He is a member of Dexter Post, G. A. R. The Rauber family are members of the Church of 
the Immaculate Conception. 

Rev. Edward Alexander Rice, born in Winchester, N. H., July 17, i8(o, entered the min- 
istry of the Methodist Episcopal church when only 19, and, while riding on his "circuits'' 
studied incessantly, " graduating in the saddle among the Green Mountains." Coming to 
Western New York in '60 he preached in Brockport, Leroy, Perry and Albion, and, in 1866- 
came to Rushford. He has been in this county most of the time since then, preaching in Rush- 
ford, Andover, Belmont, Scio, Willing, Wellsville, etc. From 1870-4 he was presiding elder of 
Olean District. His home has been in Wellsville since '78. He has two children, both residing 
here, Edward P. and Clara L. 

Fred D. Rice was born in Gaines, Pa., in 1856. His father Rufus moved to Wellsville in '61 
and was landlord of the Genesee Hotel for seven years and since then a farmer. Fred D. was 
employed at the Erie railroad station 11 )4 years, 4>^ of them as ticket agent. In '91 he opened 
a livery stable and now has two stables and keeps from 20 to 25 horses. He married Clara 
Kendall. Two children, Jennie and William. 

Alexander L. Robertson was born in 1840 in Washington Co., and in '47 came to live 
with his uncle William McDougall, who, also a native of Washington Co., was a merchant at 
Oswayo, Pa., for many years, and was agent for the Bingham estate, engineer of public works 
and canals in that state and also the owner of 35,000 acres of land. He died in Willing in Feb- 
ruary, 1882. A. L.Robertson served in the Civil War in Co. B. 7th N. Y. Cav. For many 
years he has been an oil producer. He married Anna N. Beechlain of Madison, Wis. They 
have two children, Alexander B, and Elinor G. 

Joseph B. Schreiner was born in Rochester in 1864, where he learned the trade of tailor and 
cutter. In '85 he located at Wellsville where he has carried on merchant tailoring. In '64 he 
married Maggie Carroll of Wellsville. They have had 5 children. The family are members of 
the Church of the Immaculate Conception. 

Dr. Harvey M. Sheerar, born in Virgil. N. Y., Feb. 22, 1828, attended school in Cortland 
and Homer, and the famed academy at the latter place. In early life he was a successful teacher 
of district and select schools and his interest in education has ever continued. He was also a 
lecturer on quite a range of subjects, education, phonetics, temperance, etc. He possessed rare 
mechanical ability, studied dentistry in Cortland, and became a dextrous dentist. He located in 
Wellsville in '55, and has had an uninterrupted career of prosperity in his profession. Dr, 
Sheerar has done good service on the board of education of the village, has been for years a 
member of the Congregational church and active in church and Sunday school work, and in- 
troduced the systems of blackboard illustration and uniform lessons into the Sunday schools of 
the county. He is an original thinker, a delicate, accurate and discerning critic, and an acute 
and discriminating student of men. He has been for years the " village annalist," and has 
preserved many things of historical value from oblivion. He married Miss Sarah J. Purvis. 
Their childien are : Edith (organist for the Congregationalist church for an extended period). 
Edward (deceased), E. Vinton (in partnership with his father, a graduate of the Pennsylvania 
College of Dental Surgery, and one of the leading dentists of the county). 

William Steffy, son of William and Elizabeth Steffy, was born at Dansville, N. Y., July 4, 
1846, His father died when William was but 18 months old and he was adopted by Ezria 
Woodruff and lived with him until the commencement of the war. In '61 he enlisted in Co. 



Wellsville. 393 



B, 13th N. Y. Vols., and served 2 years and was honorably discharged. He then enlisted in Co. 
D, 14th N. Y. H. A. and served during the u'ar. He participated in first Bull Run, siege of 
Yorktown, Gaines Mills, Malvern Hill, Harrison's Landing, second Bull Run, Antietam, Brandy 
Station, Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor, siege of Petersburgh, Fredericksburg and many 
others of less importance. He had his left leg injured by a fall from the fort at Sandy Hook 
Harbor, and was wounded at Cold Harbor June 2, 1864, through palm of left hand. He made 
his home in Wellsville in '67, married Frances Tanner and has been engaged in trucking. He 
has carried the mail to and from the railroad station since '72, is a member of Dexter Post G. 
A. R., 336, and also of the K. of H. and has filled offices of trust in the village to which he 
belongs. He had two children, Kate, now residing in Hornellsville, and Frank, who died July 
18, '72. Frank Tanner, son of Matthew, born in Ireland, married Bridget Coleman, daughter 
of Michael, and died about "54. Mrs. Tanner came to W^illing, where her husband's brother, 
Patrick, was a large farmer, in '57, bringmg her three small children, Frances (Mrs. Wm. Steffy), 
Mary J. (Mrs. Wm. Signor) and Frank. The last two reside in Hornellsville. Mrs. Tanner 
died April 28, '91. 

William Swain came from Lincolnshire, England, to Pittsford, N. Y. in '38, and in '40 
removed to Wellsville. In '49 he made his residence in Andover where he died. He mar- 
ried Marv Parr. They had 6 children. Their son, Edward S. Swain, was born in '39. He 
married Sophronia F., daughter of Stephen A. Davis of Andover. Mr. Swain is a contractor 
and builder of Wellsville and employs from 8 to 10 workmen. 

Frank A. Taylor, son of Henry G. and Jane (VanBuren) Taylor, was born Jan. 6, '61. He 
acquired his school education at the Wellsville High School. Since '7S he has been in the 
employ of the Wellsville tannery, and since '88 has been foreman of the tannery. He married 
Frankie, daughter of George Pooler. 

James Thornton was born in Dublin, Ireland, Feb. 15, 1840. His family were Episcopal, 
ians who many generations before had removed from England. Henry Thornton, the father, 
came to this country Sept. 14, '46. March 14, '48 the mother and children followed. From 
Kingston, Canada, successive removals were made to Attica and Angelica, N. Y. Here Mr. 
Thornton passed his boyhood, learning the harness trade. His educational advantages were 
very meager. He served 3 years in Co. G. ist N. Y. Dragoons, volunteering as a private in '62 
and serving at length as an orderly sergeant. In '66 he started a harness shop in Wellsville 
which in 10 years he pushed into a factory employing 10 men. He made more than a score of 
improvements in saddlery hardware and patented Thornton's patent trace buckle, and improved 
whip socket, hundreds of thousands of which are in daily use. In '91 he retired from the har- 
ness business, giving his attention to the duties of postmaster from September, '90, to October, 
'95. He is now engaged in the production of oil. He married Miss Lydia Dobbins in September, 
'67, and has three children, Lewis Henry, Miriam Eager and Gertrude Eloise, all of Wellsville. 

Charles Smith, son of Ephraim A. and grandson of Stephen, was born Oct. i, 1834, at 
Angelica. He married Sarah T, Thompson and has two children, Ella M. and Lulu C. He 
was express messenger on the Erie railway from Hornellsville to Akron for about three years. 
Ephraim A. Smith came to Angelica when a boy, and later owned several stage lines and be- 
came well-known and popular throughout this section. He was also one of the early merchants 
of Wellsville, and owned a sawmill and was prominent in other lines of business. He married 
Janet D'Autremont, daughter of the celedrated French emigrant so long a hotel keeper in An- 
gelica, and died Jan. 31, 'jy, surviving his wife about one month. They had five children 
attaining maturity. 

Hiram J. Torrey was born in Mt. Morris, July 26, '33. He was educated at Kenosha, Wis., 
and was graduated there in '52. In '52 he commenced to learn the jewelers' trade with John 
Elkins at Kenosha, and remained with him 2 years. He then married Sarah, daughter of Sel- 
den Carpenter, at Mt. Morris, N. Y., and was in business in Marengo, 111., for 3 years from '54. 
He and his wife came east to visit her parents and she was taken ill necessitating the closing 



394 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

of his business. She died in '57, leaving one son Frank, now in business at Osceola, Pa. Mr. 
Torrey was in business in Mt. Morris until '59. In November, '59. he married Malvina E., 
daughter of Porter Hanks of Centerville, went west immediately and was in the jewelry busi- 
ness at Dubuque, Iowa, until '62, when he transferred his residence and business to Wellsville, 
and, in '85, was succeeded in trade by his son Porter H. who still remams in business. Since '85 
Mr. Torrey has been engaged as an oil producer. He was elected trustee of the village for 4 
years, elected police justice in '91 and re-elected in '94, also elected justice of the peace in '92 for 
4 years. He had 4 children by his second wife, Fred H. (dec). Kirk S. (dec), Sarah C, wife 
of W. F. Melhuish, of Allegheny, Pa., Porter H. who married Mary, daughter of Capt. Wheeler 
Hakes. 

Dan Tremaine was born in 1803 in Trumansburg. He came to Belfast in '34. He was a 
millwright by trade. He married Catharine Byrnes and had 6 children. Russell Tremaine, son 
of Dan, was born at Belfast. In '61 he enlisted in 4th Battery Indiana Vols., was wounded at 
Perryville, Ky., Pittsburg Landing and Fort Donelson, and was discharged in '63 for disabilities. 
He is a member of Dexter Post No. 336. He married Sylvia Burrell. They have one child, 
Elizabeth M. Mr. Tremaine has been an oil-producer since '82, and has 12 wells in Alma. He 
has been trustee of the village of Wellsville 4 years, 

James K. Voorhees was born in Avoca, N, Y., Nov. 8, 1840. When 16 years old he began 
to learn the painter's trade and carried on that business in Avoca until '62 when he enlisted in 
Co. G. 107 N. Y. Inf., and was in the battles of South Mountain, Antietam, Chancellorsville, etc. 
He was wounded at Chancellorsville, was taken prisoner and during the 14 days he was in cap- 
tivity his leg was amputated. He was honorably discharged in Oct. '63, returned to Avoca and 
followed his trade there until '70 and later in Wellsville. 

Charles F. Weinhauer was born in North Germany in '54. He learned the trade of a 
tailor and in '73 came to America and settled in Wisconsin. In '74 he came to Wellsville and 
was employed by Charles Simmons for about i year, when he engaged in business for himself 
as a dealer in gent's furnishing goods, etc., and has carried on merchant tailoring since then in 
connection with his store. He married Louise Schwartzcop in '76, and has 3 children, Eda, 
Carl and Fannie. The family are members of the German Lutheran Church. 

Michael Wetherby, father of John Wetherby, was born in Germany in 1741 and removed 
to Massachusetts in 1784. John Wetherby, born in Haverhill in Massachusetts, Aug. 23. 1796, 
came to Wirt from Vermont in 1826 and passed his life in farming. He was a soldier in the 
war of 1812 and died Apr. 9, 1865. His wife, Lucinda, daughter of Stephen Maybee, is still 
living in West Clarksville. Their children were Orin, Nicholas, Serina, Henrietta, Clarinda, 
Elizabeth (dec), Phebe (dec), Stephen, Josephine, William, James and John A. Mr. Weth- 
erby was prominent in town affairs, serving some time as supervisor, and made the second 
arrest in Allegany county. John A. Wetherby, born in Wirt, Nov. 22, 1857, taught school 18 
terms and in '83 came to Wellsville, where he has since been engaged in mercantile business 
under various firm names, his own always being at the head. He married Dec. 31, '83, Nettie 
L. Jordan, of West Clarksville. 

Clark Wilcox, son of Simeon, was born in Willing in 1831. In '59 he wa"; united in mar- 
riage with Sarah V. Sparks, and they settled in Horton, Pa., where Mr. Wilcox engaged in mer- 
chandising and lumbering. He held the office of justice of the peace. His death occurred Dec. 
17. '74- In '80 his widow located in Wellsville where she has since resided. Of her 4 children 
only one survives. George B. Wilcox, son of Clark and Sarah V. (Sparks) Wilcox, was born Nov. 
2, '70, he was graduated from the public school in '88, then entered Cornell University and was 
a member of the class of '92. He is clerk in the First National Bank of Wellsville, and treas- 
urer of the Empire Novelty Co. 

Dr. J. G. Wilson was born in Lodi, Seneca Co., in 1850, studied dentistry with Sellew & 
Spencer, and commenced practice in '72 at Wellsboro, Pa. In '73 he located at Wellsville, where 
he continues to practice dentistry in all of its branches. He is the discoverer and inventor of 



Wellsville. 395 

Dr. J. W. Wilson's local anaesthetic for the painless extraction of teeth, which is in large de- 
mand among his professional brethren throughout the Union, and is a member of the manufac- 
turing firm entitled Central Chemical Co. Dr. Wilson married in '•j'j Jettie Grover, daughter 
of B. H. Grover. Four children. 

John H. Wolverton, son of Charles J,, was born in Tyrone, N. Y., Dec. 13, '44. When 15 
years old he began to learn the carpenters' trade, and when 18 went to Coopers Plains to learn 
the millers' trade. On becoming of age he took charge of the Forest Mills at Dansville, and 
has been in the milling business since. He came to Wellsville in '87, and has been from that 
time connected with the Genesee Mills. He has been overseer of the poor and village trustee, 
and was commissioned postmaster of Wellsville in '94 by Grover Cleveland. Mr. Wolverton 
married, in '75, Ida C. Palmer. They have one child, Nellie. Her great-grandfather, John 
Wolverton, came from England to New Jersey about '25, and later made a permanent home in 
Tyrone, where he cleared a fine farm. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

EDWARD JUDSON FARNUM. 



Edward Judson Farimm, son of Caleb Farnum, was born at Uxbridge, 
Mass., March 16, 1809. Of New England birth and parentage, his heritage 
was integrity, an indomitable will and perseverance which scarcely recog- 
nized the possibility of failure. His educational advantages were good, and 
appreciated because earned by himself. In childhood he was employed in 
a cotton factory at Slatersville, of which his father was superintendent; re- 
moving thence to Jewett City, Conn. , where his father superintended a fac- 
tory for the Slaters, he obtained a clerkship in a store. In 1827 he obtained 
a similar position in Rochester, N. Y. Here he made the acquaintance of 
Lucy L. Goff and their marriage followed in February, 1829. From Roch- 
ester he went to Bath, Steuben Co., his father having in the meantime pur- 
chased a farm in that vicinity. He had early determined to become a civil 
engineer and employed all the time which was his own to the furtherance of that 
object. In Steuben county he was a clerk or a teacher winters, and sum- 
mers he devoted himself to the practice of his profession, in which he soon at- 
tained to prominence, having been employed upon variou s railroads of this coun- 
try and Canada. In 1837andapartof 1838 he was resident engineer in Indiana 
on what was then called the Buffalo & Mississippi R. R. In the fall of 1838 
he was appointed resident engineer of the Erie R. R. for Steuben county. 
Later he filled the same position on the Susquehanna division. In the mean 
time he had purchased a farm in Bath near the present Soldiers' Home, 
Mrs. Farnum assuming the management during his surveying expeditions. 
While engaged in preliminary work upon the Erie R. R. he became convinced 
of the great value of the dense pine forests in Allegany county, and made 
purchase of large tracts there. He eventually became one of the largest 



396 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

land owners of that section, owning- at one time ujd wards of three thousand 
acres in the town of Wellsville, and more in adjacent townships. He, with 
his family, removed to Wellsville in 1847, engaging extensively in lumbering. 
He was the poor man's friend, affording him the best possible aid, by put- 
ting him in the way to help himself. Many are they who owe the comfortable 
homes which they possess to the encouragement which he gave them when 
they were striving to win them. He was a great lover of nature and caused 
two thousand shade trees to be planted along the highways of the town; both 
sides of West Main street from the river bridge to a point above Duke's mill 
were lined with these trees, as were also a considerable portion of State street 
and the southern extremity of Main street. He was a member of the Con- 
stitutional Convention of 1867-8, having won the gratitude of the women of 
his country by identifying himself with the small minority who voted in 
favor of Woman's Suffrage. Mr. Parnum was president of the First Na- 
tional Bank of Wellsville from 1886 to 1891, after which he was vice presi- 
dent and director until his death, which occurred July 11, 1894, when he had 
attained to the age of four score and five years. 

Mrs. Lucy L. Farnum died Oct. 12, 1876. Of their seven children two 
died in infancy, their daughter Frances died in 1857, the four remaining 
reside in Wellsville; Antoinette, who married Edwin B. Hall, a druggist. 
(They have one daughter, Fannie Louise, who married J. Milton Carpenter.) 
William Carlton, a bachelor, is engaged in lumbering, milling and farming. 
Louise married Alfred S. Brown (they have one son, Edward Carlton, who 
married Mary Elizabeth Browning, and has one son, James Farnum Brown) 
and Sylvania Allen Farnum. Mr. Farnum married in 1881, Miss 
Loretta Wildman, who is still a resident of Wellsville. Of Mr. Farnum's 
five sisters and five brothers, but one, his brother Carlton Lee Farnum, 
remains. 

ENOS W. BARNES.* 

E710S W. Barnes was born at Rock Stream, Yates Co., N. Y., March 4, 1836. 
His father. Dr. Enos Barnes, was an able physician and a prominent citizen 
in that section of the state. In 1839 the family removed to Geneva, N. Y., 
at the foot of Seneca lake. There, in a kind of amphibious boyhood, he was 
educated and graduated by " the people's college " the common school, and 
the mimic hfe of boyhood's sports. In that boy world the races of the rival 
miniature yachts were as eagerly contested as the international races of the 
Valkyrie and the Defender in the larger sphere to-day. When Mr. Barnes 
was seventeen he made up his mind to become a printer, and, shouldering 
his httle pack, he tramped over the snow^y hills to Bath, where he entered 
the printing office of The Steuben Farmer's Advocate, a Democratic news- 
paper, and put his foot on the first round of the ladder which he climbed to 
the top. 

In 1856 he became the local editor of the Bath Courier, and in 1864 became 
an equal partner with Henry H. Hull in the publication of that paper. In 

* By Rev. F. W. Beecher. 




-Tt^-"^ 




Wellsville. 397 



1875 Mr. Barnes came to Wellsville to assume the ownership and manage- 
ment of The Allegany County Reporter. In 1880 he started the WelUville Daily 
Reporter, which was successful from the start and was successively enlarged 
and improved, and is still published by his sons. For a year in 1886 and 1887 
Mr. Barnes also conducted the Columbus Telegram, a family paper at Colum- 
bus, O., when his failing health compelled its sale. There were other prom- 
ising plans in the editorial line that were cut short by the repressing hand 
of a fatal illness, which in less than two months ended his life's career and 
his ambitious hopes. Mr. Barnes tilled several public offices honorably to 
himself and usefully to the x^ublic. While a citizen of Bath he held for four 
years the offices of assistant assessor and deputy collector of U. S. internal 
revenue. For something over a year he filled the responsible position of 
special U. S. pension examiner, resigning the office in 1883. In 1886 Gov. 
David B. Hill appointed Mr. Barnes one of the three prison labor reform 
commissioners of the state. Very largely the work of this commission, 
which was very laborious, fell into his hands. Its report was written 
entirely by him, and is a very valuable public document. 

Mr. Barnes was a man of marked and conspicuous abihty in his chosen 
field of life's endeavor. He displayed from the very outset of his career a 
genius for editorial and newspaper work. He was always a recognized 
power in local and state aifairs of public interest. He was always a Republi- 
can, but did not hesitate upon fit occasion to sink partisan interests to those 
of the public-spirited citizen. He was a leader, an index3endent thinker, and 
with the courage of his convictions did not hesitate to declare them. His 
paper was always, scruj^ulously and of indomitable purpose, a clean one 
morally. Nothing could appear in his columns that would soil the purity of 
the family or dim the lustre of the church. He was a trenchant political 
fighter and skilled in the use of the rapier of the most galling satire. Those 
who felt the keen blade of his wit winced, and sometimes complained. But 
he never cherished a grudge, or refused an offered reconciliation, or rejected 
the extended hand of friendship. His affection for his friends was true, 
generous, and unconquerable. He was always eager to serve their interests 
to the full extent of his ability and opportunity. He never betrayed a trust 
and the one fault of men that most angered him was treachery. Socially 
Mr. Barnes was a charming companion. With strong idiosyncracies he was 
at once witty, merry and genial, and with an inexhaustible fund of anecdote. 
Those who judged him alone from his political writing, and as a strong con- 
testant in political strife, formed but the most imperfect idea of the man, 
losing the knowledge of the kind, generous companion and friend in private 
life. 

In 1864 Mr. Barnes, then twenty-seven years of age, was most happily 
married to Miss Sarah Hurd of Bath.* In that ideal home life never a 
cloud of suspicion arose, nor was a word spoken other than a loving one. 

* Mrs. Barnes was daughter of Reuben S. and Emily (Osmun) Hurd, of Hurd's Corners, (Rock Stream)j 
Ytes county. 



398 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

He truly lived for his wife and his children, and they will always have a 
most satisfying memory of him as a most faithful and loving husband and 
father. Mr. Barnes left three children, two sons and one daughter. The 
sons still successfully carry on the business of publishing the Daily and 
Semi-Weekly Reporter, the running of a well-appointed printing office, and 
other financial schemes to fill up time. Mrs. Barnes is still interested in the 
paper and gives much of her time to editorial supervision and writing, and 
the talented daughter helps everybody, all round, where her help is most 
needed. 

ORVILLE p. TAYLOR. 

Orville P. Taylor was born at Leesville, Campbell Co., Va., Sept. 15, 1838, 
and died in Wellsville Nov. 17, 1883. When sixteen he made his home with 
an aunt and received his education at Genesee Seminary near Attica gradu- 
ating in 1858. The same year railway contractors of Richmond, Va. , sent 
him to superintend the construction of the first railroad in the Empire of 
Brazil, known as " Dom Pedro's Railway." On his outward passage the ves- 
sel was wrecked, and for 22 days Mr. Taylor with others clung to the water- 
logged hull before it was cast on shore on the island of St. Thomas. In 
Brazil he acquired the warm friendship of the Emperor and was frequently 
entertained and consulted by him. He narrowly escaped death from a severe 
attack of yellow fever which debilitated him through life. Returning north 
in 1860, in January, 1861, he married, at Canaseraga, Cornelia, daughter of 
Chauncey F. and Harriet S. Clark, and granddaughter of Stephen and Ann 
Mundy, prominent pioneers of the town of Burns, A loyal Southerner he 
took his bride to his Virginia home and cast in his lot with his state and the 
Southern Confederacy as a soldier until the end of the Civil War. "He was 
brave, daring and gallant, possessed that determined resistance that so 
long prolonged the war against the crushing odds of superior force and 
wealth, " and was wounded in the first battle of Manassas. Accepting un- 
complainingly the result of the war he came to Canaseraga in 1865 and en- 
gaged in the manufacture of cigars. In 1870 he made his home in WellsviUe 
and extensively increased his business. His life from this time is historic. 
To him belongs the just credit of the development of the. Allegany oil field. 
The Bradford Era, a most competent authority, thus outlines his connection 
with this industry: 

There are few people in the oil regions who do not know Mr. Taylor as the " father of the 
Allegany field," and the stories of the trials and discouragements of his first efforts in this direc- 
tion are familiar to almost every one. It seems as if a dispensation had selected him to pave 
the way to this field of wealth. It has been said by those who are familiar with the defeats 
which characterized his first efforts in Alma, that not one man in a million would continue in a 
fixed purpose in the face of so many discouragements as he did. The stories of his trials and 
subsequent triumphs would read like fiction. Many believe that without his remarkable pluck 
and indomitable will, which no defeat could swerve, the Allegany field with its wealth of oil 
would be unknown to day. True it is that no one can dispute his claim to be the founder of 
this producing section which stands next to Bradford in point of importance as an oil field. Mr. 




Cl^^J^/. 



a^ 



Wellsville. 399 



Taylor first became interested in ventures in Alma during the year 1877. His first venture was 
on lot 26 Alma. At a depth of 1,015 ^^""t, they encountered a thin stratum of rock — about 6 
feet in all — which contained some gas and a showing of oil. The rest of the company were 
discouraged with the result of this venture, but Mr. Taylor believed that this was a conclusive 
evidence of a producing rock in Allegany county. He next became interested in what has since 
been known as the Pikeville well on lot 118 Alma. It was finished in November, 1878. The 
bit cut through twenty feet of sand and Mr. Taylor thought it might have made a two barrel 
producer. The Wykoff well was drilled in the winter of 1878-9. The bit cut through a hard 
close sand and proved the third failure in the list. The first of Mr. Taylor's ventures which 
bore any omens of encouragement was at the Triangle well No. i. It was completed in June, 
1879. This well has an interesting history. After a series of experiments it was pronounced a 
failure, although it proved the correctness of Mr. Taylor's belief that an oil bearing rock under- 
laid the rugged surface of Allegany, and his faith that a producmg field would be opened here 
grew stronger, while the Triangle well No. i gave him a point to work from. The Brimmer 
Brook well was drilled during the succeeding autumn. It was the dryest of all Mr. Taylor's 
previous experiments. The Triangle well No. 2, which was Mr. Taylor's next experiment, was a 
better well than No. i, and gave the owner his first foothold in this field. Then followed No. 
3, a hundred rods southwest of No. 2. This was regarded as the first paying well in Allegany 
field. It was finished about the 4th day of July, 1880. During the same summer the Campbelj 
well No. 1, on lot 7, Bolivar, in which Mr. Taylor was interested, was finished, and about the 
same time Mr. Taylor finished a dry hole on the Williams farm, lot 27, Bolivar. The latter was 
as dry as a well could be, though afterwards paying wells were obtained within a stone's throw. 
Only those acquainted with Mr. Taylor during his first ventures in Allegany county, know the 
discouragements under which he labored. One dry hole succeeded another, and the expense of 
wildcatting exhausted his bank account and drained his pocket book. After the completion of 
his second or third failure, outside capital was slow coming in, and Mr. Taylor's zeal and con- 
tinued faith in the field was regared as an evidence of fanaticism rather than a praiseworthy 
zeal. Monied men withdrew their support from his wildcat schemes and his friends laughed at 
what they regarded as his crazy ideas. It is related that at one time after his credit had run 
quite low. a committee of his neighbors called upon him. and earnestly petitioned him to dis- 
continue his more than useless drilling in Alma and return to his legitimate business. They 
urged him in the interest of his family to " try and earn an honest living." Before the old 
Triangle well No. 2 was finished the drillers refused to work any longer without a payment of 
their past indebtedness. Being unable to meet his obligations, he was compelled to take hold 
of the temper screw himself. He and his son Charlie, who was nothing more than a boy, made 
a screw themselves and drilled the well through the sand. Mr. Taylor in speaking of his early 
struggles in this part of the field said no one took any interest in his work, and he seldom had 
any company but the chipmunks and robins. The Triangle wells Nos. i, 2 and 3 however 
were small, the Campbell well No. i was pronounced a failure, and the Williams well on 37, 
Bolivar, being dry, Mr. Taylor had not apparently scored much of a triumph at the close of the 
year 1880, although he had fully demonstrated the fact that oil existed in Allegany county. The 
completion of the old Richburg well in the spring of i88i opened a new era in the history of 
the Allegany field, and Mr. Taylor's prosperity dates from this time. During the Cheiry Grove 
excitement Mr. Taylor took an interest in that field with the common result. Mr, Taylor's pre- 
dictions for the Allegany field have been more than realized. 

The Buffalo Express in an article on the Allegany oil field says : 

No. I Triangle was the first flowing well in Allegany county. It produced 10 barrels a 
day for some weeks. No attempt was made to save the oil. It was allowed to pour out on 
the derrick floor. Taylor passed through some of the bitterest experiences of his life while 
drilling the Triangle well. He was distrusted by all except a few tried friends. Just before the 



400 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Triangle well was completed the jars broke. The nearest point to get them repaired was Brad- 
ford. Taylor was totally out of funds and could not borrow or secure the loan of a dollar, and 
went home, for once, completely disheartened. His wife inquired the cause of his despondency, 
and when informed, to his great surprise, she offered to advance him the money needed. She 
had sold her gold watch, rings and jewelry to buy the necessaries of life, but her faith in his 
venture was great enough to ignore hunger. From the moment the well was finished Taylor's 
star was in the ascendant, and everybody was glad to acknowledge him as a friend. 

Mr. Taylor possessed the Southern characteristics of courtesy, ease and 
gentleness of manner. He was of medium size, with dark, piercing eyes, 
and full dark-colored beard, and he possessed a personal magnetism and 
charm of conversation that carried conviction to his listeners. He was a 
deep thinker and had strong and convincing proofs to support his theories. 
He was an ardent Freemason, holding membership in Wellsville Chapter 
and St. John's Commandery of Olean. He was at all times ready to help a 
friend, and no deserving person ever went from him unaided. He was a 
kind husband and father, and more than all other places enjoyed the atmos- 
phere of his home. He had three children, Charles O., William O. and Annie 
B. (Mrs. Grant Duke). One of Mr. Taylor's staunchest friends was the 
gifted Enos W. Barnes. In an obituary written for the WellsviUe Reporter, 
Mr. Barnes said: "To him belongs the credit of the development of the 
Allegany oil fields. It required just his persistent pluck and perseverance, 
and he triumphed where a thousand others would have failed. The faithful 
wife never for once forsook him. In an hour when business men and friends 
shook their heads and refused further aid, her heroic devotion won for her 
a name not to be forgotten and ever to be admired and emulated. In the 
midst of his struggles with the fortunes and fatigues of oil developments, 
Mr. Taylor was elected president of the village of Wellsville and gave close 
and competent attention to the duties. In 1881 he ran as Democratic nomi- 
nee for member of assembly. He ran 479 ahead of his ticket, and came out 
of the contest with marked credit. Death has drawn down the curtain upon 
an eventful and busy life. He will be missed and mourned in a truthful and 
conspicuous sense. A genial disposition, even when the horizon of business 
and si)eculation was gloomy and fuU of apprehension, won for him a hearti- 
ness of respect and appreciation which will live green in long years to come. " 

THE MCEWEN BROTHERS. 

Successful manufacturers are public benefactors, and merit the grati- 
tude and praise of their countrymen. The nation that produces the most 
in proportion to its numbers will be the most prosperous and powerful. 
The United States possesses all the natural advantages for this desirable 
result, and it is wise patriotism to turn them to the best account and develop 
industries which wiU give employment to many and advance the places 
where they are located. The McEwen Bros., in building up their large 
works in Wellsville, have not only laid the foundations of their individual 
prosperity, but also have increased the wealth and importance of Wellsville 
and furnished the support of many families. Their importance demands 





ch^^p^ 



Wellsville. 401 



an account of the men identitied with the development of the business. 
Duncan McEwen, born June 1, 1822, in Commerie, Perthshire, in the High- 
lands of Scotland, learned both the machinist and millwright trades in Glas- 
gow, and later worked in Belfast, Ireland, where, Aj)ril 14, 1846, he married 
Susan, daughter of John and Mary (Campbell) Ewing. From Belfast he 
was called to Liverpool, England, and was foreman or superintendent of one 
of the large government ship yards. Thinking that America would afford 
better advantages to build up a business of his own. Mr. McEwen concluded 
to emigrate thither in 1849, and brought his little family over in one of the 
first steamships constructed for ocean traffic, making the trip in the then 
wonderfully short time of 18 days, and arrived at New York April 21, 1849. 
He soon made his home in Cold Spring, opposite West Point on the Hudson, 
where he worked in the large manufactory where Mr. Campbell made sugar 
mills for the Southern market. The climate causing him severe attacks of 
fever and ague, he soon removed to Caledonia, in Monroe county, where he 
established a shop to make threshing machines. His health again failing, 
by the advice of his physician, he sought the clear bracing air of Allegany, 
removed to Angelica in 1853, and May 10, 1854, made his home in Wellsville. 
Here, in an humble way, he established the original nucleus of the present 
magnificent business in a portion of the small cabinet shop of W. H. Coats, 
"a lathe and a drilling machine" comprising his plant. By 1858-9 his 
business had so increased that he purchased the site of the present woi'ks, 
erected there a small building, and in connection with a little foundry and 
repairing machine shop, put in the first woolcarding machinery of the town. 
He battled with many difficulties. His lack of means and the demands of a 
growing family caused him to devote more time to exhausting labor than his. 
enfeebled constitution could bear and he had not placed the works on a self- 
sastaining basis when his death occurred Feb. 16, 1864. His children were 
Jennette (dec), born in Liverpool, John, born in New York City, William R., 
born in Mumfordville, N. Y., Mary A. (Mrs. V. D. Godfrey of Bradford, Pa.) 
born in Mumfordville, March 13, 1852, James H. born in Angelica July 1,, 
1853 (he has a large engine manufactory at Ridgway, Pa.), Ella (Mrs. Harry 
W. Breckenridge), born in Wellsville Oct. 21, 1855, Duncan S. born July 6, 
1857, Charles S. born May 5, 1859, died an infant. Mr. McEwen was a social 
friendly man who had many friends. He was naturally a Presbyterian and 
a Republican. Mrs. McEwen survives him and enjoys the prosperity which 
has come to her children, largely as the result of her teachings and faithful 
admonitions. Mr. McEwen's sons inherited his probity of character, his 
thorough manner of doing work, his industry and his perseverance. For a 
time after his death there was no one of the family to carry on the business,. 
John, his oldest son, being only fourteen, and the shop was rented for a. 
few years. John worked at different places during this period, saving his. 
small earnings. William, the next son, at the same time learned the machin- 
ists trade at the Dunkirk Iron Works. By 1868 conditions were right for 
their engaging in business for themselves, and the brothers formed the firm 



402 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

of McEwen Bros. There was a mortgage on tbe property covering nearly 
its value, but the young men were courageous and determined to make a 
success. They were ready and anxious to produce at a fair price whatever 
the people wanted in their line, made good honest work, gave steady atten- 
tion to their business and it was not long before they were well established 
and prosperous. As public needs demanded they added different branches 
of manufacturing and employed more men, and by the time their plant was 
burned, Oct. 14, 1876, they had commenced making engines and boilers from 
their own designs. A substantial brick building was at once built on the 
site of the burned shop into which was placed the finest and latest machin- 
ery. From that time, when they employed 25 men and did a yearly busi- 
ness of $50,000, there has been a steady and solid increase. They now have 
about 60 workmen who manufacture annually goods amounting to at least 
$125,000, consisting of engines, boilers, mill and general machinery. They 
make a specialty of fitting out tanneries, and have made and placed the 
machinery in all of the tanneries built within a radius of 150 miles of Wells- 
ville for the last 25 years, among them being the largest in the world, the 
enormous one at Costello, Pa., which has a capacity of 1,200 sides a day. 
They have also fitted many tanneries in various parts of the South. This 
great success has been moSt largely due to the keen business faculties and 
energetic force of John McEwen who has ever stood at the head of the firm 
and whose practical common sense and financial ability have been most pro- 
nounced. After the death of William, Oct. 14, 1886, Duncan, a younger 
brother, was admitted to the firm. He is the general superintendent of 
the works. 

John McEwen. son of Duncan and Susan (Ewing) McEwen, was 
born in New York City April 21, 1849, married Oct. 30, 1879, Emma, daughter 
of Harvey and Caroline (Torrey) Alger. Their children are Fanny, William 
R. and Harvey A. While the most of his time has been devoted to his ex- 
tensive manufacturing business, Mr. McEwen has been a wide-awake and 
public spirited citizen, and many matters of local and political importance 
have been aided by his counsels and active assistance. One example is 
shown in the building of the W. C. & P. C. R. R. This was started many 
years ago as a narrow-guage road, eight miles were graded and labor sus- 
pended. In 1889 and '90 it was rumored that Hornellsville capitalists were 
planning a road into the same section that this road was designed to reach. 
To avoid this great blow to Wellsville it was deemed best to intersect the pro- 
posed road at Genesee. Mr. McEwen took hold of the matter with his accus- 
tomed energy, personally circulated the paper for subscriptions to the stock, 
which came in liberally, was elected president and general manager by the 
new company, and gave his personal attention to the building, equipping and 
operating the road, which was completed to Genesee in the fall of 1890, and 
to Perry viUe, Pa., the next season. This road was a success, paid good div- 
idends, and, when sold in 1895, realized a handsome profit to the stockhold- 
ers. Mr. McEwen signed every check ever issued in payment of claims 



WELLS\aLLE. 403 



against the road and the brilliant result of his administration demonstrates 
his signal financial ability. In political circles he is a leading factor in the 
Republican party of Allegany, and if he would consent to leave his multi- 
farious business alfairs, would be given high official place. This he has so 
far refused to do, only accepting the honor of representing this district as a 
delegate to the National Republican Convention held in Minneapolis in 1892. 
He is yet a young man and his many friends trust that he may yet recon- 
sider his decision in regard to taking office. He is a Knight Templar Mason 
of St. Johns Commandery, Olean, and an attendant of the Baptist 
church. He is a modest, unassuming man, who does all things coming to 
him in a straightforward manner, and by his rectitude and winning person- 
ality gains many friends. 

William R. McEwen, second son of Duncan and Susan (Ewing) McEwen 
was born in Mumfordville, N. Y., May 30, 1850. As stated above he was 
one of the organizers of the present firm, and perfect harmony at all times 
existed between the brothers. He was extremely popular, and, as the 
responsibility of the business did not rest so heavily on him as on John, he 
had more time to devote to public matters. He was an active Republican, 
held various offices, and in 1885 and 1886 was chosen member of assembly 
from Allegany county. His majority in the last election was a phenomenal 
one, showing the immense popularity of the man. He did good work in the 
legislature, served on important committees, and was both years chairman 
of the committee on trade and manufactures. While attending to his official 
duties at Albany he contracted typhoid fever, and died from its effects Oct. 
14, 1886. By his death Wellsville and Allegany county lost one of its most 
valuable citizens and Freemasonry an honored Knight Templar. 

Duncan S. McEwen was born in Wellsville July 6, 1857, married Jennie 
Rice, and has been a member of the firm of McEwen Bros, since 1887. He 
gives his personal attention to the superintendence of the various mechanical 
processes carried on in this great establishment. He is a Republican in 
politics. 

WILLIAM DUKE. 

The name Duke carries in itself the evidence of noble origin, as it takes 
us back to the invasion and conquest of England by William, Duke of Nor- 
mandy, and shows it to be of knightly Norman French origin. The handing 
down in the family for so many generations of the given name William may 
tell of close connection with William the Conqueror. This first Norman king 
of England divided the lands of England among his dukes and knights and 
they became the aristocracy of that country. We have not access to the 
English records by which to trace William Duke of Allegany back to the 
Conquest, but search among them cannot fail to show the family line. This 
family perhaps descends through a younger branch for some generations. 
Landed proprietors we know them to have been as late as 1836, for there is 
preserved in the family a bill rendered February 23d of that year by John 
Dunnicliff, Esq., for numerous legal services concerning landed property in 



404 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Derbyshire, belonging to William Duke the American emigrant, some par- 
cels of which were advertised for sale in the Derby Mercury and Reporter. 
William Duke, the emigrant, was born in Derbyshire, Eng., in August, 1796, 
and died in Scio, N. Y., Dec. 7, 1847. His brothers and sisters were John, 
Mary (Mrs. Joseph Parker) and Ann (Mrs. Charles Brentnal), all of Derby 
He married Elizabeth Cockayne, born March 1, 1808, died Oct. 17, 1888. Their 
children, all born in America, were William, born April 26, 1830; John, April 
14, 1832; Thomas (dec), March 4, 1834; Joseph (dec), April 23, 1836; Ann P. 
(Mrs. Alonzo Crowner), Jan. 31, 1838; Charles, born Jan. 11, 1840; Mary E 
(Mrs. A. J. Applebee). Feb. 28, 1842; Violet (Mrs. Henry Fitzsimmons), Sept. 
23, 1844;Emmer D. (Mrs. Lucius Norton) June 8, 1847. Mr. Duke conducted in 
England the making of handmade lace, a business presumably handed down 
from his father, but the introduction of lace-making machines caused the ruin 
of the hand industry about 1820. Mr. Duke not long after came to America, 
again returned to England, and between 1825 and 1830 made his home in Bing- 
ham ton. The report of the fine lumbering facilities of Southern Allegany 
brought him to Scio in 1838, where the pine timber was plenty and luxuriant. 
He located on Knight's Creek where he owned and operated a saw-mill. 
At his death his oldest son, William, became the head, not only of this 
American family but also the head of the line, and to-day he is the oldest male 
member of both the Enghsh and American families. He inherited the help- 
ful English characteristics of persistent industry, untiring energy and frank 
honesty and at once assumed the care of the family and the management of 
the business. As his brothers grew older they displayed the same traits of 
character and all worked in harmony to advance their mutual interests, al- 
ways however considering their elder brother as their counselor and guide. 
During all the many and large business operations which they successfully 
transacted together in a long period of years there was never a jarring word 
or unpleasant thought connected with their intercourse. William's strict 
integrity, business capacity, and straightforward way of doing things 
inspired confidence in the minds of business men of means and they were 
ready to aid both him and his brothers. That confidence was never betrayed, 
and it has been truly said that "A Duke remembers the other man's side of 
the contract as well as his own. " For more than half a century William Duke 
has been connected with the lumber manufacture of southern Allegany and 
lor many years the Dukes were the leading operators. During this period 
William Duke has been constantly identified with the material interests of the 
county and a leading factor in the development of not only this section but of 
portions of Pennsylvania. Under his observation many towns have been 
wholly built up and his name is intimately connected with inany of them. 
When he first knew this section much of it was a dense forest of pine, oak 
and hemlock. That its almost impenetrable shades have given way to sun- 
light has been in no small measure due to the unflagging industry and the 
indomitable perseverance of William Duke, his brothers and their associates. 
Commencing in 1848 with the small watermill on Knight's Creek, their busi- 



Wellsvtlle. 404a 



ness rapidly expanded until their operations required many mills and em- 
ployed many workmen. It is well to note in passing that Mr. Duke shipped 
the first carload of lumber sent to New York on the Erie railroad from Alle- 
gany county. Mr. Duke married, Jan. 1, 1855, Samantha E., daughter of 
George and Maria (Smith) Blackman.* They lived in Scio until 1882, when 
they made a permanent residence in Wellsville. Mr. Duke possesses posi- 
tive character, independent thought and close reasoning powers, does not 
follow the lead of any one. but is original and must satisfy himself that his 
course is right. He is strong and loyal in his friendships and occupies a high 
place in public esteem. Thoroughly honest himself, he opposes everything 
like hypocrisy, prevarication and deceit. He has been a diligent and persis- 
tent worker in his chosen sphere, and has met with a good reward, finan- 
cially and otherwise. Mr. and Mrs. William Duke have six children. 1st, 
Emmer E. (Mrs. H. M. Browning) of Wellsville. Her children are William 
W., Bessie S., Horace, Amy and Fanny. 2d, William, of Wellsville, an ex- 
tensive operator in the Ohio oil field. He married Carrie S. Black, and has 
children William, Ella M., C. Martin and Victoria. 3d, Ella M. (Mrs. H. A. 
Higbie) of Wellsville. Her children are Onnolee, Anita and Greta. 4th, 
Grant, an extensive oil operator, the energetic and popular centennial presi- 
dent of Wellsville village, married Anna B. Taylor. His children are Helen, 
Joseph and James. 5th, Oak, also of Wellsville, an operator in oil, lumber, 
etc., married Florence Elwell. 6th, Rebea S. (Mrs. W. T. Gridley) resides 
in Syracuse. 

SAMUEL A. EARLEY. 

Samuel A. Earley, son of William and Lorana (Sortore) Earley, was born 
in Scio, May 9, 1829. He attended district school in the log school house 
about two months each summer after attaining suitable age until he was 12 
years old when he commenced to work by the month during the summer, 
receiving at first lt^4 a month for wages. He then for two months each winter 
attended school, and made such use of his opportunities that his teachers 
encouraged him to become a teacher, which he did, teaching his first term 
at Centerville, Pa., in 1847, when 18 years of age. He gave such satisfaction 
that he taught there for three years. In 1852, when he was 23 years old, he 
married Miss Mehssa Applebee, a sister of A. J. and T. J. Applebee. She 
was educated at Alfred and was known as one of the most successful lady 
teachers of this section. They then together followed teaching until Mrs. 
Earley had concluded her 70th term and Mr. Earley his 72d. They taught 
in most of the Scio districts, in Scio village Union School, 13 years in the 
"Brooklyn" school at Wellsville, where they had 150 scholars, and for 10 
years from 1871 conducted teacher's classes there that furnished each sum- 

* Mrs. Duke descends from the Connecticut family of Blackman whose first American ancestor was Rev. 
Adam Blakeman, born in Staffordshire, England, in 1599, and matriculated at Christ's College, Oxford, May 
28, 1617. He was a preacher for some years in Leicestershire and Derbyshire, and in 1638 came to New Eng- 
land, in 1639-40 was one of the original settlers of Stratford, Conn., and the first and beloved minister of the 
church until his death, Sept. 7, 1665. The name was early changed to Blackman. 



404b History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

mer and winter from 10 to 20 teachers for the district schools. They also 
taught 3 years in Allentown. In 1885 Mrs. Earley met with an accident 
which made her permanently lame and she retired from the rank of teach- 
ers. During all their years of teaching Mrs. Earley never whipped a pupil 
nor did Mr. Earley find but two occasions where use of the rod seemed 
necessary. To supplement the slight school xDrivileges of his early years 
and to properly fit himself to do his work as he desired to do it, for 15 years 
Mr. Earley devoted at least one hour each day to study, thus mastering sur- 
veying, algebra, and other necessary branches of education. He early 
acquired a good knowledge of the principles of law and the forms of legal 
documents, and has from that time drafted many legal papers and has done 
much probate business. He was too much devoted to teaching however to 
forsake it for law and has made it his life work. His first home was on 
Middaugh Hill, Avhere he was born; in 1866 he moved to Scio village and in 
1871 made a permanent home in Wellsville. Mr. Earley has been given 
many offices and positions of honor and trust. He was president of the 
Teachers' Association of his district for 7 or 8 years, was chairman of the 
County Teachers' Institute in 1874, 1875 and 1876, has been a member of the 
Wellsville Board of Education for five years and its president for four years. 
He held all of the important offices of the old town of Scio and has held many 
in Wellsville. Although belonging to the minority party, the Democratic, 
(and an uncompromising supporter of its doctrines) his peculiar fitness for 
various positions has been often acknowledged by the voters. He was elected 
in March, 1895, justice of the peace for the sixth consecutive term of four 
years each, and was earlier session justice for four terms, in which office he sat 
with Judge Daniels as a members of the court before which was tried the 
two notable cases of The People vs. John McCarthy for the murder of Patrick 
Markey at Richburg, and that of The People vs. Whipple, for murder in 
shooting a man in a bowling alley in Richburg. In 1867 he was elected one 
of the then three county superintendents of the poor, but owing to peculiar 
complications did not take office. In 1865 he was candidate for member of 
assembly and defeated by 1,052 votes, the normal Republican majority in 
the district being 2,000. He has been referee in many important cases, and 
was one of a special commission appointed by the supreme court in 1882 to 
appraise the damages caused by the occupation of the lands along its route 
by the railroad running from Angelica to Swains, the other members being 
Hon. E. D. Loveridgeof Cuba and Fay Miller of Canaseraga. He has been a 
Mason for over twenty years and is now a Royal Arch Mason. These are 
some of the exhibits of an active and useful Ufe, but the results of his kindly 
thought and careful teachings are found in the lives of many citizens made 
wiser and better by his salutary and kind instructions in the days of their 
youth. The advancing years of life have brought no acidity to his genial 
temperament, for he has kept in touch with the spirit of youth, and among the 
many who prize his sterling friendship there are none who give him a more 
hearty greeting than the groups of children who always meet him with a 



Wellsville. 404c 



smile. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Early are Charles F., who has been 
the popular agent of the Wells-Fargo Express Co. in Wellsville for the last 
17 years, and Nettie E. (Mrs. E. D. Clark) of Wellsville. 

ANDREW J. APPLEBEE. 

Levi Ap]jlebee was a pioneer settler of Onondago county, making his 
home in the wilds of the town of Spafford probably before the township re- 
ceived its name, and as early as 1790. He and his three sons, Stephen. 
Philip and Thomas were all soldiers in the War of 1812. Thomas Applebee 
was born in Spafford, Feb. 22, 1795. He had but three months attendance 
at school and that of the pioneer order, but by his indomitable industry 
secured a good business education. He early showed business energy and 
in the winter of 1814-15 was engaged in drawing salt from Syracuse to Clean 
where it was to be shipped down the Allegany, Ohio and Mississippi on flat 
boats to New Orleans as soon as the river was free from ice in the spring, 
to supply the army of General Jackson, then occupying that place. This 
enterprise came to naught through the close of the war and the splendid 
victory of the American troops over Gen. Packenham. This occurred Jan. 
15, 1815, a day when Mr. Applebee was at Clean with a load of salt. He did 
not hear of the battle however until his return to Syracuse. These trips 
to Olean gave him knowledge of the possibilities of Allegany county, and 
after two years residence in Spaft'ord, subsequent to his marriage in 1820 to 
Miss Melissa Foster, in company with his father and mother he came to the 
wildwoods section of Wirt he had selected as his future home, making the 
entire journey with a yoke of oxen and wagon. When they arrived at Daniel 
Willard's place, a mile above Nile, Thomas and his father cut out the road 
to his location in the east part of Wirt for four miles through the primitive 
forest. Here his industry developed a splendid farm on which he lived 
nearly sixty years to enjoy the fruits of his labors and the society of his 
reverential family and neighbors. He died in 1881, aged 87, leaving three 
sons, Thomas J., Andrew J., James M. and two daughters, Lydia Ann 
(Mrs. B. F. Perkins) and Mehssa (Mrs. S. A. Earley). Of these now (1896) 
survive Thomas J., Andrew J. and Mrs. Earley. It has been said that Thom- 
as Applebee, although in moderate circumstances, never caused a creditor 
to come after his money. If he could not pay at maturity of the claim he 
went to the creditors and made all satisfactory before hand. His attach- 
ment to his family and friends was only measured by his strong character. 
The unfortunate always found him ready and willing to the extent of his 
means to do all in his power to alleviate their sufferings. He was conservative 
in forecasting events, and cool and deliberative in giving advice. His wife 
had wise judgment and practical common sense, and their children sought 
and followed the advice of both parents until the last. The characteristics 
of the father were largely inherited by Andrew J, and in fact by all of the 
children. Andrew J. Ai)plebee, an ex-president of Wellsville village, son of 
Thomas and Melissa (Foster) Applebee, was born in Wirt. Dec. 21, 1835, and 



404d History op Allegany County, N. Y. 

went to school m summer until he was eight and in winter until he was 17, 
attended the fall terms of Richburg Academy in 1853 and 1854 and com- 
menced teaching in December, 1853, before he was 18. He went to Wiscon- 
sin and Illinois in fall of 1856, taught school the next winter and the succeed- 
ing one in Harrington, 111., in the spring of 1858 went to Kansas, where he 
passed the summer near Emporia, and located 160 acres of government 
land with a soldier's land warrant given to his father for his services in 
1812. Returning to New York in November, 1858, he commenced farming 
the next spring, and June 9, 1862, was married to Mary E., daughter of 
William and Elizabeth (Cockayne) Duke of Scio. In April, 1867, he opened a 
general store in Scio and from that time to the close of 1895 was continuously 
and extensively engaged in merchandising, in Aj^ril, 1876. establishing a 
grocery store in Bradford and others soon thereafter in Tarport and other 
IDlaces in Pennsylvania under firm name of Applebee & Rogers, Applebee & 
Fisher, etc. These were largely remunerative for many years. In 1877 he 
first became interested in oil production and from that time has been an ex- 
tensive operator and producer. He removed from Scio to Bradford in 
May, 1881, and in August, 1883, to Wells ville, where he built an elegant resi- 
dence which he first occupied July 1, 1884. In 1883 in company with his 
brother, Thomas J., he opened a store in Wellsville and was in trade here 
until 1895. Beside his oil operations in this county and Pennsylvaina he 
is a large owner of Southern and Western oil and timber lands and is en- 
gaged in extensive coal operations in Tennessee. Mr. and Mrs. Applebee 
have four surviving children, Minnie (Mrs. W. O Taylor), Jennie. Fitch P. 
and William D. Thomas J. Applebee, elder brother of Andrew J. Applebee, 
was born in Wirt Aug. 1, 1832, married in 1855 Amanda Kenyon and now 
resides in Wellsville. He has been for years connected in business with A. 
J. Applebee and is now identified with him in oil producing and other large 
business undertakings. He has four children, Kenyon (of Clarksville), M. 
Lina (Mrs. R. G. Wells), Libbie (Mrs. Charles V. Kerr of Fayetteville, Ark.) 
and Melissa (Mrs. F. E. Davis). Andrew J. Applebee and his brother and 
sisters have tilways lived in harmony, never an unkind thought entered the 
mind of any of them. His sympathy, time and money was theirs if needed. 
In fact his heart responded to suffering everywhere. One instance is in 
point. In Wellsville, April, 1891, in the early morning, the house of widow 
Calkins burned, containing herself and five children, one of whom was ere 
mated. She and -the other four were burned nigh unto death. The second 
child died the following night. The scene was heartrending. Hundreds of 
people were present, and no one knew what to do. No place could be found 
where they could be cared for. A. J. Applebee was present. Speaking to 
his hired man he said: "Go to my house, tell Mary (his wife) to get some 
quilts and come up with you. Hitch the horses to the platform wagon, take 
the seats out and bring her here as quickly as you can. " In a short time 
the team came with Mrs. Applebee. The sufferers were placed in the wagon 
and taken to his fine residence where they were cared* for until able to be 









I '4 



'XJ^ 



Wellsville. 404e 



moved which was uiany weeks. His noble wife cared for these people as 
tenderly as possible. As the team drove away with its load of sufferers, 
Dr. H. H. Nye remarked: " Where is another such man? If A. J. Applebee 
does not go to heaven, there is no use of having a heaven." The extensive 
business relations between him and his brother T. J. have ever been of that 
confidential nature that knows no distrust. The word of either is fully con- 
fided in by the other. A. J. Applebee is a born leader, his force and 
solidity of character would overcome all obstacles, a nd furnishes the key to 
his success. 

DEWITT CLINTON ACKERMAN. 

Dewitt Clinton Ackerman, son of Elisha and Betsey (Brundage) Acker- 
man, was born July 23, 1825, in the town of Pitcher, Chenango Co., N. Y. 
The Ackerman family is of German origin, which, however, has been four 
generations domiciled on American soil. About 1833 Elisha Ackerman 
moved his family to Owego where he purchased a tract of the primitive pine 
forest then standing on the site of the village. He engaged in lumbering, 
cleared off the timber from his land and developed a fine farm which he sold 
about 1847 and changed his residence to Allegany county, where he located 
on the farm on which Mapes Station on the Buffalo and Susquehanna rail- 
road has been established. He remained here only three years, moving in 
1850 to Iowa where he died. Of his nine children attaining maturity four 
became residents of this county. These were Eleanor (Mrs. Benjamin 
Gleason), Betsey J. (Mrs. Reuben Burrow), Oliver and Dewitt C. The latter 
did not accompany his parents to Wellsville as he had entered the employ of 
a large hardw^are establishment at Union in Tioga county, which did an 
extensive business in selling stoves by traveling salesmen over a large 
extent of country. In the service of this company Mr. Ackerman came to 
Wellsville for the first time in 1850, and was conveyed hither on the first 
regular passenger train that ran from Hornellsville to Cuba. In 1855 he 
engaged in business in Wellsville as a manufacturer of " shook," employing 
several men, and from that time has been a resident of the county. He mar- 
ried on March 1, 1858, one of Wellsville's fair young ladies, Thankful A., 
daughter of Zelotus and Lorinda (York) Bronson, whose father was an early 
settler. Their home, a small frame house, occupied the present site of the 
First National Bank, and was built by Mr. Bronson over 53 years ago. It 
is still standing on Madison street and is the third building of the four count- 
ing from the bank to the railroad. Mr. Ackerman made his home in Willing 
for some years on the farm now owned by Byron Ackerman, which he pur- 
chased and sold after clearing 40 acres of the forest covering it. He then 
passed several years at Oil Creek, Pa., and Jamestown, N. Y., engaged in 
operations connected with the shipping and the selling of petroleum. In 
1863 he removed his residence from Wellsville to Richburg in the town of 
Bolivar and engaged in farming. He possessed the necessary qualities for 
success in whatever field of business he engaged in and was therefore a 



404f History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



successful farmer. In 1872 he purchased the farm of 330 acres in BoHvar 
adjoining the town hne of Wirt on which stands the Baptist church of 
Richburg and was hving the active life of a representative farmer when 
the oil excitement of 1881 made him a wealthy man by the developement 
of the fact that his farm was rich oil-producing territory. He sold his 
land at a satisfactory price, engaged somewhat in oil operations, was 
elected justice of the peace, not knowing of his nomination until after his 
election, opened an office in the Keating block and filled the office with great 
credit until his removal to Wellsville in 1882 caused him to resign the office. 
"Mr. Ackerman entered heart and soul into the organization of a hose com- 
pany for Richburg. He not only purchased the cart, but donated the lot for 
the Fireman's Hall, and at the organization of the company by an unanimous 
vote it was named the D. C. Ackerman Hose Company, and at the formal ded- 
ication of the hose house Mr. Ackerman was presented with a $100 gold 
badge, the gift of the members of the company as a token of the esteem in 
which they held their benefactor." He made further donations to the com- 
pany, all unsolicited, until he had given it $800. This company did honor to 
his name as it acquired high reputation as a "running team " and was a 
" crack " organization of Richburg in its palmy days. Prom 1882 Mr. Ack- 
erman's home has been in "Wellsville and he has ever been a foremost citi- 
zen. From a most unpromising site of rocks and springholes he has created 
an almost ideal home that is an ornament to the village. He was elected 
president of the village in 1883, 1884, 1888 and 1889. During 1884 the enlarge- 
ment of the village corporation was brought about mainly through his 
sagacious and persistent efforts. He was the first to perceive the possibili- 
ties of and the first to move in securing for Wellsville her beautiful " Island 
Park," and himself revised the plans and improvements. This project 
meeting strong opposition it was made an issue at the village election in 1888 
and Mr. Ackerman was again elected village president by a flattering vote, 
and carried the creation of the park to completion. He was also one of the 
foremost in giving Wellsville its waterworks system. He was one of the 
promoters and has been from its incorporation in 1887 the president of the 
Wellsville Fair Association. In these and in many other ways Mr. Ackerman 
has proven himself a valuable citizen. He is a thorough man of the people and 
has always made the public interest his own. Democrat in political sentiment 
he numbers among his strongest friends members of the opposite political 
faith, who esteem him for his rectitude of character, his cool and calm ad minis- 
tration of public affairs and his admirable persistency in the advocacy of a 
good cause. He takes great interest in a good horse, and on his farm a short 
distance from Wellsville can be seen some fine specimens of blooded stock. 
Mrs. Ackerman died Sept. 21, 1893, and his household is pleasantly presided 
over by his wife's sister. Miss Alice Bronson, who has made her home with 
the family for years. 



Angelica. 405 

A/NGELICA. 

BY JOHN S. MINARD. 

CHAPTER XXXIX. 

AS THE OLDEST, and for a time the only town in the county, for a half 
century and more the sole county seat, and about whose early history 
cluster so many interesting- associations and pleasant memories, Angelica is 
entitled to a prominent place in this history. The town was formed by an 
act of the Legislature, passed Feb. 25, 1805, and described as "being in 
width twelve miles,'' just that of the Morris Reserve, and in length " from 
south to north extending thirty-four miles from the Pennsylvania line," tak- 
ing in about two-thirds of the towns of Granger and Grove. It was taken 
from Leicester, and when erected was a part of Genesee county. (The vil- 
lage had been founded three or four years before, and named by Capt. Philip 
Church for his mother, Angelica, the eldest daughter of Gen. Philip Schuyler.) 

While a part of Genesee Angelica was represented upon the board of 
supervisors by Benjamin Riggs and Luke Goodspeed. To get from Angelica 
to Batavia to attend a meeting was an arduous undertaking, requiring a 
journey of about two and one-half days, with the chances in favor of a rest 
at night on the ground, the only roads being the primitive paths of the 
pioneers and the trails of the red men. In 1803 the board had "Resolved 
unanimously that twenty miles be considered a day's journey, to be com- 
puted going and returning, and that each supervisor be entitled to |>2 for 20 
miles." From the erection of Allegany, April 7. 1806, Angelica was the only 
town in the county until March. 1808. Then by act of the legislature the 
three western ranges of townships were set back to Genesee, and a range 
of townships on the east taken from Steuben and added, thus making Angel- 
ica village, which had by the act of 1806 been designated as the county seat, 
exactly in the center east and west, and almost exactly in the geographical 
center of the county. By this act (1808) the several towns of Alfred, Ossian, 
Nunda and Caneadea were created, the two latter towns said to have been 
taken from Angelica; but liow Caneadea and the north and west parts of 
Nunda ever came to be a part of Angelica the writer has never been able to 
learn. At this time (1808) Angelica took the form and size shown in the map 
at the close of the first decade. 

From the proceedings of the board of supervisors of Genesee county for 
1807 it appears that Luke Goodspeed represented Angelica, although the 
act erecting the county of Allegany was i^assed more than a year and a half 
before. Doubtless this was agreeable with the provisions of some act of the 
legislature. From 1810 to 1820 Angelica remained unchanged in territorial 
extent, but soon after the progress of settlement was so rapid as to make 



406 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

the dismemberment of this old mother of towns an imperative necessity, 
and Allen, Amity, Birdsall, Scio, and parts of Alfred, Andover, and Inde- 
pendence as then constituted, were set off, reducing it to the area of two 
standard-sized towns, and leaving it quite irregular in shape. The next 
decade, 1831-40, saw Angelica reduced to its present size and proportions. 
It now contains 22,740 acres and the asssessed value of real and personal 
property was $573,680 in 1894. 

Angelica is drained by the Genesee river, which enters it about a mile 
and a half east of the southwest corner, and leaves it about two and one-half 
miles north of the same corner, Baker's creek from the north discharging 
into Angelica creek, which runs through the town from east to west nearly 
in the center, and their numerous small tributaries. These streams in some 
places break the surface into deep ravines, as at Joncey, one mile west of 
the village, where a high iron bridge spans a deep gorge, which presents 
rocky and precipituous banks. The soil on the uplands is generally a clayey 
loam, and a gravelly loam prevails in the valleys. The original timber pre- 
sented many varieties, pine and oak of superior quality being found in con- 
siderable quantities. The town is distinguished as "Township 4, Range 2, 
of the Morris Reserve " and was subdivided into lots by Major Moses Van 
Campenin 1810 or 11. In 1830 the population was 998; 1835, 1,502; 1840, 
1,251; 1845, 1,329; 1850, 1,592; 1855, 1,832; 1860, 1,708; 1865, 1,663; 1870, 1,643; 
1875, 1,547; 1880, 1,620; 1890, 1,749. 

Settlement was commenced in 1801 by Philip Church, who that year with 
an exploring party, consisting of Evart VanWickle, John Gibson, Moses Van- 
Campen (who acted as guide), Stephen Price and John Lewis made a thor- 
ough reconnoissance of the Church tract of 100,000 acres. The site for the 
village being determined, active operations began. John Gibson, afterward 
the first sheriff of the county, Abram Post and Arad Rice were, next to 
Church, first to erect the rude log cabins. In 1802 Capt. Church erected a 
sawmill. A log land-office was also put up and a frame house by Evart Van- 
Wickle. A road was cut from Almond to Angelica by Silas Ferry and John 
Ayers. Joseph Taylor settled in 1802, and opened the first public house on 
the site so long occupied by the Exchange Hotel, and Capt. Church estab- 
lished a store* which was conducted by John Gibson. In a short time there 
was quite a village, most of the houses being built of logs. John Gibson this 
year bought 80 acres of land bounded north by Main street and west by 
Olean street, at one dollar an acre, and was bound by the contract "to put 
uj) within a year a frame building in ground size, at least 12x16 ft." 

In 1803 Capt. Church put up a gristmill, the site being identical with the 
Joncey mill of 'to-day. The first death was of Ira Stephens, who, on the 
authority of Mr. Gibson, was killed in a quarrel over cards at Joseph Wilson's 
inn, and he was the first one buried in the Angelica village cemetery. The 
first birth in town was of Catharine Mullender, date not ascertained, and 
Moses Van Campen Chamberlain was the first w^hite male child to make his 

*The store stood where is now the Presbyterian church. So says John Gibson. 



Angelica. 407 

appearance. The tirst school was taught in the, winter of 1804-5 by "Widow " 
Smith. The nearest postoffice was at Bath, and the people hired Wm. 
Barney to make a monthly trip to carry and bring the letters, and do the 
little errands for the neighborhood. As early as 1804, Alvin Burr, an ances- 
tor of Moses Burr, a native of Connecticut, came to Angelica from Bingham- 
ton. He was a lawyer. James Mapes, the ancestor of many of the name in 
the county, came here about 1804, settling near Angelica. John Hooker 
came from Vermont in 1807, when it is said there were but 3 houses in the 
A'illage. and his brother, Asel Hooker, according to family tradition, built the 
first frame house in the town. Vial Thomas, the worthy centenarian, a 
native of Rhode Island, came in February, 1810, and for three-quarters of a 
century lived a good life here (see sketch). 

The first town- meeting was held at Joseph Taylor's on the '' first Tues- 
day in April," 1805, where they elected Benjamin Riggs, supervisor; Joseph 
S. Hall, town clerk; Luke Goodspeed, Sylvanus Russell and Elijah Church, 
assessors; John T. Hyde, William Barney and Jacob S. Holt, commissioners 
of highways; John T. Hyde, collector; David Church, constable; William 
Barney and Evart VanWickle, overseers of the poor; Stephen Waterman, 
Thomas Call, John Bennett, Ezra Bacon and George Otto, overseers of high- 
ways; Joseph Taylor, Abisha Cole and William S. Heydon, fence viewers. 
At the election held there April 30, 1805, John Nicholas received 
16 votes for senator, Nathaniel Lake 1. Alexander Rhea for member of 
assembly received 30 votes, Ezra Potter 25, Daniel W. Lewis 16 and Jeremiah 
Munson 12. The discrepancy of 66 votes in the number cast for the two 
ofiices and member of assembly was probably owing to the fact that different 
and higher property qualifications were required of those who voted for 
senator. When it is remembered that the town was then thirty-four miles 
in extent from north to south, and twelve miles east and west, its sparse 
population is vividly impressed upon the mind, and still more, when it is 
considered that Angelica village furnished a majority of the votes. 

Roads were surveyed and recorded the first year, "from Angelica to 
Indian line, or Caneadea; from Angelica to the south line of Van Campen's 
farm; from Angelica to Philipsburg mills; to Philips creek; to Vandermark's 
creek; to Dike's settlement." In 1807 the vote oa, governor stood "for 
Morgan Lewis, 37; for Daniel D. Tompkins, 28." Wolves were numerous, 
and a bounty of $2.50 was offered for each one killed in town and panthers 
were included. In 1809 89 votes were cast at the annual town meeting. In 
1 806-7 Angelica received a considerable and distinguished accession to its 
jjopulation by the setttlement here of a number of important French political 
exiles, the d'Autremonts, Du Fonts, etc. 

Angehca freeholders in 1808: John Ayers, Ezra Bacon, Abraham Baker, 
Wm. Barney, Robert Barr, John Bennett, John Bunnell, Christian Burns, 
Abisha Cole, John Cole, Stephen Cole, Harry Davis, Philip Church, Alex 
D'Autremont, Augustus D'Autremont, Victor DuPont, Edward Dodd, David 
Downing, Isaac Dike, Philip Fox, Asahel Franklin, John Freeman, John 



/ 



/ 



408 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Gibson, Luke Goodspeed, Nathaniel Goodspeed, Arnold Hill, Timothy Hyde, 
John T. Hyde, Ebenezer Hyde, Wm. Heydon, Philo Ingraham, Ami Holt. 
Shubald Johnson, Joseph Knight, Jacob Manning, Hiram Munson, John 
MuUender, Samuel Neilson, Stephen B. Nichols, William Peas, Jonathan 
Rawson, Isaac Rawson, Erald Rice, George Renwick, James Renwick, Wm. 
Poole, Edward Rice, Philip Riggs, Benjamin Riggs, Stephen Rogers, Solo- 
mon Tracey, Sylvanus Russell, Moses Van Campen, Samuel Van Campen, 
Evert Van Wickle, Stephen Waterman, Corner Waterman, Horatio Water- 
house, William Higgins and Silas Knight. 

Interesting, as throwing some light on the condition of affairs in Angel- 
ica, at this early time, this bill of sale is introduced: 

'' Bill of sale for Charlotte, to Augusttis D' Autremont ." " Know all men by these pres- 
ents, that I, Victor Du'Pont of the town of Angelica, county of Allegany and state of New York, 
for and in consideration of the sum of two hundred dollars, in hand paid to me by Mr. D'Au- 
tremont, for my black wench named Charlotte, which I have bought from Mordicia Hale, Esq., 
with her boy, now four weeks old, said girl to serve Mr. D'Autremont for twenty years, faith- 
fully and honestly, after which time 1 warrant her free if she behaves herself properly during 
the time she has to serve. The boy to serve Mr. D'Autremont till he is 28 years old, as the law 
directs. And I do for myself, heirs, assigns, executors and administrators, quit and renounce 
all claims to said wench and boy. 

Angelica, this 15th day of August, 1809. V. Du'Pont. 

Signed and delivered in presence of Augustus D'Autremont. 

Ellis Pearce." 

" I Philip Church of the town of Angelica, Allegany county, state of New York, farmer, 
do hereby certify that a female child called Lucy, aged ten years and seven months, was born 
in the city of New York, of a female slave called Deane belong to John B. Church, Esq., and 
afterward to myself. 

Recorded Sept. 12, 181 5. Philip Church. 

E. Van Wickle, Town Clerk." 

" I Evart Van Wickle of the town of Angelica, Allegany county state of New York, citizen, 
do hereby certify that a male child called Perry, aged one month, was born in the town, county 
and state aforesaid in my family of a female slave called Elcey. Witness my hand this twenty- 
fifth day of August eighteen hundred and si.xteen. 

Recorded Sept. 2, 1816. E. Van Wickle. 

E. Van Wickle, Town Clerk." 

In this connection the following certificates are also introduced, as the 
best kind of history : 

" I Philip Church, of the town of Angelica, Allegany county, state of New York, farmer, do 
hereby certify, that a female child called Catharine, aged two months and nine days, was born 
in my family of a female slave, called Mary. Witness my hand this twelfth day of September^ 
eighteen hundred and fifteen. 

Recorded 12th Sept. 181 5. Philip Church. 

E. Van Wickle. Town Clerk." 

" I Philip Church, of the town of Angelica, Allegany county, state of New York, farmer, do 
hereby certify that a male child called Henry, aged three years and ten months and eleven days, 
was born in my family of a female slave called Chloe. Witness my hand this twelfth day of 
September eighteen hundred and fifteen. Philip Church. 

Recorded Sept. 12, 181 5," 



Angelica. 401) 

But very few slaves were ever held in the county, and all it is believed in 
Angelica. 

In 1805 Major Moses Van Campen removed from McHenry Valley in 
Almond, to Angelica, and in 1808 built the stately brick residence where he 
lived so long, a mile east of the park. Wm. Y. Little now owns the place. 

November 10, 1807, a " court of general sessions of the peace " was or- 
ganized at the public house of Evart Van Wickle, now the residence of J. S. 
Rockwell, Esq., with Moses Van Campen and Evart Van Wickle, "Esqrs.," 
judges, and Joseph Taylor and William Higgins, Esqrs., "assistant justices. " 
This was the first court held in the county. (See "Courts and Lawyers.") 
In 1809 the first bridge in the county, over the Genesee river, was erected 
at the "Transit," begun by William Redfield and finished by Jonathan Mil- 
lett. Jan. 9, 1808, a meeting was held at Evart VanWickle's, and steps 
taken preliminary to the founding of a Masonic lodge. The first Masonic 
funeral in the county was that of Horatio Waterhouse held in Angelica Jan. 
2, 1813. In 1811 a turnpike road from Angelica to Olean was constructed, 
it having previously been finished from Bath to Angelica. This was for 
years a main thoroughfare, and gave great impetus to the growth of Angel- 
ica, by putting it on one of the great routes to the great west. 

The first meeting of the board of supervisors of which we have record 
was held in 1812, in the uj)per room of the jail, or goal as they then called it. 
Many sessions of the early boards were held at the residence of Major Van 
Campen. In 1804 the population was 555. 

Prom 1812 for many years Angelica was the most important place in the 
county. The best lawyers of the country were attracted here by the pros- 
pect of good and increasing business, its enterprising business men sup- 
plied the people from the remote parts of the county with goods, and for 
years it was the best, and about the only market. The writer has been per- 
mitted to examine the journal kept by Mr. Augustus D'Autremont in his 
store at Angelica, from Oct. 29, 1817. to Aug. 13, 1819, and judging that a 
few excerpts from its pages will give a better idea of the times, prices, hab- 
its of living and condition of the people than whole pages of dissertation, 
will here introduce a few items: 

July 23, 181 8, Joseph H. Raymond is credited "by cash received in a bill of Northumber- 
land Union and Columbia Bank, No. 22, $5. Deducting 10 per cent. $4.50." Aug. 5th the 
same party is charged, " To remittance on one 5 dollar bill of same bank, which he had trusted 
me on discount, $4.50," from which it seems the bill was either not genuine, or the bank was 
not good. Postage was simply enormous in those days. Archibald Taylor is charged " To 
balance on Yz pound of tea 9 cents, and cash to pay for a letter in the postoffice, 20 <-ents." 
" My account " is found charged with " 4 pigeons from Oliver S. King, 16 cents, and a day's 
work, same party, 62X cents." English blister-steel is booked at 3 shillings per pound, cinna- 
mon, I2>^ cents per ounce, coffee 56X cents. July 18, 1818, " My account " is charged with 
26 pounds venison, 78 cents. Prices of venison fluctuated considerably, for we find instances where 
it is charged at one shilling per pound, and in barrel quantities at $10 per barrel. Tea is 
found charged, from $1.25 to $2.50 per pound. " Gunpowder " " Young Huyson " and " Huy- 
son Skin," were some of the kinds. July 11, 1818, this entry is made, " Sundry articles sold this 



410 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



week $34.50," and this, " Expenses Dr., to John Ayers by the license for retailing liquors $5.75." 
This could not be considered " high license." 

The charges for liquor of various kinds, but mostly whiskey, were numerous, sometimes as 
many as fifteen on a page, and it would seem that every body used it, the most honored names 
of pioneer days appearing in connection with charges for rum, brandy, whiskey and wine. 
" One-half pound sulfer " is charged at 18^ cents. Alvin Burr is charged with " % yards bear 
skin for padding (?) diYz cents." (He was a son-in-law of Major Moses Van Campen, a law- 
yer and surveyor.) At another time he is charged with " one-half pound raisins at 3 shillings 
per pound. Probably they " had company " at his house and half-a-pound would answer the 
immediate requirements. How does that compare with " 7 pounds for 25 cents " ? A paper of 
pins, the old-fashioned ones with twisted wire heads often slipping off, is charged at 37 >^ cents, 
while a credit of " 8 quarts of black raspberries, 25 cents," is found near by. John Kinghorn built 
the first tannery in town sometime previous to 1818. Aug. 14. 1818, he is credited " By 9 sides 
of upper leather and 20 pairs of shoes $61.25," and March 15, 1819, he is charged with " \)i 
yards superfine B. cloth at $8, $14 ; 8 pounds of nails at one shilling sixpence, $1.50, and one 
spelling book 31 X cents. Mr. K's name appears frequently. His tannery was back of the 
present school building. James Jennings is charged with " Sundries to pay in grindstones, 
$3.31 X." and "sundries to pay in good wheat $2.81 >(•" Aug. 22, 1818, John Mcintosh is 
credited "by 7 grindstones, 8 cwt, i qr, 20 pounds, at 12 shillings, $12.65, and Sept. 2, is charged 
with "one cowbell at $2.25, one pair of cards $1.50, 2 hats $5." 

Mr. D'Autremont evidently did quite a business in grindstones, findmg a sale for them in 
Geneva, witness the following which also gives some idea of freight charges and expenses. Feb. 
19, 1819, Seth Marvin is credited "By carrying and bringing load from Geneva, $43." and 
March 19, " By 2 days going to Arkport for wagon, $6." G. P. Ketchum is credited " By 3 
days with team $4.50." P. Church is charged with " i pound Salt Peter $1," and " 2 pounds 
Muscovado sugar at 2 shillings sixpence," while Amos Peabody is charged with " 3X pounds of 
sugar, at three shillings sixpence. $1.42." Jacob Post is credited " By cutting 16 cords wood 
at two shillings sixpence, $5," and " one-half months wages at $10, $5," and is charged with " i 
pair taps 25 cents ; i hat $5 and i vest $3.50." The wood must have been three or four feet 
long, as they used fire places then. Goods for this store were bought in New York, Geneva, 
Canandaigua, Philadelphia and Bath. Here is an entry from which we get a glimpse of the 
commercial agent. " Aug. 24, 1818. Bought this day from Mr. Sidmon, their agent, $260 of 
goods of G. Washburn & Co." 

Angelica people, some of them at least, indulged in pretty fine things, as appears from this, 
"John Gait Dr. To \% yards superfine blue B. cloth at $10, $12.50." This was evidently for a 
pair of '• pantaloons " (so called in those days). Now when Mr. Gait had bought his trimmings 
and paid his tailor's bill, he had a " pair of pantaloons" costing him from $16 to $19. How 
many men in Allegany county now wear trousers costing $12 even ? "John Moore, Cr. By 2 
dressed deer skins $1.1 2>^." This would be called cheap in these days. 

Wolves abounded, large bounties were paid for their destruction, and quite a business was 
done in " wolf certificates." It appears that Mr. D'Autremont had a " wolf scalp " account. We 
find this, " Wolf Scalps Dr, To wolf scalp certificates $185," and all along are found entries 
of transactions in wolf scalps and certificates, as June 4, 18 19, " Wm. Foster Cr. by full grown 
wolf $20" " Cash Cr. By expenses to go and see Salt Petre mine," no amount appears against 
it. Whr-re was the mine? "Calvin Mapes Dr. To 2 ounces indigo, three shillings — 75 
cents." Nutmegs are charged at one shilling each. As this was some years prior to the re- 
ported appearance of the wooden article, let us hope that these were real ones. 

In early days a distillery stood where the schoolhouse now stands. Wm. 
B. Rochester, a son of the founder of the city of Rochester, settled iii An- 
gelica about 1820. He was an eminent lawyer, afterward sent from here 



Angelica. 411 

to congress, then promoted to the bench of the supreme court. "Old Squire 
Renwick " opened the first tailor shop, just how early we cannot say. John 
Gibson's pubhc house was where Warren Hooker hves. He built the first 
bridge across the creek on Olean street. Martin Geiger was the first black- 
smith, making his advent quite early, about the time of the saw and grist- 
mill building. Dr. Charles afterward lived on the site of his shop. About 
1820 Alex. D'Autremont kept a public house where Mr. Lightfoot's grocery 
and bakery is. In October, 1820, Franklin Cowdery started the first news- 
paper in the county, the Angelica liepublkcm. Before that Bath and 
Dansville were the nearest places where printing was done. 

In September, 1837, Laurens and Andrew C. Hull completed a woolen 
mill at Joncey, the construction of which had taken nearly two years. Seven 
looms were run, and 10 men and 7 or 8 girls employed. The same parties 
soon after erected a scythe and edge tool factory across the road from the 
woolen mill. A carding mill was also included in the enterprises conducted 
under the same cover, the power being a " 20 foot " overshot water-wheel. 
The edge tool business thrived only a few years, and the building was con- 
verted into a pail factory. This building was burned in winter of 1855-6, 
and the last carding mill in town was run by Ormas Farr and F. Camahl, on 
the hill north of the gristmill, from 1860 to 65. In 1842 Alpha Morse bought 
an interest, and the firm became Hull & Morse, who soon constructed the 
gristmill now standing. About 1854 or 5 the late Albert Brown bought the 
old factory building and converted it into a paper mill, which was burned in 
1855. Mr. Brown rebuilt it and continued the business until his death in 
1873, which resulted from falling into a vat of liquid heated for use. The 
paper business was then conducted by a son of Mr. Brown and a Mr. Lock- 
hart, nephew of James Lockhart, under the firm name of Brown & Lock- 
hart. This building was burned in 1888 or 9, and has never been rebuilt. 
Hull & Morse sold the gristmill to Wm. J. Niles, who not long after sold it 
to Henry BroAvn. He sold it to Smith Davis and Hiram Huntley, who sold 
it to Blair & Franklin. The mill is now rented and run by Mr. Shultz. 
Joncey for fifty years was the center of considerable business activity. It 
furnished for a good part of the time the numerous lumber camps as far 
away as into Pennsylvania with feed, flour and meal. 

A long time ago a foundry and machine shop was erected on the south 
side of Main street and run for a number of years. The building has disap- 
peared . 

Dairying is the principal branch of agriculture, and, outside of the 
village, there are two cheese factories, one, the "Keystone," in the north 
part of the town, owned and run by John Lamonte, the other, the " Union," 
is over a mile east of the village. It is owned and operated by Charles F. 
Potter, and made 140,000 lbs. of cheese in 1894. 

Fresbi/terian Church. — Probably the earliest religious services were con- 
ducted in 1811 by Rev. Robert Hubbard, a Presbyterian, though Rev. Sam'l 
Parker, a missionary, may have preached once or twice in 1810. A church 



412 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

organized May 6, 1812, by Rev. John Niles, pastor of the First Presbyterian 
church of Bath, with six members, David Chamberlain, Elizabeth Chamber- 
lain, Mrs. Prudence Johnson, Moses Van Campen, Margaret Van Campen, 
and James Renwick. Moses Van Campen was the first and for some time 
the only ruling elder. Three months after. Rev. Robert Hubbard was 
installed as pastor of this church and the one at Alfred, the ceremony taking 
place on the steps of the house of Evart Van Wickle. now the residence of J. 
S. Rockwell. The first services were held at the schoolhouse, courthouse or 
in private houses, as inclination and convenience suited. Mr. Hubbard 
continued his labors until 1825-6, when declining prosperity resulted in the 
dismissal of Mr. Hubbard and the suspension of services and the organiza- 
tion ceased, but in May, 1827, steps were taken toward a re-organization. 
Eight persons presented themselves as ready to unite in reviving the church. 
During the next two weeks three more joined them and the re-organization 
was perfected May 20, 1827. 

In October, 1827, Rev. Moses Hunter was installed pastor, and Samuel 
S. Haight, Wm. Geiger, Vial Thomas and Moses Van Campen were elected 
elders and Daniel Lawrence deacon. Mr. Hunter was opposed to the pre- 
valent drinking habit of those days, and determined to make the church a 
distinctively temperance church. He succeeded after a stormy session in 
effecting the passage of a resolution requiring a pledge of total abstinence 
of all its members and candidates for membership. The church prospered, 
and during 1830 and 1831 erected the first church edifice, on ground a few 
rods east of the present one. It was a substantial plain old-fashioned affair, 
with elevated pulpit (which stood between the doors), a raised platform, 
afterward converted into a gallery, at the rear for the choir, and square 
pews. It was dedicated in September, 1831, and used as a place of public 
worship until the winter of 1856, when it was transferred to the trustees of 
the Angelica Academy and used for school purposes. 

In August, 1833, Mr. Hunter resigned. Rev. Samuel Wells May sue 
ceeded him, serving until the spring of 1835. Rev. Leverett Hull was 
installed pastor Sept. 29, 1835, and for over two years proved a very success- 
ful one, there being large accessions during his ministry. Prom November, 
1837, to September, 1850, no regular pastor was settled, and the church was 
served in 1838 by Abial Parmalee, 1839 by O. W. Norton, 1840 by Charles 
B. Smith, 1841 George M. Coon, 1842 James Smith, 1843-4 Laurens Hull, 
1845-48 Horace Eraser, 1849 P. V. Warren, 1850 Samuel Center. Rev. 
Tyrrell Blair was installed as the fourth pastor Sept. 30, 1850, and served 
faithfully and acceptably until his death in 1855. Rev. Henry E. Niles was 
unanimously called and entered upon his work in May, 1856. It was during 
his pastorate that the present church edifice was erected. It was dedicated 
in January, 1857. A parsonage was purchased, much vigor was inspired in 
church work, and many new members received. About this time the Pres- 
bytery of Angelica was dissolved, and for convenience the church became 
Congregational in February, 1857. 



Angelica. 413 

Early in 1859 the Genesee Valley Presbytery was formed at Olean, and 
this church was represented, and, Jan. 18, 1859, it was again re-organized 
with these officers: Elders, H. S. Beals, Alfred Lockhart, W. J. Niles, A. B. 
Palmer; deacons, Saxton Burr and Vial Thomas. Mr. Niles' pastorate was 
very successful. In May, 1860, Rev. Elijah W. "Stoddard was installed 
pastor, and served acceptably during the years of the Civil War. In Octo- 
ber, 1864, Rev. Elias L. Boing was called and in the three years of his ministry 
the church membership was largely increased, the church edifice remodelled 
and an organ purchased. Rev. John Reid was installed as the sixth pastor 
in June, 1868, and remained until April, 1874. Rev. F. S. Hayden was acting 
pastor from August, 1874, to May, 1877. In November, 1877, Rev. Robert 
Roy Kendall was called to the pastorate, and was acting pastor in 1879. The 
elders that year were: C. P. Arnold, James Bonham, Alfred Lockhart, A. B. 
Palmer and J. E. Robinson; superintendent of Sunday school, Frank S. 
Smith; trustees, C. P. Arnold, James Lockhart, Robert Lightfoot and S. G. 
Horner. Since 1879 the following ministers have been pastors: Rev. Daniel 
McLeod from 1883 to 1889. and Rev. James A. Miller. Ph.D., who settled in 
1890, and is the present pastor. The church is in a prosperous condition. 

St. PauVs Episaypal Church. — Rev. Davenport Phelps, a missionary, was 
the first to hold Episcopal services in Angelica, and in 1821 the Right Rev. 
John Henry Hobart, D. D., held services in the court house which was then 
quite new. Rev. Caleb Hopkins however was the first to establish regu- 
lar services. In 1827 the parish was duly organized with Philip Church and 
James Wilson wardens, during the ministrations of Rev. William W. Bost- 
wick. In 1828 he ceased his labors here and the same year Bishop Hobart 
preached in the court house confirming thirty persons. Rev. Bostwick was 
succeeded by Rev. M. P. Bennett, who resigned in 1830. and, in 1831, Rev. 
Mr. Bostwick laid the corner stone of a church edifice. In August, 1831, 
Rev. Lewis Thibou assumed the charge of the parish, and in August, 1832, 
Bishop Onderdonk visited the parish, confirming nine persons. In 1833 the 
church, partly completed, was damaged by lightning. August 30, 1834, the 
edifice being completed consecration services were held by Bishop Onder- 
donk, and May 1, 1835, Rev. Thibou resigned, after which for a time Rev. 
N. F. Bruce conducted services. Rev. Thibou again became rector May 1, 
1838, continuing until the spring of 1857. Fire destroyed the church Feb. 
10, 1847, and July 23, 1848, a new structure, the present one, having been 
completed it was consecrated. Right Rev. William H. Delancy, D. D., officiat- 
ing. Rev. Robert Horwood became rector in June, 1857, and resigned June 
13, 1863. He was followed by Rev. M. Schofield, who resigned Feb. 10, 1867. 
From 1867 to 1870 Rev. Joseph Hunter was rector, and Rev. J. C. L. Jones 
officiated as rector from 1871 to 1872, followed by Rev. John Leech 1872-74. 
March 19, 1876, Rev. Schofield again took the rectorship, supplying Christ 
Church, Belvidere, half the time. In succession, since 1879, as their names 
occur, the rectors have been Revs. A. J. Warner, W. F. Shero, D wight 
Galloupe, and F. W. Beecher, the present incumbent. During the pastorate 



414 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



of Mr. Galloupe, a society was organized at Belfast and a beautiful little 
chapel erected. The present officers of St. Paul's church are C. D. Buchan- 
an, senior warden; Lewis Branson, junior warden; A. T. Wilson, L. T. Hooker, 
Dr. H. E. Cooley, W. S. Gibson, W. G. Graham, N. H. Curtis, H. B. Warner, 
George Graham, vestrymen. In the flourishing Sunday school of this 
church, the singing, rendered by a child's choir organized by Mr. Galloupe, 
is exceptionally fine. 

Within the past fifteen years a new pipe organ costing $1,300 has been 
put in, and extensive repairs to the church have been made. The edifice is 
beautiful and attractive within, and embellished by gifts from members and 
others. Mrs Schofield-'gave it a beautiful screen, and placed within it a 
memorial plate to her father. Rev. Lewis Thibou. The Sunday school has 
given a memorial window to the memory of " Mary Welsh, Mary Davidson 
and thedear departed of the Suijday school, " and expects soon to have in place 
a w^indow to the memory of Thomas C. Thornton, long its superintendent. 
Mrs. D. D. Gardiner put in a window to the memory of a niece. Miss Cald- 
well. Mr. W. C. Hooker left a fund to procure a memorial window for his 
father and mother. Mrs. Dr. Wakely placed a memorial window to the mem- 
ory of her mother, Mrs. Schofield. Mrs. Grover placed a marble slab to the 
memory of her sister. Miss Clara Whitmore. Miss Emily Whitmore placed 
a memorial window to Mrs. Emily Grover, and Mr. Lewis T. Hooker one to 
the memory of his wife. Richard H. Charles left 15,000, the interest of 
which is devoted to the support of the church. 

Methodist Episco%)al Church. — The early records of this church have been 
lost. It is said that the society was organized as early as 1827, and the first 
house of worship, a wood structure, was dedicated in 1830. For many years 
this church was the center of a large circuit, but in 1879 the pastor had 
charge of but two outside appointments, where services were held on alter- 
nate Sundays. Since 1835 the following pastors have served this church, 
in succession: 1835-6, Rev. M. Kinney; 1836-7, A. Wright; 1837-9, Asa Or- 
cutt; 1839, Carlos Gould; 1841-2, M. St. John; 1842-3, Ira Brownson; 1843-5 
T. M. McElhany; 1845-6, Milo Scott; 1846-7, S. Doolittle; 1847-9, Carlos 
Gould; 1849-50, V. Brownell; 1850-51, A, Barber; 1851-3, W. Haskill; 1853-4, 
M. Guernsy; 1854-6, G. J. Dubois; 1856-7, R. Harrington; 1857-8, E. D. Rosa; 
1858-60, John Spinks; 1860-62, E. P. Huntington; 1862-63. J. B. Knott; 1863- 
66, W. Cochran; 1866-7, L. T. Hawkins; 1867-69, William D. Taylor; 1860-70, 
W. C. Mathison; 1870-72, Azel Fillmore; 1872-75, L. S. Crittenden; 1875-77, 
J. L. Rusbridge and W. C. Wilbor; 1877, C. Dillenbeck; 1877-9, E. P. Hub- 
bell. Since 1879 the pastors have been Rev. E. P. Hubbell, Rev. Benjamin 
Copeland, Rev. E. B. Williams, Rev. Dr. I. T. Walker, Rev. M. C. Dean, Rev. 
C. G. Lowell, and Rev. M. E. Hedding. The present brick church edifice 
was dedicated in October, 1873. The society has a good parsonage adjacent 
to the church. The property is free from debt and the church in a flourish- 
ing condition. 



Angelica. 415 

A)u/elica Baptist Church.* — This church was organized July 18, 1834, by 
members of the second church of Allen, and a few others having letters from 
other churches. Their names are: David C. Hammond, George Hammond, 
Josiah Whitman, Jr., Jesse Parmeter, Charlotte Whitman, Charlotte Whit- 
man 2d, Kaziah Whitman, Permelia Hammond. Jane McBride, Electa Par- 
meter, Orris Goodrich, Rachel Goodrich, Joel Fosdick, Sally Fosdick, Wil- 
liam Webster. Mrs. Sarah Webster was the only one of these living in 1890. 
The new church had no pastor but Elder John Evans was with them for 
counsel and advice, and was moderator of the meeting. A brother, H. E. 
Prosser was "licensed " by the church and preached to them for six months. 
In August, September and October, 1835, Eld. J. P. Evans labored for the 
church. In November Rev. James Salman a licentiate was engaged, and 
received §100 and " three months board " for a year's labor. In June, 1836, 
he was ordained as an evangelist. In May, 1837, the church voted to call 
Rev. E. T. Jacobs, with a salary of " $150 and wood furnished." Then came 
two years without preaching, when Rev. R. Sabin came and served them one 
year, from spring of 1840-41. In August, 1841, Rev. V. Bemis began his 
labors, and he was the first pastor to continue for more than a year. About 
this time the state convention aided the church by appropriating to it $100 
per year. After Rev. Bemis' four years there was a vacancy of nearly a 
year, when Rev. C. G. Smith was called, and ministered for a year, succeeded 
by Rev. B. B. Call. In July, 1849, Rev. C. A. Newland was engaged and con- 
tinued until May, 1850. From this time until September, 1853, there was no 
pastor. In December, 1853, Rev. W. H. Randall began work, preaching here 
and at Belmont, but the records do not state how long he remained. 

December, 1857, came Rev. C. B. Reed, and, during the ensuing year, 
work on a house of worship (which had been commenced) was considerably 
progressed, and Jan. 20, 1859. having received substantial assistance from 
the Tabernacle Baptist Church, New York, and Rev. Lispenard Steward, a 
member of that church, and his daughter, the church was dedicated. Prior 
to this the meetings had been held at private houses, the schoolhouse, the 
court house, and occasionally at the M. E. church. Rev. Orrin Munger suc- 
ceeded Mr. Reed in October, 1860. He died March 1, 1862. October, 1862, 
Rev. J. M. Shotwell began a pastorate of one year, then for seven years the 
church had no pastor, but was quite regularly "supplied." In 1870, Rev. 
J. R. Merriman began his labors as pastor, remaining three years. From 
April, 1873, to May, 1879, the church was without a pastor but was supplied 
part of the time by Rev. Mr. Howd and Rev. R. Sabin. Early in 1879 Rev. 
P. I. Meade began a joastorate which closed May 1, 1883. Then came three 
years more without a pastor, when Rev. R. K. Hammond labored for six 
months. In November, 1886, Rev. J. Hendrick the present pastor began 
his labors. The church is in a healthy condition and doing good work. 

*Chiefly condensed from Rev. J. Hendrick's historical sermon, delivered on the 59th anniversary of its es- 
tablishment. 



416 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Since 1879 nearly $3,000 have been expended in improvements. The only- 
debt existing is a small one on the parsonage purchased. 

Catholic ChurcJi* — The early history of the Catholic church in Angelica 
is contemporaneous with the history of the church in Scio, Belmont, Bel- 
videre and Friendship. These were the first Catholic missions in Allegany 
county, and at first they constituted but one parish of which Rev. Michael 
O'Brien, now of Lowell, Mass., was the first pastor. Prior to his appoint- 
ment to this charge, which was in 1847, mass was frequently celebrated at 
the above mentioned place in private dwellings. The fifth Catholic service 
in the county was held at Angelica in 1844. Rev. Thomas McAvoy of Buffalo 
officiated. He said mass, and preached twice that year in the courthouse. 
In 1845 Rev. J. Meyers of Rochester held service three times in the same 
building for the Catholic families of Angelica. During the next year and 
till 1851 Rev. Michael O'Brien attended to the spiritual wants of the people. 
He lived, at first, in Greenwood, and having all of this county and a portion 
of Steuben for his parish, he could not have services at Angelica very often 
or regularly. In 1848 he removed to Hornellsville, built St. Ann's church 
there and became its first pastor. From here he attended all Catholic mis- 
sions in Allegany and many in Steuben county. He now held service about 
once a month in Angelica, saying mass sometimes in the courthouse and 
sometimes at the house of John Crosby, not far from the present home of 
Mrs. Margaret Ward in Collins settlement. 

Father O'Brien had from the time he moved to Hornellsville been collect- 
ing money to build a church in Angelica. Philip Church. Jr., Richard 
Charles, Mr. Paxton, and the Angelica Catholic families (about fifteen) gave 
generous subscriptions. The edifice was begun in 1848, but it was not com 
pleted till late in 1850. Shortly after Rev. Michael O'Brien was transferred 
to other fields of labor. His successor did not come for about two months, 
and so the Angelica church was not used for sacred service till 1851, when 
it was dedicated by Rt. Rev. John Timon, Bishop of Buffalo. The first 
trustees were Messrs. John Crosby and Timothy Culbert, and prominent 
among its first members and supporters were: Patrick Cline, Daniel Sulli- 
van, Edward Howe, P. Keenan, John Haire, James Hunt and Michael Collins. 
Father Moore ministered to the wants of the Angelica people till 1855, when 
Rev. Terence Keenan was appointed rector. He remained till the latter part 
of 1860, when Rev. Edward McGlew assumed the pastorate. He was suc- 
ceeded by Rev. A.J. McConnel tiU 1869, when Rev. J. H. Leddy took charge. 

The Wellsville parish had now been formed, and the residence of the 
pastor of the missions of Southern Allegany was now transferred to Bel- 
mont, and since then the pastor in charge of these missions has always lived 
in Belmont, attending Andover, Scio, Friendship, Belfast and Angelica at 
first, and, finally, as some of these places became separate parishes, limiting 
his charge to Scio, Belmont and Angelica. Father Leddy continued in the 
pastorate till 1873, and after him the pastors in charge of Angelica were: 

* By Rev, J. J. Dealy. 



Angelica. 417 

Rev. James Lannigan for about six months; Revs. E. McDermott, 1873-75; 
G. Dunbar, 1875-81; A. R. Barlow, 1881-82; J. Lasher, 1882-83; P. Berkery. 
1883-90; J. J. Lafferty, for about six months; D. M. Reilly, 1890-92; F. J. 
Burns, 1892-95; and Jan. 20, 1895, J. J. Dealy, became pastor. 

The present membership of the Angelica church is about twenty fami- 
nes, or about two hundred souls. The church was the second Cathohc edi- 
fice, and is now the oldest one, in the county. Besides -helping to support 
its pastor it gives yearly $50 for the benefit of the charitable institutions of 
the diocese of Bulfalo and r^50 to educate young men for the ministry. 

Angelica Academy. — May 12, 1836, an act was passed "to incorpo- 
rate Angelica Academy," and "George Miles, Richard Charles, Andrew 
C. Hull, Ransom Lloyd, Ithamar Smith, William T. Howell, Samuel 
Budd, Samuel C. Wilson, George Stevens, John B. Collins, Calvin T. 
Chamberlain, Asa S. Allen, John B. Church, Patrick Byrns, John Simons, 
Alexander S. Diven, James McHenry and their successors shall be 
body corporate by the name of Angelica Academy, to be located in the vil- 
lage of Angelica, in the county of Allegany, for the purpose of establishing, 
maintaining and conducting a seminary of learning for the education of 
youth of both sexes; and the persons above named shall be trustees of said 
corporation." This was the first of the kind pertaining to the county. No 
immediate results followed. Twenty years later, however, an academy was 
founded, which for a dozen years or more was the pride of the town, [ts 
first principal was Rev. Samuel Center. D. P. Richardson was first assist- 
ant and B. B. Underwood the second. D.P. Richardson then became prin- 
cipal and was followed by B. C. Underwood, Haver, Grunder, 

John C. Harkness and Chas. S. Richardson. The building was burned in 
November, 1867, and was not rebuilt. It stood on the south side of Main 
street a few rods east of the Presbyterian church. Twelve years followed 
during w^hich Angelica had no school of academic pretensions, then, through 
the generosity of Col. William Wilson, Wilson Academy came into being. 

Wilson Academy. — Col. William Wilson, a prominent citizen, who died 
early in 1879, " Desiring," as stated in his will, " to give expression to the 
cherished memories of a lifetime," bequeathed a portion of his estate, about 
$20,000 in amount, " to establish in the village of Angelica an academical in- 
stitution of learning to be and remain in all respects unsectarian." At the 
charter election, April 1, 1879, the electors of the village accepted this be- 
quest, and voted that the institution should be named the Wilson Academy, 
that the honored name of the donor might never be severed from the gift. 
In 1883 a board of 13 trustees was selected, with these officers: James T. 
Brown president, Charles P. Arnold secretary, I. L. Fisk treasurer, and 
the Academy was incorporated under a provisional charter from the Regents 
of the University of the State of New York. In the fall of 1885 the trustees 
engaged John P. Slocum, a graduate of Yale College, as principal, and the 
first term of the academy began Sept. 21st of that year. No building- had 



418 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



been provided, and for the first year, its sessions were held in the court 
house. The circular announcing the opening of the school stated that it 
was "the design of the founder, and the purpose of the trustees, to estab- 
lish a school which will give a superior preparation for any college, and also 
offer a thorough course in common and higher English branches, and in 
modern languages." 

In the summer of 1886, part of the estate of Rev. Lewis Thibou, consist- 
ing of 13 acres of land and a large brick dwelling house, was purchased of 
Mrs. M. Scholfield by the trustees. The house was altered to fit it for school 
purposes, and has since been the Academy building. The same year the re- 
quirements of the Regents for books and apparatus having been met by pur- 
chase and by gift, a full charter was granted to the Academy. James T. 
Brown served as president until 1890, when he resigned and was succeeded 
by Charles d'Autremont. Mr. d'Autremont died in 1891, and Hon. David 
P. Richardson was chosen as his successor and is now the president. 

During the ten years of its existence the Academy has maintained a 
steady and healthful growth. The number of its students has increased 
from 19 to nearly 100, and many of its graduates have entered college. An 
important feature of the school has been its Teachers' Training Class, in 
which a large number of teachers have been prepared for their work. The 
Academy is well equipped with philosophical and chemical apparatus, to 
which a fine telescope, made for the institution by John A. Brashear of 
Allegheny, Pa., has been recently added, a gift of the citizens of Angelica. 
The library now contains over 1,800 volumes, and has lately been recently 
opened to the public. This school offers exceptional opportunities for 
students. 



CHAPTER XL. 

THE VILLAGE OF ANGELICA. 



THE VILLAGE OF ANGELICA was founded in 1801, but not laid out till 
1805. Whether Moses Van Campen or Evart Van Wickle made the 
survey cannot now be with certainty stated. A map of the village, made in 
1828 from the survey of 1805, is in the town clerk's office, but nothing ap- 
pears to tell who made either map or survey. The village contains nearly 
1,000 population. It was incorporated May 2, 1835, with these boundaries: 

Beginning at a stake in the southwest corner of WilHam Neilson's lot, thence north twenty-one degrees 
east, nineteen chains and twenty links, to a stake ; thence north sixty-nine degrees west, ninety-nine chains, 
to a stake in John Lloyd's field ; thence south six degrees west, fifty chains and eighty-two links, crossing West 
street to a stake in John Robson's field ; thence south sixty-eight degrees east on the south line of John Magee's 



Angelica. 419 

and Solomon Tracy's land, seventy-one chains and fifteen links, to a stake in the corner of said Tracy's lot ; 
thence north twenty-one degrees east, crossing East street thirty-one chains and thirty links, to the place of 
beginning. 

The first officers were George Miles, president; Richard Charles, George 
Miles, Sam'lC. Wilson, J. Smith, Jos. B. Welch, trustees; James Lockhart, 
Henry J. Webb, assessors; Robert Haight, treasurer; Smith Davis, collec- 
tor; Wm.P. Angel, clerk; Edward Renwick, constable. 

It lies in the valley of Angelica creek, and its main street, 100 feet wide, 
lies in direction nearly east and west. It is very regularly laid out but its 
most distinguishing and attractive feature, and the one which impresses the 
stranger so favorably is its public park. This is five acres in extent, and 
around it are pleasantly located the five churches, and, in the past, the court- 
house, jail and county clerk's office. In beauty and peculiarity it stands 
alone, and has no peer in any village of its size in the state. The land 
covered by this park was conveyed from Philip Church and Anna Matilda, 
his wife, to the "inhabitants of the town of Angelica " by deed bearing date 
Sept. 8, 1831, and is thus described: 

" The premises hereby intended to be conveyed to the inhabitants of said town, is well 
known as the ' public square of the village of Angelica,' and is situated as follows : Beginning 
at the centre stone of said square, thence running in the direction of East, West, South and 
White streets, three chains and fifty links, to the centre of each of the aforesaid streets, thence 
at right angles therefrom in each direction, three chains and fifty links, containing four acres 
and ninety hundredths, agreeably to the original plan of said village ; excepting and reserving 
out of the above, three pieces, deeded to the county of Allegany, for a jail, clerk's office, and 
courthouse ; also a piece in the northeast corner, deeded to the Episcopal church. It is hereby 
understood that the aforesaid premises is to be used for no other purpose whatever than as a 
public place for the inhabitants of said town and village." 

At the southeast corner of the park stood the old court house, now con- 
verted into a hall for public meetings, lectures, etc. Directly opposite used 
to stand in the old days the county clerk's office, and, near by, the Baptist 
church. On the north side is the widely-known Charles Hotel, and close by 
it on the east, St. Paul's Episcopal church, while the other churches are 
located so as to front the park, the Catholic church occupying the site of the 
first jail and court house. The people of Angelica have of late years held 
lawn fetes during the summer in this park which are made very pleasant 
occasions and have come to be an event as much looked forward to as the 
"Fourth of July " to the small boy. 

Angelica has always been a center of culture. Founded and settled by 
people of education and wealth, and having the advantages given by the col- 
ony of French refugees whose home atmosphere was that of the courts of 
France immediately antecedent to the French Revolution, its original state 
of society was equal if not superior to those other centers of civilization in 
Western New York, Bath, Canandaigua and Batavia. Its location as the 
county seat attracted some of the most able and brilliant legal minds of that 
period to make their residence here, and as a result of these and other fav- 
oring influences, Angelica has maintained its high character as a social cen- 



420 



History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



ter and the county's chief seat of culture. Its citizens have stood and yet 
stand high in national, state and business circles and to-day it numbers some 
of the leading men of Western New York among its residents. Among its 
sons are many who have added dignity to the state. 

From the organization of the county until 1859 the village of Angehca 
was the sole county seat. From 1859 to 1892 it was a half-shire, and since the 
latter date no courts have been held in its court house, which, when abandoned 
as such and for some years before, was the oldest court house in the state. 
The village has been incorporated for many years, receiving its charter May 
2 1835, and recently by a vote of more than two to one it authorized her 
board of water commissioners consisting of M. S. Blair, Wm. Weaver and 
A. K Fletcher, to bond the village "for a sum not to exceed $30,000," for a 
system of water works and it is to-day the southern terminus of the C. N. Y. 
& W. railroad, the machine shops being located here.* For history of this 
railroad see page 130. 

Amon^ the early settlers of Allegany county was Marie Jaene d'Ohet d'Autremont, widow 
of Hubert d'Autremont, and her sons Alexander Hubert d'Autremont and Aguste Francois 
Cecile d"'Autreraont. Madame d'Autremont was born in France in 1745, was married to Hubert 
d'Autremont, Feb. 5, 1770. He was a royalist and lost his life amid the storms of the French 
Revolution ' In 1792 his widow, her three sons and sister Marie Genevieve d'Ohet LaFevre, 
and her sister's husband, Antonine Bartholemy Louie LaFevre with other refugees sailed from 
Havre having previously purchased a large tract of land on the Chenango River in New 
York ' She and her sons remained a short time on this land and then removed to a colony on 
the Susquehanna river in Bradford county. Pa., called Asylum or French Town, peopled en- 
tirely by royalists fleeing from the French Revolution and planters from the French West Indies. 
lAmong these refugees and their visitors were some of the most noted royalists of France, 
namely Duke d'Orleans, Prince Talleyrand, Duke de la Rochefoucald de Liancourt, Mancy 
Colin Abbe Sevigne, Viscount de Noaillies, Aristede Ambert du petite Thour, Marquis Anto- 
nine Omer Talon, Baron de Montule, Marquis Lucretius de Blancons, Duke de Montepensier, 
Count Beaujolais, and others.] When Napoleon, about 1800, granted amnesty, that quaint col- 
ony was broken up, nearly all of them returning to France. In 1795 her son Louis Paul d'Au- 
tremont returned to France with Talleyrand as his secretary. Although he never came to 
Allegany county until 1832 he was one of its early land owners. On the breaking up of the 
colony Madame d'Autremont and her two younger sons returned to Chenango, where they 
lived until 1806 when they removed to Angelica having purchased land of Mr. Church on the 
Genesee River, which was called the " Retreat," where Madame d'Autremont died Aug. 29, 
1809 aged 64.' January 28, 18 10, her unmarried sister, Marie Claudine d'Ohet, who had been a 
nun in France and after the destruction of her convent had joined her sister in this country, 
died here Tan, 10, 1810, aged 52. Madame d'Autremont and her sons were followed by Victor 
du Pont de Nemours and the Baron Hyde de Neuville, who purchased lands adjoining those of 
the Retreat. Victor was a son of Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours, and one of the most dis- 
tinmished Frenchmen of that time, and after residing here for a few years joined his brother in 
Delaware where, as Irenne du Pont de Nemours & Co., they and their descendants have been 
engaged in manufacturing gunpowder without change of firm name, and. under various titles, 
control 28 out of the 32 of the manufactories of gunpowder and explosives in the United States. 
In addition the family has furnished to this country distinguished sailors, soldiers and states- 

* Mitchell S. Blair, the popular superintendent of the C. N. Y. & W. R. R., was called to the station of 
the company in this city Jan. 27, 1896, ostensibly to see to an engine which was said to be out of repair. Mrs. 
Blair accompanied him. On their arrival they found there a large delegation of employees of the standard 
gauge division of the road, together with a number of friends from Angelica and intermediate places. Among 
them was Hon. D. P. Richardson of Angelica, who in his able manner made a neat presentation speech and in 
conclusion presented Superintendent Blair with a handsome gold watch and Mrs. Blair with a beautiful gold 
ring set with diamonds and rubies, as a token of the esteem in which Mr. Blair is held by the employees of this 
portion of the road. The affair was a complete surprise and it was with difficulty that Mr. Blair was able to 
say a few words in reply. — HornelhvilU Times. 



Angelica. 421 

men. Admiral du Pont of the late Civil War was of the family. (Baron Hyde de Neuville was one 
of the most ultra of all the French refugees. Before coming here he tried and failed to induce 
Napoleon to reinstate the Bourbons in France, and, after the downfall of Napoleon, returned to 
France. He was Minister from France to the United States from 1816 to 1 821, afterward Am- 
bassador from France to Portugal and later a member of the French Cabinet.) 

Louis Paul, oldest son of Madame d'Autremont, finally made his permanent residence in 
Paris. He had claims to large tracts of lands in the United States, and owned several farms 
and village property in Angelica, was married in France, and died without leaving male issue. 
The other sons, Alexander and Aguste, came to Angeliaa with their mother m 1806, were 
among the most prominent pioneers and business men of the county and did much in develop- 
ing its resources. Alexander was born in Paris March 12, 1776, and died at Angelica Aug. 4, 
1857. He was married to Abigail Dodge in 1797 and had children; Adeline, born July 12, 1800, 
married Ithemer Smith ; y^wtV/a du Pont, born April 28, 1803, married Hugh Magee ; Zf/cw 
Paul, born Jan. 28, 1805, married Hannah Magee ; Victor du Pont, born Aug. 16, 1807, mar- 
ried Isabella Common; Caroline, born Dec. 8, 1809, married Charles Brundage; Janet, born 
Nov. 30, 1814, married Ephriam Smith; Charles, born June 26, 1818, married Sarah Collins; 
Alexander, born April 2, 1821, married Diana Howard ; Virginia, born July 30, 1824, unmar- 
ried ; ^'fj/Z/zVr Owr/^, born Aug. 3, 1829, married Lucian P. Wetherby. Aguste Francois 
Cecile d'Autremont was born in Paris June 7, 1783, married Sarah Ann Stewart in 18 16, who 
died in 1840 and he in i860. They had children: Matilda, horn June i, 1817, died Dec. 31, 
i2>S::^;/osephi?ie, born Jan. 17, 1820, married Harden P. Mather; Augustus, Jr., born Feb. 29, 
1822, married, first, Adaline Mather, second, Mary Hubbard. He died March 29, 1889; 
Alary A?nandn, born July 27, 1824, died July 8, 1836; Francis Paul, born July 27, 
1824, died In Jalapa, Mexico, Sept. 12, 1847, when a U. S. soldier; Caroline Elisebeth, born 
April 27, 1827, married Ralph Taylor and died June 29, 1877; Victorine, born June 17, 1830, 
died July 24, 1836 ; Eveline Ellen,, born April 17, 1833 ; Glodine, born Dec. 16, 1835, died July 
18, 1836; Sarah Andrina, born Dec. 16, 1835, married Samuel A. Farman. 

The beautiful village cemetery, to which about ten acres of land is devoted 
lies on the south side of Main street on the western limit of the village. 
Here the first interment was made in 1803, that of Ira Stephens who was 
Irilled by some one whose name is unknown. Directly over the grave of 
Mr. Stephens has grown a large elm tree which superstitious and credulous 
people say grew from the club or poker with which he was killed, and 
said to have been buried with him. The grounds are well kept, and the 
new part laid out in accordance with modern ideas is very beautiful. The 
trustees are William Franklin, Charles Lounsbury and James Green. 

Angelica in the Civil War. — Prom the local papers, clippings of which 
without date have been saved, it is learned that very soon after the first 
call for troops was made by President Lincoln, Maj. R. Church inspected 
the Angelica company, and held an election of officers, which resulted as 
follows: 

Commissioned officers. Captain C. C. Gardiner ; lieutenant, S. M. Harmon ; ensign, Charles 
D. Rice ; ist sergeant, D. C. Hartshorn, Angelica ; 2d sergeant. Burton Freeman, Rushford ; 
3d sergeant, J. G. Wellman, Friendship; 4th sergeant, L. D. Button, Caneadea ; ist corporal, 
W. J. Kendall, Rushford ; 2d corporal, Isaac M. Hooper, Angelica; 3d corporal, D. W. Cornell, 
Little Genesee ; 4th corporal, Harvey C. Snow, Angelica. Privates, Texas Angel, Angelica ; Ira 
Ames, Rushford ; J. Orson Andrews, Swainville ; Remain Benjamin, Rushford; Justin Bing- 
ham. Hume ; Henry Burlingame, Belfast ; Charles M. Burt, Belmont ; Guy C. Burnham, Jr. 
Angelica ; Albert Babbitt, Rushford ; Charles A. Cotton, West Almond ; Stillman Cranston, 
Little Genesee ; Lebeus B. Coon, Little Genesee ; Thomas CoUer, Franklin ; Timothy C. Charles 
Rushford; Robert Carpenter, Angelica; Alfred Coats, Friendship; Albert J. Duke, Oramel ; 
James Dunn, Whitesville ; George W. Engle, Angelica; Philander Ellithorp. Rushford; Wil- 
liam J. Elliott, Belmont ; Eugene Ferrin, Angelica ; George P. Goodale, Angelica ; Calvin B. 
Gilman, Haskinsville ; Eli Gardiner, Centerville ; Christian Hornburg, Wellsville ; Enoch Hib- 



422 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

bard, Rushford ; Stanley Hobart, Fairview ; Wilbur Haver, Oakland ; John R. Heald, Rush- 
ford ; Henry Hernneman, Wellsville ; Christian Keller, Wellsville ; Henry D. Kidder, Farmers- 
ville; Lester Lane. Belfast; Henry D. Lewis and Clinton R. Lewis, Little Genesee ; James 
Mapes and Darwin Maltby, Angelica; Harvey Makee, Friendship; Charles Mapes, Angelica; 
John Metcer, Wellsville; Judson S. Oliver, Angelica; Orrin Odell, Seymour; John Ogden, An- 
gelica ; Lawrence Powers, Angelica ; Robert Rice, Angelica ; John Robinson, Oramel ; Rufus 
Scott. Wirt ; David Smith, Belvidere ; Alfred W. Spencer, Angelica ; Nelson N. Seaton, Canea- 
dea; Winfield Tufts, Rushford; Charles W. Thompson, Hinsdale; George L. Utter, Little 
Genesee; Evertt Van Nostrand, Allen; John 'Van Gorder, Belfast; Nicholas H. Van Horn, 
Cuba ; William Van Dresser, Oramel; George Waters, Rushford ; William J. Woolsy, Oramel ; 
John D. Weaver, Belmont ; Aaron H. Wright, Rushford ; Joseph B. White, Wileyvilie ; David 
Wafler, Jr., Angelica; Daniel S. West, Angelica; Charles A. Woodruff, Rushford ; IraC. Worth- 
ington, Rushford; Daniel G. Weymer, Little Genesee. 

A special messenger was sent to Albany to secure the acceptance of this 
company, which was accomplished, and this was the first installment of 
troops from the county serving in the Civil War. Though the members of 
this company were from all parts of the country, Angelica was the seat of 
preparatory operations. 

By the town records it appears that on Dec. 19, 1863, a special town 
meeting was held which passed this resolution: 

" Resolved, That this town offer in addition to the large bounties now offered by the state 
and government, the sum of $300 to each volunteer that shall be accepted by the ist day of 
January, 1864." 

The above, with the list of Angelica's soldier dead, tell in brief the story 
of Angelica's part in the war for the Union: 

Soldiers Interred in Angelica Cemetery . — REVOLUTION, Moses Van Campen. 

War OF 1812, Uian Davis, Alvin Burr, L. L Dey, Luther Evans, Wilson. 

Civil War. George Willis, Seymour Mapes, James Mapes, Emory Johnson, Arthur Neil, 
Isaac Wheeler, Benj. A. Ames, George Riley, Wm. S. Lawrence. John Cooley, Guerdon Frank- 
lin, John Latham, Paul Dowd, Simeon Blinn, Leonard Palmer, Green, Edwin Davis, Jud- 
son Hooker, David Terwilliger, Robert Y. Charles, James Silsby, Loren J. Jennings, Jerry 
Ryan, Asa Davis, John Way, Leonard Latham. 

The foregoing are buried in Angelica, Enlisted at Angelica, and bur- 
ied elsewhere, are Michael Collins, John H. Charles, Willis Smith, Ambrose 

P. Green, Alex. Kinghorn, John Lilly, John Ogden, Abbey, Wilber 

Haver, Robert Rice, Charles Rice, Luther Farnum, Curtis L. Burdick, 
(Newman Morse 1812), Ebenezer Hawley, William Gibson, Orrin P. Lyon. 

Angelica Lodge No. 167, F. & A. M. — Late in 1807 the institution of a lodge 
of this ancient order was agitated by the leading men of the county, and 
Jan. 9,1808, a meeting was held at the house of Evart Van Wickle for the 
purpose of founding one, Philip Church having obtained a warrant and dis- 
pensation therefor from the Grand Lodge of the state. At this meeting a 
petition for a charter was drawn up and signed by William Higgins, master; 
Moses Van Campen, S. W.; Luke Good speed, J. W. ; Stephen B. Nicholas, 
secretary; William Pool, treasurer; and Joseph Taylor and John Gait, these 
comprising all who were in attendance. In due time a charter was granted. 
Its date was June 1, 1808, and it carried the signatures of DeWitt Chnton, 



Angelica. 423 

Grand Master; James Wood, Senior Grand Warden; Martin Hoffman, 
Deputy Grand Master; and John Wells, Grand Secretary. Aug. 25, 1808, 
at the " Public House in the Village of Angelica," a meeting was held at 
which the officers were installed by General McClure, Dep. Grand Master, 
and Horatio Waterhouse, Dep. Secretary, and the lodge was put in working 
order. For some time meetings were held in'the daytime, at different places 
as convenience suggested. Some years later a room was finished off in Dr. 
Hyde's "tavern," which stood on the site of the residence of S. H. Whit- 
comb at Belvidere. The last meeting of which any record appears was 
Jan. 1, 1828. This lodge was one of the earliest instituted in Western New 
York. A movement is now on foot looking to the establishment of another 
lodge here. 

Banking. — The first institution presuming to do anything in banking, 
was a branch of the old Erie County Bank. It continued but a short time, 
not meeting with signal success. Mr. Charles d' Autremontfor some years 
bought and sold exchange, and conducted private banking. Nothing like a 
regular organized banking institution was realized until 1864, when the First 
National Bank of Angelica was established with a capital of $100,000. and 
these officers: Alfred Lockhart, president; J. E. Robinson, cashier; William 
Common, Alpha Morse, William Wilson, E. F. Johnson, Smith Davis, Robert 
Renwick, Isaac Miles, H. J. Webb, A. Langdon, Alfred Lockhart and J. E. 
Robinson, directors. Mr. Lockhart, after twelve years, was succeeded as 
president by Smith Davis, who held the position until April 16, 1886, when 
the bankAvas closed. Mr. Robinson was the sole cashier. E. W. Chamber- 
lain of Belmont was appointed receiver, and paid the depositors and credit- 
ors in full. 

Tlie State Bank of Angelica was incorporated January 1, 1890. Its capi- 
tal stock is 125,000, and present surplus $5,000. G. C. Hardesty was presi- 
dent for the first year, when Jos. H. Rutherford succeeded him, and is now 
in office. J. H. Rook has been cashier from the first. The bank is doing a 
good healthy business, and is regarded as a reliable institution. 

The early merchants and business men remembered by the oldest citi- 
zens are Aug. d' Autremont, Rogers, Ira and Charles Davenport, Itha- 

mar Smith, Lemuel Case, Ephraim Smith, Alfred Lockhart, C. K. & G. W. 
Thomas, James Lockhart, John Trotter, Lockhart & Blair, M. H. Yale. J. 
C. Arnold, E. O. Osgood, and doubtless there are others. Joseph Taylor, 
Evart Van Wickle, John Gibson, Alexander d' Autremont, Daniel & Henry 
McHenry, F. M. Hartshorn, F. H, Ohver, J. E. Matthews, Daniel Vorhees 
and Joseph Gillies were some of the oldest and old landlords. 

The Angelica Butter and Cheese Manufacturing Company was organ- 
ized in May or June, 1895, with a capital of $5,000, and commenced opera- 
tions July 15, 1895. It has a capacity for 20,000 pounds of milk per day. L. 
Z. North is the conductor. The milk is paid for according to the quality, as 
shown by the Babcock tester, patrons selling their milk and returning home 
with it after the cream is separated. The organization of the company at 



424 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



present is Charles Lounsbury, president; D. D. Dickson, secretary and 
treasurer; Charles Lounsbury, A. K. Stebbins, A. H. Hooker, executive 

committee. 

Newspapers. — The Allegany Gou7ity RepuUican, published by Lamonte G. 
Raymond.* The Angelica Every Week, X3ublished by Mrs. M. L. Rumpff. 

Lawyers. — The two leading firms of Richardson & Robbins and Smith & 
Dickson are prominent in Western New York. H. E. Dudley is also in prac- 
tice. (See chapter on Courts and Lawyers.) 

Physicians. — H. E. Cooley, C. R. Spencer, C. N. Hammond. (See Medi- 
cal chapter.) 

^oiefe.— Charles Hotel, A. K. Fletcher; Marion House, J. S. Ess. 

Merchants. — Dry goods, etc., J. C. Averill, C. D. Buchanan; hardware, 
Thornton Hardware Co., S. G. Horner, L. T. Hooker; clothing, A. T. Wilson; 
drugs, etc., T. A. Royce, P. W. King. Other merchants and the necessary 
shops and tradesmen incident to a country village prosper. 

The F. E. & J. M. Church heading mill was started in SejDtember, 1893, 
by the Messrs. Church, who came from Blossburg, Pa. It was a considera- 
ble acquisition to the business enterprises of the town, and, in 1894, was 
second in importance of its kind in the state. It uses from 3,000 to 4,000 
cords of bolts per annum, many being hauled as far as 12 miles, while some 
are brought in by rail. It gives employment to from 20 to 23 men. 

Charles Graham and W. Galusha have saw and planing mills, and Solon 
D. Clapp a sawmiU at Joncey. 

Supervisors. — 1805, Benjamin Riggs; 1806-7, Luke Goodspeed ; 1 808-9-1 2, John T. Hyde; 
1810-11-15-19-24-25-31-34. John Ayers; 1814, Timothy H. Porter ; 1820-22, James Wilson ; 
1823-26, Vial Thomas; 1828, Philip Church ; 1829-30, Samuel S. Haight; 1832, George Miles; 
1833-35-37, Ithamar Smith; 1838, Joseph R. Welch ; 1839-41-43-52, fames Lockhart ; 1842-45, 
Smith Davis ; 1844, John G. Collins ; 1846-47, Volney Aldrich ; 1848, Bradley Sherman ; 1849- 
50-61, Wilkes Angel; 1851. Victor d'Autremont ; 1853-54, Erastus Stanton ; 1855-56-62-64, 
Charles d'Autremont ; 1857-65, David Brown; 1858, Alfred Lockhart ; 1859-60, William B. 
Alley; 1866-69, Mitchell S. Blair; 1870-71-75, D. P. Richardson; 1872-73, Albert Brown ; 
1874. Henry Renwick ; 1876-78, James T. Brown ; 1879, Handy Bellamy ; 1880-81, Charles N. 
Flenagin ; 1882-3-4, J. T. Brown ; 1885-6, George Lockhart ; 1887-8, William Seiver ; 1889-90 
-91-92-93, Fred. A. Robbins ; 1894-5, D. D. Dickson. 

*LaMonte Gardiner Raymond, born at Sherburne, Chenango Co., N. Y., April 8, 1845; 7th son and loth 
child of II, of Alfred R. and Sarah Gardiner R. his wife; grandson of Newcomb R., one of 13 pioneer settlers 
of said town, 1792, and a soldier of the Revolution. First Raymond came to America 1632, French Hugue- 
' not. LaMonte G. at 14 years, Oct. 27, 1859, began printer's trade in a brother's office, Courier, Clinton, N. 
Y. Aug. 15, 1864, volunteered in Battery A. ist N. Y. Light Artillery; honorably discharged with Battery 
at close of war in 1865. Went to Springfield, O., thence to Chicago, and Cleveland,©., working at trade. 
In Oct., 1866, bought Sherburne, N. Y., News; published 3 years, and sold. Oct. 13, 1869, at Clinton, Oneida, 
Co., married Miss Louisa Lane Burrill (wife now and two daughters.) In 1870 bought Phelps, Ontario 
County Citizen; resold to same man nine months later. In 1872 became assistant editor Neiv York Daily 
Witness; \sA&x in full control of weekly edition, with 40,000 circulation; promoted to City Editor of Daily. 
In 1873 bought Hackettstown. N. J., Herald; sold after three years. Bought Washington, N. J. Chronicle; 
sold after one year. Started Portland, Pa., Enterprise; sold after two years. (Owned and run all three last- 
named papers one year.) Stated Tiffin, O., Daily Neivs; soXA. after six months. Bought Angelica, N. Y., 
Advertiser, July, 1879, and changed name to Allegany County Republican; still there in 1896. In theology, 
Presbyterian, pohtics Republican. Printer 363 .< years; editor 30 years; editor in Allegany county 16 years 
Aug. I, 1895; At the " Centennial " he read an excellent paper on " The Press." 



Angelica. 425 



Present Tozuti Officials. — D. D. Dickson, supervisor; F. H. Jackson, town clerk; H. E. 
Dudley, A. W. Phippen, R. Brockett and Joel Winchip, justices; H. P. Green, highway com- 
missioner; J. C. Burr, collector; Alexander Lytle, James A. Green, Romine Bennett, assessors; 
Smith Latham, overseer of the poor; Charles Davis, Charles J. Wafter, Daniel C. Ackley, excise 
commissioners; J. D. Burr, Samuel Bullock, S. C. Clapp, Joel R. Green, Jr., Leonard J. Palmer, 
constables. Inspectors of election, ist district, Orrin Smith, F. R. Allen. W. S. Gibson, Murray 
W. Ayers; 2d district, Charles Lounsbury, Everett I. Weaver, D. W. Phippen, Charles A. Holtz. 



Something About Some of the People. — Moses Burr, son of Alvin and Anna (Van 
Campen) Burr, was born in February, 1822, at Angelica. His father was one of the early 
lawyers of Allegany, and his mother a daughter of Major Moses Van Campen, the noted scout 
and border man of the Revolution, and later a pioneer of Allegany. Mr. Burr's early and 
middle life was devoted to active business operations, being for years a large dealer in stock, at 
the period when droves of cattle, sheep and hogs, were driven through to New York, and by 
honorable shrewdness and laudable attention to his vocation amassed a competency. He 
married a Miss Robinson of Friendship. She died some years ago, since which time an 
adopted sister. Miss Mary Carney, has kept house for him. Mr. Burr died the last of July, 
1895, and by his will bequeathed his large collection of Van Campen relics to the Wilson 
Academy and library at Angelica. He was a lover of the early pioneer days of Allegany and 
had an interesting fund of reminiscences of the olden time. 

Daniel Dennison Gardiner, son of Lyman and Eugene (Otis) Gardiner, and a direct lineal 
of Lion Gardiner of Gardiner's Island and colonial fame, and of the Otis family, of which John 
and Harrison Gray Otis were distinguished members, was born in Eaton, Madison county. 
Mar. 2, 1824, and exactly sixty-nine years (to a day) later, was buried in the Angelica cemetery. 
He was twelve years old when he came with his father's family to Angelica. Here he ever 
after resided (excepting two years passed at Fillmore immediately previous to 1850). In 1854 
he was elected county treasurer, the duties of which office he discharged for over thirty-eight 
years with accuracy, signal ability and to the general satisfaction of the public. Mr. Gardiner 
was for some years in early life an attendant upon services at the Baptist church ; later, and for 
the remainder of his life, he attended the Episcopal church. He was an active Free Mason, a 
member of the " blue lodge " of Friendship, of the chapter (Royal Arch) at Wellsville. and of 
St. John Commandery (Knights Templar) of Olean. He was highly esteemed as a man, 
respected as a citizen and beloved by an unusually large circle of friends and acquaintances. 

Judge John Collins, son of John, was born in Litchfield. Conn. He married Ann Gregory. 
In J825 he came to Angelica and was engaged with others as an agent in the sale of land in 
Angelica. He was admitted to the bar in February, 1807, and was a judge of the county. He 
died in 1863, his wife in 1869. They had 7 children. Hon. John G. Collins, his son, born in 
Geneva in April, 1809, was educated at Geneva College and settled in Angelica in 1825. He 
read law with Judge Welles of Penn Yan. He was county judge and surrogate of this county 
from 1840-44, and was elected to the assembly in 1845-46. He was an able lawyer 
and a highly respected citizen. He died in April, 1877. The other children of Judge John 
Collins were Charles, a lawyer in Dayton, Ohio, Sarah (Mrs. Charles d' Autremont) of Angelica, 
Philip, Mary, Edward and Ann. 

Gen. Wm. B. Rochester of Washington, D. C, son of Judge Wm. B. and Amanda (Hop- 
kins) Rochester, was born in Angelica, Feb. 15, 1826. Attended school at Leroy, Rochester 
and Buffalo, engaged in forwarding and shippmg business from 1844 to 51 ; went to California 
in 1851 ; returned in December same year; was with Wells, Fargo & Co. Express Co. from 
May 10, 1852; in 1853 went to California for them; was their agent in Marysville one year, 
then their agent at Sacramento till 1859, when he returned to New York, and was appointed 
additional paymaster U. S. Army with rank uf major ; transferred to the regular service Jan. 
17, 1867 ; stationed at Santa Fe, N. M., from June, 1867, to May, 1870; in Washington till 1872 ; 
in Louisville, I'Cy., till September, 1876 ; in Atlanta, Ga., till July, 1878 ; at Newport Barracks, 
Ky., till February, 1882 ; appointed paymaster general of the army, Feb. 17, 1882, stationed at 
Washington, D. C. ; and retired Feb. 15. 1890, having reached the age of 64, when all officers 
are retired from active service. He now resides in Washington. 

Andrew Charles came to Angelica in 1827. He was a prominent and public spirited citi- 
zen. He built a frame house on the site where the Charles Hotel now stands, which was made 
into a hostelry and burned in 1850. The same year the present Charles Hotel was erected. 
Mr. Charles was the means of bringing the village park to its present handsome condition and 
was otherwise active in business and social affairs. He died in February, 1868, his wife in i860. 



426 History of Allegany County, N, Y. 

Robert Ramsey, born in Ireland, came to Angelica in 1831, and settled on a p'ece of wild 
land in the west part of the town, adjoining the Transit Line, where there was no road until he, 
with the help of another man, cut one through the woods sufficient to allow a cart and oxen to 
go through. He afterward removed to Belfast, where he died May 28, 1868, aged 85 years. 
His wife was Elizabeth Thompson, of Ireland. Their children were George, John, Mary, Ann 
M., James, Robert, Jane, Eliza, Susan and Catharine. 

David Brown was born in Hartford, Washington Co., N. Y., in 1800. Hewasof Roman 
lineage and according to family traditions, a descendant of Marc Antony. His ancestors came 
to England wich the Roman legions and remained there after the withdrawal of the legions. 
Their descendants were among the early settlers of New England. Rev. Amasa Brown, the 
father of David Brown, was a native of Rhode Island and was a Baptist clergyman who filled 
one pastorate forty years. He belonged to the family which founded Brown University. David 
Brown came to West Almond, then in the town of Angelica in 1830. He built his log cabm in 
the wilderness and cleared his farm and afterward engaged in the mercantile busines.'j. He was 
the first supervisor of West Almond, having been elected in 1836 and '38. He was appointed 
undersheriff and moved to Angelica in 1840 holding the office nine years. He was elected 
sheriff m 1843 and was made supervisor in 1857 and 1865 and was engaged a number of years in 
lumbering and milling. He was undersheriff at the time of his death which occurred in 1867. 
His enterprise, integrity and rare social qualifications won for him a large circle of friends. His 
active participation in public alTairs made him well known in this section of the state. Of decid- 
ed character he was utterly fearless in the expression of his opinion, and yet always retained the 
friendship and respect of those who differed from his views. Mr. Brown married Miss Phoebe 
Swift, daughter of James Swift, who died in 1826 leaving five children of whom two are now liv- 
ing. In 1827 he married Miss Waity Norton daughter of Richard Norton by whom he had ten 
children, eight of whom survive him. Of David Brown's eleven sons John and Amasa died in 
early manhood. Henry, James V., Stephen S., and Orange S., are prominent citizens of Williams- 
port, Pa., the latter being proprietor and manager of the Daily Gazette a7id BitUetin. Norton R. 
and Daniel C. are residents of Angelica, Alfred S. and Allen L. of Wellsville and Charles F , of 
South Bethlehem, Pa., of which he is Berger. Of the four daughters three grew to womanhood. 
Abigail married George Howe, one son, David A. Howe, a lumberman of Williamport, is the 
sole representative of this branch of the family, Marrion died in 1885. Sarah married Hervey 
Grotz of Bloomburg, Pa. 

Joseph Harrison Rutherford was born in Bath, Steuben Co., Aug. 18, 1835. His father was 
William M. Rutherford, born in Northumberland, England, and came to America in 1807. His 
mother was Margarette Creveling of French ancestry, born in Trenton, N. J., J. H. Rutherford 
was educated in the old Friendship and Rushford academies under Prof. Jeremiah Hatch and 
Prof. Ira T. Sayles, preceptors. He married in 1859 Miss Annis G., daughter cf William and 
Laura Franklin of Allen. Their children are Edward Rutherford, Esq., of Buffalo, Edith and 
Grace of Angelica. Mr. Rutherford represented Allen 4 years on the board of supervisors, has 
been secretary of the county insurance company since its' organization; president of the village 
for 3 years, and president of the bank of Angelica since January. 1892. 

William L. Weaver, son of William and Nancy Weaver, was born in Orwell, Vt., in 1799. 
He married Eunice Dewev, who was born in Cambridge, N. Y., and settled in Westford, Vt. 
In 1830 he emigrated to Granger where he was a farmer. His son, William Weaver, was born 
in 1828 and married Esther, daughter of Ira Parker of Granger. William Weaver was super- 
visor of Granger for 4 years. From '80 to '86 he was the keeper of the County Almshouse, and 
from '86 to '92 was superintendent of the poor. He also assisted in building the county build- 
ings. He has one son, Everett I. who is in the insurance business. 

John Gibson, son of John, was born in Edinburgh. Scotland. He came to America in 1786, 
and was at Geneva until 1801 when he came to Angelica. He was a millwright, superintended 
the building of the first gristmill at Belmont, and was long a clerk for Philip Church. Kept an 
early hotel at Angelica, and was the first sheriff of the county. He married Mary, daughter of 
Judge Evart Van Wickle. Of their 6 children two survive : Jane A. (Mrs. Wm. Shoff), and 
John W., who married Mary Scheanck, has always lived in town, is a farmer and had 3 children; 
John D. (married Etta, daughter of Henry Palmer of West Almond, and has two sons, Floyd 
and Forrest), William S. and Jane (Mrs. John Davis). 

Joseph Gillies, so long and popularly esteemed as a genial landlord and host, was born in 
Scotland, Sept. 9, 1825, there married Miss Helen Kissock June 3, 1846, and soon came to 
America. He came from Livingston county to Almond in '54 and some years later to Angel- 
ica. He has been an ardent Republican from the organization of the party, and his official 
career has been no less varied than responsible. He was appointed enrolling officer of Almond 
in "63, only to be chosen before the close of that year to the position of special agent of the 



Angelica. 427 

provost marshal's office of the twenty-seventh congressional district of New York; and in '65 
he received an appointment as revenue assessor for the eastern district of Allegany county. In 
'70 he was elected to the office of sheriff of Allegany county, and discharged its duties with 
credit to himself and satisfaction to those by whose favor he had been thus honored. He was 
again elected sheriff in '80. He has been prominent in other ways in county politics. As a 
landlord of the St. Charles Hotel of Angelica and other leading hotels in this section, he will 
be long remembered, as will be his quotations from Burns. He is now manager of Hotel Sher- 
wood, Hornellsville. 

Rev. Thomas Osgood came to Centerville in 1834, afterward went to Warsaw, where he 
died. His first wife was Betsy Seeley ; his second was Mrs. Polly Couch, whose son Jona- 
than Couch was a prominent resident of Centerville, serving the town as supervisor and the 
village as postmaster. Mrs. Osgood died in '78. The children of Rev. Thomas and Betsy 
Osgood were Moses S. of Warsaw, Charles of Machias, Celestia (Mrs. James Smith) of Wirt, 
Alzina (Mrs. S. Miller) of Bolivar, John D. of Eagle, Climena (Mrs. Edward Hayward) of Frews- 
burg. Edmond O., Harriet (Mrs, Ira Acherman) of Pike, Henry M. (deceased), a soldier of the 
Mexican War, Viana (Mrs. Robert Miller) of Bradford, Pa. and fames A. By his second wife 
Mr. Osgood had two children, Mariam (Mrs. John Cooper) and Oliver, both of North Dakota, 
Mr. Osgood was ordained a Wesleyan minister and became one of the first seceders from the 
M. E. church on the slavery question. Edmond O. Osgood born March 10, 1826, married, 
Oct. 28, 1849, Rowena C, daughter of Park Colgrove, of Bradford, Pa., and their children are 
Celestia M. (Mrs. Rev. Willard Robinson) of Stockton, William T., of Caneadea, Mary R. 
(Mrs. J. A. Kennedy) of West Virginia, Henry H. of Angelica, Hattie O. (Mrs. Perry Osgood) 
of Angelica, Edmond B. of Brockton, Mariam (Mrs. G. E. Meeker) of Hornellsville, Charlotte 
C, Adelbert O. of Hornellsville, Adelia O. (Mrs. W. S. Gibson) and James A. (deceased). Mr. 
Osgood was reared in a family in Wyoming county. He came to Friendship when 14 and 
later lived in Almond, resided in Bradford, Pa., from '49 to '78 when they came to Angelica in 
September. When 17 Mr. Osgood became nearly blind from cataract of the eyes and until '75 
was scarcely able to perceive daylight. Through the intercession of a friend he was induced to 
go to Elmira, where Dr. Updegraf performed one of the most difficult operations ever known 
to optical science, restoring an almost clear sight. We mention this because of the 32 years of 
nearly total blindness which Mr. Osgood so patiently bore and so fortunately recovered from. 
He is now retired from a successful career as an undertaker and furniture dealer. 

Edward P. Burdick, son of William and Mary (Hancock) Burdick, was born July 20, 1823, in 
Almond where he received his education. In '48 he married Gardeen, daughter of John J. 
Davison of Birdsall. They had 4 children. Evert (who fell from a load of straw Jan. 5, 1892, and 
died the 12th), Edmond C. of Angelica, Mary E. (Mrs. Henry Button of Coudersport, Pa.) and 
William of Belmont. Edward P. Burdick settled in Angelica in '67, and is a farmer. He and 
his wife are members of the M. E. church. William Burdick, his father, was born Dec. 12, 
1775, at Watch Hill, R. I. He married first Nabby Stillman, had 4 daughters. His second 
wife was Mary A. Hancock, born at Stonington, Conn., in 1793. She was a niece of John Han- 
cock, the first signer of the Declaration of Independence. They had 10 children. In 1818 or 
'19 they came to Alfred, and Mr. Burdick worked for Clark Crandall for several years, then 
moved to Almond in '23 and kept a hotel in a loghouse on the state road. He was justice of 
the peace and constable for 21 consecutive years, was deputy sheriff, town collector and held 
other offices. Mr. Burdick was well educated, versed in law and a man of energy and resolu- 
tion. He arrested many criminals, and when they refused to go, he often tied them to the 
horses' tails. Daniel Burdick, grandfather of Edward P., was a soldier in the Revolution. 

Richard S. Charles, son of Dr. Richfrd Charles, was born in Angelica Nov. i, 1830. He 
married Mary Lloyd. They have 2 children, Esther A. and Clinton L. Mr. Charles has been 
a successful tiller of the soil. An extended sketch of his father is given in the medical chapter. 
Robert H. Charles, son of John and Esther (Hughes) Charles, was born in county Tyrone, Ireland, 
in 1814. He married Jane Young in '32, came to America in '36, to Angelica the same year, 
and commenced the business of harnessmaking with his brother Andrew Charles. After some 
three years he engaged in farming. His wife died in '76. Of his 10 children, 4 are living. 
Richard A. was a soldier in Co. B, 67th Reg't Pa. Vols, and resides in Washington, John H, 
was a member of Co. G. 130th Reg't. N. Y. V. and was killed at Five Forks, April i, '64, Rob- 
ert Y. was in Co. G, 130th Reg't N. Y. V. and was wounded at Cold Harbor (dec), David S. 
was in Co. B, 67th Pa. Reg't and was orderly sergeant. He died in Washington in '64. Amelia 
R. is a teacher in Washington, James T. lives in Buffalo. 

John Common married Isabel Wandlas Nov. 3, 1765, in the parish of Bellingham, he died 
in 1802, his wife in 1771. Robert Common, son of John, was born in 1769 in County North- 
umberland, England, and married Elizabeth, daughter of John and Jane (Cerrick) Armstrong. 
In 1801 he came to New York City, and returned to England. In 1818 he again came to 



428 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

America locating at Angelica as a farmer. He died in '43, his wife in '57. Their 9 children 
John, William, Robert, Thomas, Isabel, Edmond, Jane, Sarah and James are dead. John 
Common, son of Robert, born in 1802, came with his parents to Angelica, and as he grew older 
worked much for the Church family in clearing lands. He married Margaret (born in 1802), 
daughter of Robert and Margaret (Barrie) Renwick, Nov. 19, 1827, and settled on the farm now 
owned by his daughter Helen M. Common. He was a well known farmer, and both himself 
and wife were Presbyterians. He died June i, 1877, Mrs. Common Aug. 18, 1886. Their 
children were Helen M., Elizabeth I. (Mrs. W. A. Weir), and John R. Helen M. Common 
says • " My grandmother was Elizabeth Armstrong Common. Her father was John Armstrong 
and her mother's maiden name was Jane Cerrick. Her grandfather was Robert Armstrong, 
and his wife was Jane Magee. He lived to be nearly 100 years old. He lost his sight while 
trying to save some property from a burning building, and he was blind for 20 years. Her 
grandmother on her mother's side was Elizabeth Bell, and her grandfather's name was Edmund 
Cerrick." Robert Renwick, son of Robert and Elizabeth (Thompson) Renwick, was born in 
Roxborough, Hobkirk Parish, Scotland, in 1775. He married Margaret Barrie, who died Oct. 
16, 181 5, leaving six children, whom Mr. Renwick brought to Angelica in 1817, where he 
settled on a lot of wild land and made his home until his death Oct. 30, 1849. His children 
were Margaret, Robert, George, Janet, John and Adam. 

William Crandall came to Spring Mills in Independence in 1833, and was a boot and shoe- 
maker. He died in June, 1888. His children were Charlotte A. (Mrs. G. W. Rose), Sidney, 
Villetta (Mrs. John Rose), and Anna A. (Mrs. D. Dexter). Sidney Crandall was elected in '91 
for three years as superintendent of the poor and came to Angelica Jan. i, 1892, to assume the 
duties of that office. He was re-elected m '94 and is now in office. Mr. Crandall has been for 
years a prominent member of the G. A. R., and worthily so, for he was orderly sergeant of Co. 
H, 85th New York, during nearly four years of the War of the Rebellion. He was captured 
April 20, 1864, and suffered the horrors of imprisonment in Andersonville for almost one year. 

Daniel C. Grunder, son of John and Catherine (Mayers) Grunder, was born in Grove, July 
4, 1843. In '68 he married Agnes A., daughter of David and Cordelia Lowell. They have one 
son, Walter L. Mr. Grunder is a member of Nunda Station Lodge, F. & A. M., Genesee Chap- 
ter at Belfast, and DeMolay Commandery at Hornellsville. Mr. Grunder has been the keeper 
of the almshouse for 10 years, and it is universally conceded that the almshouse at Angelica is 
the best conducted one of the state. Mr. Grunder represented Grove 5 years in succession on 
the board of supervisors and was serving in that office when he became keeper of the alms- 
house. He has been 15 years justice of the peace. 

Henry Smith, son of Capt. Leonard and Mary (Beckensto) Smith, was born March 7, 1813. 
He came to Angelica from Seneca, N. Y., in 1830' He married Mary, daughter of Oren Smith, 
and located in Angelica, and was overseer of Judge Church's farm for 7 years and was widely 
known. Mr. Smith was a deacon of the Presbyterian church. He died March 31, 1870, his wife 
died July 12, 1892. Of their 9 children 4 are living. Matilda (Mrs. Leander Callaghan) of 
Germantown, Neb., Frank M., Smith J , (Mrs. John Mapes), and Oren, who was born May 27, 
1849, married Emogene, daughter of Richard Scholes of BirdsalJ. Mr. Oren Smith is a farmer, 
and has been in charge of Charles d'Autremont's farm in the village of Angelica for 18 years. 

Daniel Pierce (Pearce) came from Rhode Island to Alfred in 181 1 and " took up " 300 acres 
of wild land near " Five Corners," and was well known there. He married first, Elizabeth 
Brown, second, Mrs. Steadman. Of his 9 children none survive. His son, John V. Pierce, mar- 
ried Abigail Cole. Their children were Leonard C, Elizabeth (Mrs John Latham), Alma (Mrs. 
Willard Allen), Ellen (Mrs. Ira Way), Thomas W„ Andrew J., of Cuba. Mrs. Willard Allen had 
two children. Jennie T. Allen and Fred P. Allen, both reside in Angelica. 

John B. Norton, M. D., was born April 21, 1793, at Greenville. His father settled in 
Cayuga Co. at an early day and was a farmer in Aurelius. John B. attended the seminary at 
Auburn for 2 years. In the War of 181 2 he acted as first sergeant in Capt. Daniel Eldridge's 
company at Sachem's Head Harbor, L. I., and later at Buffalo under Gen. Peter B. Porter. He 
studied medicine and practiced at Auburn and in 1820 settled at Springwater. He married 
Jane C. Marvin. They had 8 children. Dr. Norton died in '7S, Mrs. Norton in '60. Their 
son, John M. Norton, came to Birdsall in '46, and in '49 married Sarah E., daughter of Elias 
Randolph. He was largely engaged in farming and stock dealing in Birdsall, and also was 
much interested in Sunday school work there. In '87 he moved to Angelica where he and his 
wife are members of the M. E. Church. They had 13 children, 11 are living. 

Joseph, Isaac and John Peavy (brothers), came to Allen and were among the pioneer 
settlers, the settlement is known as " Peavy settlement." Sylvanus Peavy, son of Joseph, mar- 
ried Adelia Smith and made his home in Allen and cultivated his land. Of his 9 children 5 are 
living. Nancy F., married, first, John Lillv, a son of John Lilly. They had 2 children, William 
J. of Buffalo, and Captola L., who married Julius C. Averill. Mrs. Lilly married second, William 



Angelica. 429 



Franklin. Julius C. Averill, son of Julius C, was born in Belmont. He was educated at the 
Belmont Union School and is engaged in merchandising in Angelica. 

Thomas Thornton, a native of Ireland, emigrated to America about 1845 and located in 
Attica, where he married Mary Hanlon and came to Angelica in the fifties, where he has been 
a blacksmith. Four of his eight sons are living. Thomas C. Thornton, his son, a well-known 
hardware merchant here, died Dec. 22. '94. Samuel Thornton, another son, born in Angelica 
Sept. 24, '66, was engaged in the hardware business and was burned out in the fire of April, 
'95, but soon rebuilt. Samuel Thornton married Helen Lowe, June 14, 1893. 

William P. Scheanck came from New Jersey to Birdsall in 18 16 where he " located " his 
lot of wild land and became a farmer. Col. Daniel Scheank, his son, married Ordelia Pratt. 
He was a farmer and supervisor and was well-known as colonel of the militia. He had 5 sons 
and 4 daughters. He moved to Angelica in '52. William C. Scheank, son of Daniel, married 
Polly Ellsworth, made his home in Angelica and is a farmer, a raiser of bees, and a breeder of 
Jersey cattle. 

John T. Snyder, of German descent, was born in Columbia Co. In 1839 he settled in 
Hume, and in '55 he moved to Granger where he died. His wife was Rachel Emmons of 
Hume. Mr. Snyder had 4 sons in the Civil War. Harmon E. and Horatio E. in Co. B, 4th 
Regt. H. A., Martin W. was in Co. G, 130th Regt. N. Y. Vol. and was killed at Shepardstown, 
Va., Aug. 25, 1864. John L. Snyder was in Co. I, 130th Regt. N. Y. Vol. He enlisted Aug. 5, 
1862, was discharged in July, 1865. He married first, Mary C, daughter of William Wallace, 
second, her sister, Annette. He has one child, Martin W. Mr. Snyder settled at first in 
Granger, but is now a resident of Angelica. He is a member of Wilbur Hover Post, 502, of 
Angelica. 

H. S. Hastings, son of E. H. Hastings, was born in Wellsboro, Pa., in 1865. He was edu- 
cated at the high school of Wellsboro and was graduated therefrom in '83. He is auditor and 
general agent for the Central New York & Western railroad, and resides at Angelica. 

Frank M. Decker, son of Frederick and Mary (Lane) Decker, was born in Wayland, N. Y„ 
Nov. 26, 1864. He married Jennie, daughter of Henry Jones of Alfred. In '83 he commenced 
aailroading for the Central New York & Western railroad, and is now conductor on the road. 

Frank W. Warner, D. D. S., son of Roswell R. and Sarah A. (Chandler) Warner, was born 
in Gallion, Ohio, Dec. 26, '67. In '73 his father moved back to Angelica, and Frank attended 
district schools, and later attended the Philadelphia (Pa.) Dental College where he was gradu- 
ated in "91. He then located in Angelica as a dentist, and now he has a branch office at Belfast 
in addition to the Angelica office, and is vice president of the county dental society. 

Amos Keeney, a native of East Hartford, Conn., came to Warsaw, N. Y., in 1803. His 
wife was Martha Brooks. His son Harry was born in 1801 and married Maria Albro. He was 
an agriculturist. He died at Warsaw. His son Matteson was born in Warsaw in '28. He 
married, first, Martha Bristol, second, Sarah C. Bristol, settled in Warsaw and subsequently re- 
moved to Angelica where he resides. He has two children, Frank, who lives in Utica, and Fred 
B. Keeney, who is proprietor of the Church Homestead, and is a practical and a model farmer. 
He married, first, Elizabeth Montgomery, second, Johanna H. Colman, third, Elizabeth M. 
Gunseul. 

Fred Piatt is the grandson of Charles Piatt, who was born in New Jersey, Feb. 22, 1797, 
married Elizabeth Rose and settled in Sparta, Livingston Co. Their children were: Rebecca, 
Mary, Clarissa, Charles, Samuel, Elijah, Hannah, Joseph A., Elizabeth and Rhoda. Elijah born 
in Sparta in 1827, came to Allen in '40 with his father. He married Elizabeth, daughter of 
William M. Rutherford from England ; children, William R., Fred R., Lyman R., and Nellie 
M., now a teacher and an artist. Fred R. was born on the old homestead he still owns, now 
425 acres, in '61. He attended Normal School at Geneseo, and was reading law in Hornells- 
ville when his father died in '83. Since then he has been a farmer, keeping 65 cows, a dealer 
in livestock, and a cheese maker. In '91 Fred Piatt and Lyman Piatt built the cheese factory 
on the Short Tract road, and in '92, Piatt & Osgood bought the Empire cheese factory on the 
state road. Mr. Piatt is a staunch Republican, has been clerk of Allen 7 years, and in '94 was 
elected justice of the peace. He is a member of the M. E. church at Short Tract, and for 9 
years has been superintendent of its Sunday school which now numbers 208 scholars, and is 
one of the most flourishing schools in the county. He married in '86, Lizzie, daughter of M. H. 
Closser of Dalton. Their children are Morton A., Donovan E. and Marjorie. In December, '95, 
Mr. Piatt moved to Angelica and is there building a large dry goods store and warehouse. 
The town of Allen loses in him a good citizen and reliable business man. 



430 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

JUDGE PHILIP CHURCH. 

John Barker Church was an Enghsh gentleman of considerable means 
and a liberal education. He emigrated to America about the time of the 
breaking out of the Revolution. Entertaining a profound sympathy for the 
colonists he resolved to espouse their cause, and, under the name of John 
Carter, which for some good reason he for awhile assumed, he was com- 
missary to the French army. Making the acquaintance of Hamilton, Greene, 
Gates and Schuyler, he became socially interested in the family of the latter, 
whose eldest daughter, Angelica, he married July 23, 1777. Philip Church, 
their son, was born in Boston, April 14, 1778. The family during the war 
resided at Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Albany, as Mr. Church's 
duties required his presence in these places. While yet an infant Philip 
was present at the Schuyler mansion near Albany with his mother while on 
a visit to her father's when the memorable attempt was made by John Walt- 
meyer, a Tory refugee at the head of a party of Tories, Canadians and In- 
dians, to capture General Schuyler, and destroy the powerful influence he 
was exerting against the banded Tories and Indians. . As the banditti forced 
an entrance into the house, Margaret Schuyler (afterwards wife of Gen. 
SteiDhen Van Rensselaer) discovered that her sister's child had been left 
asleep in the cradle upon the ground floor. Rushing dow^n stairs and pass- 
ing her father against his remonstrances, she seized the child, and was pass- 
ing the beseigers when Waltmeyer, mistaking her for a servant maid, de- 
manded "Wench, where is your master? " With remarkable presence of 
mind she replied, "Gone to call the guard,"' and made a safe retreat with 
the child. An Indian threw his tomahawk at them which fortunately did 
no further harm than to tear Miss Schuyler's dress, slightly graze the in- 
fants' forehead, and spent its force in making a cut in the stair railing. 
Judge Church in later life used to exhibit the scar, and the mark of the 
tomahawk is still to be seen in the Schuyler mansion. 

The family of Mr. Church accompanied him to Paris after the Revolu- 
tion, Colonel Trumbull, the celebrated American artist, then residing in 
Paris, painted a portrait of the boy Philip, which has always been regarded 
by the family as a treasure of inestimable value. In Paris Mr. Church re- 
newed his old-time close relations with LaFayette, and made the acquaint- 
ance of Talleyrand and many other eminent statesmen of Prance. He later 
took up his residence in London and at " Down Place," his country residence 
on the Thames, about four miles from Windsor Castle. The London home 
of Mr. Church, was the frequent resort of Fox and Pitt, and, on the break- 
ing out of the French Revolution, when the refugees fled to London, he had 
as guests Talleyrand and many of his companions. Having been a decided 



Angelica. 431 

partisan of the colonies during the Revolution, and having connected him- 
self by marriage with so notorious a " rebel " family as the Schuylers, Mr. 
Church found himself not in good repute with the high Tory party, and un- 
der the special disfavor of his uncle. He was however elected a member of 
Parliament from Wendover, warmly espoused the liberal party, and adhered 
to Mr. Fox when it was said in derision that " his party could go to the House 
of Commons in a hackney coach." His family physician was the physician 
of George III., and long before it transpired publicly, he informed Mr. and 
Mrs. Church of the king's aberration of mind, and did not hesitate to attrib- 
ute to the loss of the American colonies the development of this hereditary 
tendency. Philip pursued his studies at Eton, one of the famous schools 
of England, for six years. Here he formed a acquaintance with many later 
eminent in English history. On one occasion he met the Prince of Wales 
afterward George IV. The prince was always friendly to him, but George 
III. could never forget the part the older Church had taken during the Rev- 
olution, and as he rode by "Down Place " he would sneeringly point to it 
as the residence of the " American commissary." After leaving Eton Philip 
entered the Middle Temple and commenced the study of law. In 1797 John 
B. Church resumed his residence in New York. He was then considered one of 
the richest men in the country. Philip accompanied the family and resumed 
his law studies in the office of Nathaniel Pendleton, Esq., and was admitted 
to the bar, receiving his license from Morgan Lewis, justice of the supreme 
court, July 14, 1804. In 1801 he acted as second to Philip Hamilton in his 
duel with E. Eckhard, when young Hamilton was killed on the same ground 
where his father later met his death. 

Previous to his admission to the bar, and when the prospects of war 
with France made necessarj'^ the organization of the provisional army, Philip 
was appointed an infantry captain by secretary of war James McHenry. 
General Washington at first declined to approve the appointment owing to 
the youth of Mr. Church, but afterwards, in deference to the wishes of 
Generals Schuyler and Hamilton, and being favorably impressed by the 
efficiency and promptitude of the young man, whom he met on several oc- 
casions, gave his approbation, and the appointment was made. Church was 
immediately after appointed by Hamilton as his aide-de-camp. The original 
commission is in the possession of Major Church. Captain Church as chief 
of his staff accompanied General Hamilton to Philadelphia to take part in 
the solemn obsequies of General Washington who died Dec. 14, 1799, and to 
pay the last tribute of respect to the great departed. Captain Church was 
Hamilton's private secretary though the year 1800, and remembered filing 
away among the papers of General Hamilton, the original copy of the fare- 
well address of Washington. 

Soon after the Revolution John B. Church loaned Mr. Morris a consid- 
erable amount of money, and, as he had not yet become a citizen, took secur- 
ity in the name of his brother-in-law, Gen. Alexander Hamilton, as trustee, 
on the square between 8th and 9th streets, and Chestnut and Sansom Sts. 



432 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

in Philadelphia. In 1795 or 1796 this mortgage was released, and security- 
taken on 100,000 acres in the Genesee country. The consideration in this 
last mortgage was $81,679.44. Mr. Church still being an alien, this was also 
given to General Hamilton. In 1799 Captain Church visited Canandaigua to 
attend the sale under foreclosure of the 100,000 acres, bid in the property 
and took a deed in his own name dated May 6, 1800. The property however 
was really purchased on joint account with his father, who oifered him a 
half -interest to conduct the subdivision and sale of the tract. 

In 1801 Captain Church left the city of New York on an exploring 
expedition. He stopped at Geneva to purchase camp equipage and provis- 
ions, and plunged into the wilderness of Western New York. At Almond he 
met Maj. Moses Van Campen, whose services he had previously engaged as 
surveyor, John Gibson, John Lewis and Stephen Price. Almond was the 
settlement nearest the tract and had not yet been dignified with a name. A 
thorough exploration of the tract was their object. In this the company 
encountered fatigue, hunger, hardships and privations, and to Captain 
Church it opened up a new and startling chapter of adventures. It was 
Indeed a great transformation, from the city of New York to this primeval 
forest with its population of bears, deer and wolves, and it certainly required 
courage, energy and endurance of a high order to execute the undertaking, 
and in after life Captain Church frequently related an exciting incident. 
He had cut his foot and was confined to the camp. The rest of the party 
after being out all day became bewildered on attempting their return. He 
could hear their shouts from afar, which occasionally sounding, indicated 
that they were going in the wrong direction. He shouted at the top of his 
voice and tried to get their attention, but all to no avail. Finally their 
shoutings died away in the distance, and as the sombre shades of evening 
came spreading over the grand old woods, they brought a strangely impres- 
sive stillness and an awful, almost intolerable, sensation of loneliness. The 
night at length wore away and with the arrival of morning the lost party 
returned. 

The reconnoissance was soon completed and Captain Church set out 
with Van Campen on a "trip to Niagara Falls." They arrived at New 
Amsterdam, now Buffalo, after a toilsome tramp of three days, almost 
famished, with tattered garments, and nearly shoeless feet. They visited 
the Falls, returned to Buffalo, and resumed their journey by the "white 
man's trail," a road opened to Batavia, shoeless and moneyless, but Avith 
renewed physical powers and full of youthful vigor, for Bath about 100 miles 
distant Mr. Ellicott had just got his land-office built at Batavia. At Gan- 
son's (LeRoy) there was a militia training, the first one ever had west of the 
Genesee. One of the officers supplied Mr. Church with money and they 
resumed their journey, making a brief halt at Geneseo to visit Mr. Wads- 
worth, with whom Mr. Church had become acquainted in New York. 

Captain Church soon returned to New York from Bath and set earnestly 
at work in making preparations from the settlement of his lands. In 1802 he 



Angelica. 433 

sent Evart Van Wickle to select the site for the village, which was named 
Angelica. A large map was constructed showing a good part of New York 
and Pennsylvania, and the proj^er location of this tract, with state roads and 
turnpikes, existing and in prospect, and, in the margin, a map of the tract 
on a larger scale, and an announcement as to sales, conditions of payment, 
etc. A brief extract from the advertisement is here introduced, "This 
tract * * * is situated twenty-two miles south of Williamsburgh, 100 
east of Presque Isle, eight north of the Pennsylvania line, and sixteen west 
of the navigable waters of the Susquehannah." The terms and conditions 
upon which he proposed to sell these lands are given in full in Beer's "His- 
tory of Allegany County," and in the sketch of Judge Church appended to 
the "Life of Van Cam pen " by the wa-iter. The curious are referred to 
those volumes for details. 

In 1802 Captain Church again visited the tract, and selected the lands 
for his farm and the site of his future residence on the banks of the beauti- 
ful Genesee at Belvidere. In making this selection he exercised sound 
judgment and a high order of taste. The 2,000 acres which he set apart is 
the finest land in the whole tract, and the situation of the house is incom- 
parably the finest in the county. In 1803 and 4 he built his temporary resi- 
dence, called the "White House" by early explorers, from its being the 
only painted structure in Western New York. The building is still standing 
in a fair state of preservation. During this year Captain Church received a 
severe shock by the intelligence of the duel between his uncle General Alex- 
ander Hamilton and Col. Aaron Burr. He immediately started for New 
York, and on his arrival found that the remains had been taken to his father's 
house and from thence to their last resting place in Trinity churchyard. 
John B. Church was appointed one of Hamilton's executors. Two letters from 
William Stewart to Captain Church, the first announcing the meeting and 
probable fatal effect on Gen. Hamilton, the second, penned the following day, 
communicating the particulars of the " affair " and his death, are preserved 
by Major Richard Church. They are directed to "Philip Church Esq., 
Angelica near Bath." 

Colonel Burr had in the summer of 1799 fought a duel with John B. 
Church on the same ground where Hamilton fell. At a dinner given by 
Chancellor Livingston, Mr. Church remarked that he had heard that the 
Holland Land Company had cancelled a bond for $20,000 against Burr for 
services rendered in the legislature. This reaching the ears of Colonel 
Burr, he demanded an apology. Mr. Church declined this, further than to 
say that perhaps he had been indiscreet in repeating the accusation without 
fuller authority. This was not accepted. A challenge was sent, accepted, 
and they met, exchanging shots without effect, the ball from Mr. Church's 
pistol striking a button from Colonel Burr's coat and passing through his 
vest. Colonel Burr then received the explanation which Mr. Church had 
previously made, with the remark that "an explanation might be received 
as satisfactory after shots had been exchanged that would not have been 



434 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

admissable before." The pistols used in this duel were the same used by 
Philip Hamilton and Echard, and by General Hamilton and Colonel Burr, and 
are now in the possession of Major Richard Church. They are of London 
make, the barrels about twelve inches long, hair-trigger with flint set- 
locks, the vents bushed with gold, of fine workmanship, and kept in a fine 
wooden case lined with soft green flannel. The lock of one has been changed 
to a percussion lock and it has been used in shooting squirrels, a thing much 
to be regretted. John B. Church brought them from London. From him 
they descended to Philip Church, and to Major Richard Church. 

February 4, 1805, Captain Church married Anna Matilda, eldest daughter 
of Gen. Walter Stewart of Philadelphia, and the next June the youthful pair 
came to their home in the wilderness. The "white house" was ready for 
their reception, and they reached it by riding from Bath to Belvidere forty- 
four miles on horseback, most of the way following a bridle path cut through 
the woods. General Stewart was an intimate friend of General Washington 
and when in Philadelphia he frequently was entertained by General Stewart. 
A desk at which Washington was in the habit of writing while there is 
owned by Major Church. Another valued treasure is a miniature of Wash- 
ington accompanied by this note in Washington's hand writing: 
Wednesday, i6th March, 1796. 

Not for the representation or the value, but because it is the production of a fair lady, the 
President |takes the liberty of presenting the enclosed, with his best regards, to Mrs. Stewart 
praying her acceptance of it. 

Captain Church lived in the " white house " until 1810, when the stone 
mansion still standing on the banks of the Genesee was completed. In this 
they spent the remainder of their lives. The stones used in this edifice were 
quarried from the bank of VanCampen creek just where the railroad bridge 
at Belvidere now is. 

On the 8th of June, 1807, Captain Church was appointed by Gov. Morgan 
Lewis, " First Judge of the Court of Common Pleas for Allegany County." 
This ofiice he retained until 1821, and it was the only one he ever held. 

Judge Church visited England in 1811. In company with Mr. Russell, 
the American minister, he went to Norfolk, and at Yarmouth was tendered 
a public dinner by old friends of his father. He visited Mr. Coke, afterward 
the Earl of Leicester, at Holkom Hall, where he met with four or five hundred 
of the landed gentry. By invitation of the Duke of Bedford, father of Lord 
John Russell, he visited Woburn Abbey, the duke's mansion, at the time of 
the duke's annual " sheepshearing " and cattleshow. Sir Philip Francis, the 
reputed author of the letters of " Junius," sent him a letter of invitation 
to visit him at Tanbridge Wells. 

During the absence of her husband, Mrs. Church attended one of the 
annual festivals of the Indians at Caneadea, contributing to its feast out of 
her stores, and enjoyed very much their rude sports and pagan rites and 
dances. They received her very kindly and were much pleased with her 
visit, which was evinced by their giving her a name, " Ye-nen-ke-a-iva,'''' "the 



Angelica. 435 



first white woman that has come." In gratitude for her kindness a party 
of Caneadea Indians, upon the breaking out of hostilities in 1812, went to 
Belvidere and offered to place a guard around her house to protect her from 
the British Indians, but she thanked them kindly, and declined their prof- 
ferred gallantry. 

While in England Judge Church studied carefully the most approved 
methods of husbandry, yet it is questionable whether these studies contrib- 
uted very much to his success as a farmer. The country is, however, placed 
under a lasting debt of gratitude to him for the introduction of a very superi- 
or stock of cattle and sheep. The difficulties encountered in doing this into 
an isolated f i-ontier settlement, are forcibly portrayed by the expedient re- 
sorted to in transporting a Merino buck. A wagon maker was engaged to 
make an ingenious arrangement whereby a crate was suspended beneath the 
Judge's "gig," which was of the style peculiar to those days, with extremely 
large wheels, and the buck was carried thus suspended from Albany to Bel- 
videre. This buck was purchased for ^80 of Chancellor Livingston who im- 
ported it from Spain. In 1805 Judge Church purchased and drove to Bel- 
videre 24 sheep. Arriving late in the evening they were folded close by the 
house. In the morning 19 of the number were lying dead. The wolves had 
tracked them and made the havoc. Such were some of the hardships and 
discouragements attending the introduction of sheep into Allegany. 

A distinguishing characteristic of General Schuyler's descendants is 
the more or less strongly marked Schuyler family resemblance. This 
appeared in some of the Judge's family. In 1824 LaPayette visited this 
country, and his progress was marked by a continuous series of ovations. 
His visit to Rochester was no exception. Judge Church and some of his 
family were there, and when a daughter was presented, before her name 
could be spoken, LaFayette exclaimed, "There comes a Schuyler" or 
"There is Schuyler blood in her veins," or words to that effect. In a letter 
to Judge Church, dated at LaGrange in 1826, LaFayette thus alludes to 
this incident: 

Happy am I in the opportunity to remind you of the old friend of your parents, to present 
my respects to Mrs. Church, doubly dear to my most precious recollections, and to your amiable 
daughter, whom a friendly image engraved on my heart made me recognize before she was 
named to me. Your affectionate friend, LaFayette. 

One great advantage derived from Judge Church's visit to England, 
and which proved to be one of the initial forces which started the wheels of 
progress and development in Western New York, is found in the hght ob- 
tained and the impulse given to his mind by the study of internal improve- 
ments, especially that of the railway system, just then begining to attract 
attention. If not the first to conceive the idea he was certainly among the 
very first to espouse the project of the construction of the Genesee Valley 
canal, and he exerted no slight influence in hastening its completion. It was 
however his freely expressed opinion at the time that a railroad would better 



436 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

subserve the purpose to be accomplished. In this preference he was Over- 
ruled, but the wisdom of his opinion is now clearly established. But the 
great work to which, for a number of years, over and above all other things 
he devoted his time and applied his energies, was the New York & Erie 
railroad. He left letters, notices, petitions, memorials, papers and memo- 
randa proving that he was one of the chief and earliest of the originators 
and advocates of that immense undertaking. 

Judge Church had a vigorous constitution, which he retained in a re- 
markable degree to more than forescore years. He was accustomed to 
athletic sports, excelled in fleetness, and has been known to outrun some of 
the swiftest of the Indians. He was passionately fond of and an expert in 
cricket, and in advanced years frequently engaged in the game. He was a 
good marksman. Major Church relates a trial of his skill with the rifle with 
Major Van Campen. It was at a "general training," when a man. fastening 
a little piece of white paper on a tree with a pin, paced off a reasonable dis- 
tance, and turning, took deliberate aim and fired, driving the pin into the 
tree, the paper still adhering. Handing the gun to the other, he requested 
him to beat it, which was of course impossible. The gun however was taken, 
loaded and fired, when, upon examination, no new ball hole could be discov- 
ered. It was claimed by some that Church did not hit the tree. The con- 
troversy was settled by chopping into the tree, when it was found that 
both balls had entered the same hole. 

The Villa Belvidere was for years the seat of the kindest hospitality 
where many distinguished men were entertained. From its stately south- 
ern porch the beautiful valley of the Genesee could be seen for a long dis- 
tace. Only a few rods away the river bank was gently laved by its waters 
as they passed on their " winding way to the sea," to the southwest reclined 
the pleasant valley of Van Campen Creek, reposing in the receding distance, 
while the grand old hills on either side of creek and river presented a beau- 
tiful background, their summits crowned as they were with much of the 
primitive forest made a beautiful and attractive picture. The eastern part 
of this mansion was a land-oftice, equipped with desks, drafting tables and 
other proper furniture, and has been preserved intact as when first opened 
in 1810. It w^as the writer's privilege to meet Major Church in this old 
of&ce one day in the winter of 1891-2. As of yore a cheerful fire blazed upon 
the old hearth. Over the mantle hung the portrait of the Judge, by the 
celebrated artist Fagnani, and those historic duelling pistols. The walls 
were hung with pictures, some illustrating English sports and pastimes, 
others fine sheep and blooded cattle. The shelves were loaded with vene- 
rable law books, ancient books of surveys and records of land sales. There 
were also letters from Washington, LaFayette, General Green, the English 
statesman Fox and Sir Philip Francis, with official papers bearing the sig- 
nature of Jefferson, Hamilton, Adams, Livingston and others. Here the 
bronze-faced, horny-handed pioneers were wont to come to get their "arti- 
cles," see to having their boundaries adjusted, make their payments, etc. 



Angelica. 437 



At the close of 1859 the judge practically relinquished business, and 
devoted much time to reading. In the summer of 1860 he was enfeebled in 
health and was contined to the house during the fall and winter. His last 
illness was brief, continuing only from Monday to Thursday. On Saturday 
a public meeting of the citizens of Angelica was held, and resolutions of re- 
spect, esteem and sorrow for his loss were adopted. On Sunday the 10th 
of January. 1861, his funeral was largely attended at St. Paul's church. An- 
gelica. The public journals made honorable and becoming mention of his 
death and recounted his public services. 

Mrs. Church was as near the ideal mother as was possible. Her kind- 
ness to the poor was such as to excite comment, and her benevolent deeds 
are remembered with pleasure by elderly, long-resident people of the neigh- 
borhood. Her benefactions were many and were judiciously bestowed. 

The children of this estimable couple were. Angelica (Mrs. John War- 
ren) who died in March, 1895, in New York City, John Barker, who died in 
1875, Sophia Harrison (Mrs. N. P. Hoosack), who died in 1891, Walter Stew- 
art, died in 1890, Philip, died in 1874, Mary, died in 1822, Ehzabeth (Mrs. 
Rev. Robert Horwood), now living near London, England, Richard, now 
holding office in the U. S. Custom House, New York City, William Henry, 
died in 1860. 

MAJOR MOSES VAN CAMPEN. 

No other name is so intimately connected with pioneer times and events 
in Allegany as that of Moses Van Campen. He was the son of Cornelius 
Van Campen, a respectable farmer, and was born in Hunterdon county, N. 
J., Jan. 21, 1757. With the exception of Samuel, who settled in Amity, and 
Benjamin in Almond, little is known of his brothers and sisters. About 
1758 the Van Campens removed to Northampton Co., Pa., and in 1773 to 
Northumberland Co. Moses became an expert with the rifle, and in 1775 
had his first experience in war in an expedition against those New Eng- 
land people who claimed ownership of part of the valley of Wyoming through 
the Connecticut grant. When the war with England became probable, the 
young men of Van Cam]:>en's age on the north branch chose him as their 
captain, and met once a week for drill. Becoming an ensign in a militia 
company in 1776, he desired to join Washington's army, but in view of his 
familiarity with the Indian mode of warfare, and the fact that brave and 
skillful men were needed to defend the frontier settlements, as well as to 
fight against the British soldiers, he decided to remain at home. The 
settlements on the frontier of New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia, were 
exposed to incursions of the Indians, and hostilities were general in 1778. 
Van Campen then a lieutenant, built Wheeler's fort, and one further down 
the river, which protected the home of a Mrs. McClure, whose daughter 
Margaret he subsequently married. In May, 1778, the fort was attacked 
by the Indians, and Van Campen defended it in gallant style. The next 
month he killed the leader of a band of predatory Indians. This Indian was 



438 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



the first of many who subsequently fell by his hands. Once a party of tories 
appearing, Van Campen with five men was ordered to capture them. The 
tories saw them coming, and taking refuge in a house, barred the door and 
refused to surrender. He directed his men, all of them strong resolute 
fellows, to make a battering ram of a heavy oak rail, and break down the 
door. "Then boys," said he, " as soon as there is an opening large enough 
to admit my body I will enter. Now, my lads, let her drive." The door 
was soon in pieces, and Van Campen dashed in among them. The first thing 
that met him was the muzzle of one of their guns pointing directly in his 
face. Striking it aside it went off, the ball passing close to his ear, while the 
powder exploding in his face made it black and bloody on one side, burning 
off the hair about the right ear and temple, peppering his face to such an 
extent that many of the grains could be seen to the day of his death. He 
clinched the fellow with an energy he could not ordinarily command, and 
threw him down. His men quickly followed, and seizing the others bound 
their hands behind them, and the whole party was marched off to the civil 
authorities of the county for imprisonment. 

When, in 1779, Washington resolved to punish the Iroquois for their 
attacks on the settlements, Van Campen joined the army, and, while it was 
forming acted as quartermaster, and, when it was ready to march, he went 
as a private, sometimes serving as a scout, again as commander of a detach- 
ment. On one occasion sixteen of his men fell by his side, some of them 
wounded, but most of them dead. He accompanied the army to the Gene- 
see, assisted in destroying the villages and corn fields of the Indians, and 
returned with it to Pennsylvania. Notwithstanding the severe punishment 
the Indians had received at the. hands of Sullivan's army, they were not 
conquered, only driven back, and, in the spring of 1780, they resumed their 
attacks on the settlers, and made some of them captives while others were 
killed. Descending the river, when in the vicinity of Shawnee Flats, the 
Indians came upon a man named Asa Upson whom they killed, and a boy, 
Rogers, who was taken prisoner. They next paid a visit to Fishing Creek, 
where they discovered an uncle of Van Campen, who was at work with his 
son and Peter Pence. The uncle was killed and the boy and Pence taken 
prisoners. Marching on up the creek, the party soon came where Van 
Campen and his father and brother were at work. Creeping cautiously up 
they burst of a sudden on the unsuspecting company. The father was thrust 
through with a spear, and as he fell the Indian released his hold, and it 
stood upright from his transfixed breast. The warrior scalped his victim 
and cut his throat from ear to ear. The little brother, as he saw this last 
act, exclaimed, "Father is killed." In an instant the little boy too was 
killed. The boy was quickly scalped and his body thrown on the fire. An 
Indian, withdrawing the spear from the body of his father, made a rush at 
Van Campen, who, perceiving the movement, quickly shrank to one side, 
and the spear passed through his vest and shirt, making only a slight flesh 
wound. He was then seized and his hands tied behind him. 



Angelica. 439 

The next morning' they took prisoner a man named Pike, re.sumed their 
inarch, and soon came wliere Bennett and Hammond had killed five of their 
captors and escaped. Van Campen, like Bennett and Hammond, did not 
relish the idea of being taken through the Genesee country a captive, and 
was constantly meditating on plans of escape. It was only after much urg- 
ing that Pike and Pence were prevailed upon to attack their ten Indian cap- 
tors. When it came night the prisoners cut and carried a goodly supply of 
wood so that the Indians might have a large fire, and then they were tied 
and laid in their places. One of the Indians having occasion to use his 
knife dropped it near Van Campen's feet, and he immediately turned one 
foot over it, hiding it from view. Presently they all laid down and were 
soon asleep. About midnight Van Campen arose. Everything seeming 
favorable he determined to enter at once upon the work of death. Going to 
Pence, with the knife they cut each other loose, and then disarmed the In- 
dians, stacking the guns around a tree near by. Pence prepared to shoot 
and Pike and Van Campen were to use the tomahawk. Two Indians awoke 
and were getting up. Pike proved a coward and lay down. It was a criti- 
cal moment. Van Campen at once planted the hatchet deep into their heads. 
Pence tired and did good execution, killing four. Van Campen had killed 
five ; the only one left started to bound away, but perceiving that the at- 
tack was from the prisoners he gave the war-whoop and darted for the 
guns. Van Campen quickly intercepted him and the contest then was be- 
tween the two. As the latter raised the hatchet the Indian quickly turned 
to run. He followed and struck at his head, but missing, hit him in the 
back of the neck or shoulder. They clinched and a terrific struggle fol- 
lowed, the Indian finally escaping. Subsequent developments established 
the fact that this Indian was the renowned warrior, John Mohawk, a Seneca 
of great distinction who lived at Caneadea. Years after, when Van Campen 
Iiad come to live at Angehca, he and Mohawk met on several different occa- 
sions and treated each other with every civility. 

In the spring of 1782 Van Campen and some others were made prison- 
ers by Indians under command of Lieut. Nellis, who organized his raiding 
bands at Caneadea. The party started for Niagara, where the reward 
offered by the British for prisoners would be paid. They halted at Canea- 
dea, and the prisoners were compelled to run the gauntlet to gratify the 
people of the village. When the signal was given Van Campen bounded off 
like a deer, while the Indian whippers tried to reach him with their whips. 
The distance run was about 40 rods, and the council house was the goal. As 
he was drawing near it he was met by two young squaws, with their whips 
raised ready to strike. He could hardly expect to pass them without suffering 
chastisement; but quick as thought, he gave a spring, and raised his feet 
which hit them in the breast and sent them rapidly in the same direction 
in which he w^as running. All coming down together, tumbling heels over 
head, Van Campen found himself between the two, who were kicking and 
squabbling about in the greatest confusion, yet he did not w^ait to help the 



440 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

ladies up, but sprang upon his feet and made good his race to the infinite 
dehght of the warriors, who flocked about him calhng him "Ca-ji-nah! Ca- 
ji-nah, " "Brave man," "Good fellow." Resting a few days at Caneadea 
the Indians resumed their march for Fort Niagara, where in due time they 
arrived. Van Campen was adopted into the family of Col. Butler. In a few 
days a band of Indians came to the fort with the news that Van Campen 
was the man who had killed Mohawk's band and demanded that he be given 
up and offering to give 14 other prisoners in exchange for him. Colonel 
Butler refused to give Van Campen up, and he was sent to Montreal where 
he was cast into prison. From there he was sent to Quebec and then to 
New York where he was paroled. Subsequently an exchange was effected 
and Van Campen re-entered the service. In 1796 he removed to Almond. 
His services as surveyor were frequently called for, and Capt. Philip Church 
arranged \o give him permanent employment in the sub-division of his tract, 
and he removed to Angelica. Aug. 12, 1807, he was appointed judge of the 
court of common pleas, and Nov. 10, 1807, at the first court in the county, he 
was the leading judge and charged the grand jury. A number of the pioneer 
grand juries were charged by him. He held the office of judge and justice 
of the peace continuously until 1821, and from 1814 to 1826 was county 
treasurer. In 1828 he was deputy county clerk. In 1831 he removed to 
Dansville. In February, 1845, Major Van Campen was stricken with paraly- 
sis. In May, 1848, he removed to Almond, the home of his daughter Mrs. 
George Lockhart. In June, 1849, he removed back to the "old place" 
where he died October 15th. aged 92 years and 9 months. In the funeral 
sermon the Rev. Thomas Aitken said: "His Christianity was pure, his views 
of religion sound and scriptural, and his fidelity and integrity of character 
were like his well-aimed rifle, true to the mark." 

VIAL THOMAS. 

The venerable Vial Thomas, who was for so many years prominently 
and usefully identified with the public, religious and business affairs of Al- 
legany county, was born in Scituate, R. I., Oct. 15, 1783, and died in Angelica, 
N. Y., March 22, 1885, aged 101 years, 5 months and 7 days. From an ances- 
tral history written by himself in 1876 we take the following: " In the latter 
part of the sixteenth century, our first parent by the name of Thomas came 
to America. It is said that his father died without a will, leaving a large es- 
tate which by English law his elder brother inherited, but he told his younger 
brother that he would give him out of the estate all the education he wanted 
to get, then a good nice present. The first was got, but the present was so 
small in comparison with the large estate left by their father, that he was 
disgusted, came to America, and settled in Wickford, a port town in Rhode 
Island, where he raised a family. I have forgotten his given name if I ever 
knew it, but this man's oldest son was named James Thomas. He was my 
great-grandfather. He purchased in 1711 a farm in Scituate, R. I. His 
wife's name was Mary. Their family was one son and one daughter. This 




/\/iJl cT/u^ryv^^-^/i 



Angelica. 441 



son was named Vial Thomas. He was my own grandfather. He also mar- 
ried, had a son and daughter and died before arriving at the middle age of 
man. His son was born Dec. 31, 1755, and named Nicholas. This Nicholas 
Thomas was my father. He was married Nov. 5, 1780, to Miss Phebe Knight, 
daughter of Dea. Stephen Knight of Cranston, R. I." Vial Thomas was the 
second child of the six sons and five daughters born to his parents, and he, 
after marrying Ruth Hammond, of Scituate, Jan. 1, 1806, soon began to think 
of the possibilities of the Genesee country for an active young man, and, Feb., 
1810, they came to Angelica where Mr. Thomas articled and located on 160 
acres of land which he transformed into a line farm where they resided 
until 1835, when, selling this, he purchased one adjoining the homestead of 
Moses VanCampen, and made this his home until his death. His children 
were Mary A., James M., William H., Stephen W., Wilbur E., Harriet N., 
Charles K., and George W.. of whom but two, Harriet N.. wife of Rev. F. V. 
Warren, of Northeast, Pa., and Stephen W., of Bolivar, survive. (Mrs. 
Thomas died in March, 18-18.) The strong physique and vital powers that 
caused Mr. Thomas to round out more than a century of life was of great 
avail in the pioneer days of Angelica, for he could work untiringly and for 
many years never seemed to know fatigue. He was in public office continu- 
ously for a long term of years, keeper of the poor house six years and county 
superintendent of the poor one year, was supervisor, assessor, justice of the 
peace of Angelica when the town stretched over many times its present area, 
and whatever he did was done well and faithfully. His name was a syno- 
nym for integrity in both public and private place. He was appointed by 
Governor Clinton one of the side judges of Allegany county and held that po- 
sition six or eight years. He was one of the members of the court before 
which was arraigned the first convicted murderer in the county in 1824, 
and no member of that distinguished body possessed more dignity. Judge 
Thomas was a man of conscience and deep religious principles. He brought 
up his family in the good old-fashioned way of strict obedience to the Deca- 
logue, and they like himself were members of the Presbyterian church of 
Angelica. He was a deacon and a ruling elder for many years, chosen first 
in October, 1827, and among the subscriptions to build the society's first 
house of worship his name appears for $200. He was the superintendent of 
the first sabbath school organized in Angelica (doubtless the first of the 
county). This is a mere outline of an extended and fruitful life, the life of 
one who bore all honors meekly, preserving a simple guileless nature amid 
all the changing years of a wonderfully extended period of life, and who, dy- 
ing, left an impress on many fields of his county's prosperity that will exist 
for generations. 



442 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

peter s. norris.* 

Peter S. Norris, son of Samuel H., was born at Smithville, Chenango 
county, April 8, 1818. In February, 1847, having learned the printing busi- 
ness, he came to Angelica and went to work as a journeyman in the Alle- 
gany County Advocate office. In April, 1849, he married Ann M., daughter 
of Robert Ramsey. They had three children, Ella M. (Mrs. M. L. Rumpff), 
editor and proprietor of i\ie Every Week, Hamilton C, publisher of the An- 
dover News at Andover, and Mary L., who died Oct. 28, 1882, aged 20 years. 
In December, 1851, Mr. Norris became editor and proprietor of the Advocate, 
and about a year later the paper was purchased by W. H. & C. M. Beecher, 
and consolidated with another paper, under a new name, and he became a 
journeyman in that office. In January, 1856, he was appointed deputy 
sheriff, and in 1857 was elected constable. After his term as deputy sheriif 
expired he worked as journeyman printer most of the time until the early 
part of 1868, when he started a book and job printing office, and in Decem- 
ber of the same year, resumed the publication of the Allegany Gcninty Advo- 
cate in small size. His principal object in reviving the publication of this 
journal was to aiford opportunity for instructing his children in the printing 
and publishing business, and at the end of one year, having in a great meas- 
ure accomplished this purpose, the paper was abandoned, he continuing the 
book and job printing. In the fall of 1870 the only newspaper then pub- 
lished in the village was removed to another part of the county, and in 
December, 1871, by the urgent request of many of the citizens, Mr. Norris 
was induced to re-enter the publishing business, and founded the Angelica 
RepuMican. In the office of this paper his children applied themselves dili- 
gently to the business, and rendered valuable assistance in the work, became 
proficient in the art of printing, and got a good start in journalism, all soon 
becoming writers of more than ordinary ability. In the summer of 1875, 
failing health compelled him to sell his printing office and business and re- 
tire, for a time, from these exhausting labors. Having in a considerable 
degree recovered his health, his habits of activity would not allow him to 
remain idle, and he returned to his chosen and cherished profession, work- 
ing a part of the time as journeyman and part of the time in a job printing 
office of his own, finally selling to his daughter, Mrs. M. L. Rumpff, in 1886, 
and afterward assisting her in the office of Every Week. Mr. Norris also 
held the office of justice of the peace, doing a considerable amount of busi- 
ness twelve years of the time between 1863 and 1888, and was police justice 
three years, and though a number of cases, both civil and criminal, tried be- 
fore him were appealed to a higher court, no judgment or decision of his was 
ever reversed or set aside. At the age of 75 years he still assisted his 
daughter in the Every Week office a part of the time. " On Sunday morning, 
March 11, 1894, Peter Spencer Norris passed over the river, out of the dark- 
ness into the light of the Life Beyond. " 

* Autobiographical. 



Amity. 443 



AMITg. 

BY JOHN S. MINARD. 

CHAPTER XLI. 

THE TOWN OP AMITY was organized by and under an act of legislature 
passed Peb. 22, 1830. It wasformedout of territory three miles wide by 
nine miles long running east and west, taken from the south part of the town 
of Angelica, and the same quantity of land taken from the town of Scio. It 
originally included all of township three in range two of the Morris Reserve, 
but when the tow^n of Ward was organized in 1857 the east part of township 
3 was incorporated into that town. Until that time it had been a part and 
parcel of the town of Angelica, and cannot be said to have had any history 
as an independent territory. Amity is an interior and central town. Its 
surface is hilly, and broken by tributaries of the Genesee river, the most 
notable being VanCampen's creek from the west and Philip's and Plum Bot- 
tom creeks from the east. The river enters the town about two miles west 
of the southeast corner, and leaves it about the same distance east of the 
northwest corner, its general course through the town being quite direct for 
the Genesee. Along the river are some very line flats, but the valley of the 
creeks are for the most part narrow. The hills back from the river attain 
attitudes, in some cases, of 800 or 900 feet above the river. The soil along 
the river is mostly a vegetable loam, and clay and sandy loams appear in 
in different parts. The route of the Erie railway foUows the Genesee valley 
from the south on the east side of the river to Belmont w^here it crosses it, 
and reaching VanCampen's creek crosses that stream and follow^s it toward 
Friendship. The drive afforded by the public highway from Belmont to 
Scio is one of the finest to be found along the Genesee river. The subdivision 
of the town was originally made by Moses VanCampen and prior to 1810, 
though the date is not positively so asserted. The town contains 21,960 acres 
and the population has been: 1860, 2,268; 1870, 2,087: 1880, 1,972; 1890, 1,996; 
1892, 2,051. The first birth in town w^as that of Hannah Hyde, Nov. 4, 1804, 
and the first death was that of Harvey Manning in 1806. The first marriage 
was of Laomi Ashley and Rachael Baker in 1807. 

In 1803 John T. Hyde came into the tow^n from Andover, and took up 
land on what is now known as the farm of Nehemiah Bosworth on the river 
road about half a mile south of " Belvidere Corners." He was a native of 
Vermont, and spent the remainder of his life until 1848 with the earliest set- 
tlers of the valley of the Genesee. His youngest son, Thatcher Hyde, mar- 
ried Polly Gorton, a resident of Belmont, who yet survives him. In 1804 Dr. 
Ebenezer E. Hyde built a home on the place now occupied by S. Hale Whit- 
come at Belvidere Corners, and practiced medicine and kept a hotel for 
many years, until a railroad and other forerunners of civilization and 



444 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

improvement did away with the necessity of the public house. Here was 
held the first masonic lodge in the county, which met as early as 1812. He 
died in 1848 in Amity. 

Stephen Rogers became a resident of the town in 1804, and purchased 
land on lots 54 and 55. He afterwards sold and removed to the farm on the 
east side of the river about midway between Scio and Belmont, where he 
died. He lived to the remarkable age of 102 years and 2 days, and died 
May 14, 1895. His son. Col. D. Rogers, now occupies the farm, one of the 
finest in the valley. 

Amos Goodspeed, Stephen Cole, Nathaniel Goodspeed, Harry Davis, 
Arnold Hill, Jacob Manning, became settlers along from 1805 and 1806, and, 
from that time to 1812, Nathan Wright, John Gait, David Downing, Jeffrey 
Home, Abram Aldrich and Levi Simons became permanent residents. Be- 
tween 1812 and 1820, Elisha Sortore, Elijah Sortore, Jonathan Sortore. Moses 
Hood, John Hood and Richard Longcore joined the ranks of the pioneers, and 
were followed by Hiram Abbott, Isaac Newton, Geo. W. Horner. Elizur Ingra- 
ham, John and Jedediah Holmes, Luke Crandall, and others whose names are 
closely connected with the history of the settlement of the town. Simeon 
Brown came here in 1824 from Yates county. He settled on the stream 
bearing his name, and when he made his first clearing his nearest neighbor 
was three miles away. Robert Reed, the first town clerk, came from 
Massachusetts in 1826, and made his home here until his death, and this 
brings us down to 1830 when a government was organized with a population 
of 872 persons. 

The first town meeting was held at one of the first schoolhouses on the 
6th day of April, 1830. John Simons and William D. Easton were the elec- 
tion inspectors and justices of the peace who had charge of the polls. The 
officers elected were: Supervisor, John Simons; town clerk, Robert Reed; 
assessors, Chas. P. Perry, Jesse Rogers, Abram Aldrich; commissioners of 
highways, David Walworth, David Downing. Jr., John Hood; justices of the 
peace, Hiram Abbott, Elijah Sortore; school commissioners, Samuel Wads- 
worth, Wm. Van Campen, Hiram Abbott; school inspectors, Azel French, 
Francis Norwood, Batman Fitz Simmons; overseers of the poor, Jacob Gillett, 
Arnold Hill; collector, George Waldor ft"; constables, Aaron D. Brown, George 
Waldorft", Wilham Sortore. $250 was voted to be raised for highways, to be 
distributed among the thirty-one road districts of the town. 

One of the most conspicuous landmarks of the town is the old stone 
gristmill, built in 1823 on the east side of the river. It was erected in 1823 
by Jeftrey Home and Philip Church, Mr. Home being the general manager 
of the work. The millwright was Capt. Higgins, who resided a short dis- 
tance below Belvidere on the river road. Richard Longcore was the boss 
mason, and the stone with which it was built was taken from the bed of the 
river near the site of the mill. Col. Jas. Mapes and Henry Sortore were 
two of the workmen on the mill, both of whom were well known in after 
years as prominent and esteemed citizens of the town. Some changes have 



Amity. 445 

been made in the mill by way of additions, etc. , but the same stone work 
stands to-day a monument of the enterprise of its founders, and it was pat- 
ronized for many years by the farmers and woodsmen who came from a cir 
cuit of twenty-tive miles to ^et their corn and other grain ground for their 
families. It was a common thing to have men with ox-teams drive from 
twenty to thirty miles through a dense wilderness to get to this mill, and 
from two to three days was often taken for the journey. 

The first schoolhouse was erected on what was then the Jonathan Sor- 
tore farm, afterwards owned by Henry Sortore, and now by Mrs. Emily 
Wilcox. The town records say that the first town meeting and election 
was held at the schoolhouse near Arnold Hill's, which was built on land 
just south of the so-called Norton cemetery. 

In 1830 Alvan E. Parker opened the first store in the town on the 
bank of the river at the east end of what is now the Schuyler street 
bridge in Belmont. He put in a general stock of such plain and staple 
goods as were suited to the time and place, and continued the business 
until about 1858, when he was succeeded by his son-in-law, Charles S. 
Whitney. Mr. Parker was one of the most careful, methodical business 
men that ever lived in the town, and in his business career he accumu- 
lated a fortune estimated at from $200,000 to |250,000. He was intimately 
acquainted with the wants and responsibility of his customers, and al- 
though he drove close bargains, yet in all business matters he was what 
the world would call rigidly just in all his dealings. Ebenezer Norton came 
to Amity in 1831, was a farmer and practitioner of law in justices' courts. 

Amity, like some other towns of the county, had a mine of wealth in pine 
timber, which was not appreciated, hov/ever, until after the cream of it had 
been used up, destroyed or manufactured. Many of the early settlers 
avoided land that was covei-ed with pine because it required so much hard 
work to get rid of it. The timber was large, making it difficult to handle, 
and land covered with smaller hard wood was usually first taken up. After 
sawmills were put in operation, lumber was drawn from forty to eighty 
miles to Dansville, Canandaigua, and even Buffalo, and exchanged for 
salt, flour, and other necessaries- of life. " Salts " or pearlash was made 
from hardwood ashes, and drawn "north" to exchange for commodities. 
On one occasion a resident of the town went with a load of lumber on the 
top of which were piled packages of salts. His faithful dog followed the 
team and at night slept with the load, and happened to make a bed of the 
salt packages. When the teamster returned home the dog had no hair, the 
potash having completely tanned the animal. 

But the fact is patent that the first settlers of this town and the county 
incurred ah of the hardships and braved all of the dangers of frontier life 
for a compensation that would seem now a mere pittance. About 1850 out- 
side parties began to realize the worth of the pine forests that were yet 
standing in the town and surrounding country, and erected two large mills 
at the center of the town, one for sawing boards, plank and lath, and the 



440 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

other for shingle. The Shongo mill as it was called, was erected about half- 
a-mile above the present site of the old stone mill, where an immense pond 
was formed, furnishing a valuable water power. The timber that was sawn 
there came principally from the towns of Wellsville and Alma, and was 
trucked on a tramroad . 

Belmont is a beautiful name and no doubt was suggested for the village 
by the grand old hills in the neighborhood; not rugged, precipitous or ab- 
rupt, not cragged and repulsive to the sight, but gracefully receding from 
the widened river bottom, they ascend by easy gradations to heights ma- 
jestic in their lofty altitudes. They are as beautiful in their appearance 
as the name is beautiful in significance, the word Belmont is derived from 
helle, beautiful, and mont, mountain, Belmont, the beautiful mountain. 

Behnont was incorporated as a village under the name of Philips ville, 
Feb. 21, 1853, and the railroad station also bore the name. The postoffice 
was later changed to Belmont, and village and station soon were 
under the same name. In 1870 the population was 795; in 1880, 804; 
in 1890, 950. The village owes its location to the fine water-power which the 
fall of several feet in the river with rock bottom affords. Its facilities 
were to some extent utilized as early as 1806-8. and the water-power has 
from that time been such an element of promise as to attract capital and en- 
terprise, and its recent manufactures have made its name known all over 
the world. 

Although the saw and gristmills of Philip Church were erected in 1806- 
8, there were no attempts, excepting the " Mansion House " begun by Church 
in 1808, and the old " Mill House."' at anything like building up a permanent 
settlement, a few log houses and board shanties, scattered here and there, 
being sufficient for the mill hands, teamsters, etc. 

In 1828 Francis Parker from Vermont built a small house near the 
river on the lot which was owned by Mr. John Russell in 1879, a small space 
in the woods being " cleared off." Close by a clearing of four or five acres 
had been made, and these, with the small opening around the mills, were all 
the " improvements " within the limits of the village as we know it to-day. 
All else was covered by tlje native forest in which lofty x^ines largely pre- 
dominated. Francis Parker had already started a carding mill, dignified 
by some by the name of woolen mill, and in the upper story of this building 
Alvan E. Parker exhibited a few hundred dollars worth of the goods most 
in demand by the settlers. This was an event of great importance, as, be- 
fore this, " going to the store " involved a trip through the woods and deep 
mud of the primitive roads to Angelica or Friendship. Mr. Parker was the 
first postmaster of the village, and the name of the office was Philips ville. 

The lumber manufactured in those early days was drawn over to Cuba, 
there made into small- sized rafts, and when the swollen waters of spring 
came were floated down to the Allegany at Clean, then doubled up, then on 
to Warren, where they were again doubled and sent on down to the Ohio. 
Some lumber was drawn to Buffalo and exchanges made for goods, and thus 



Amity. 447 

hauling was afforded each way. The stone mill now owned by Mr. Prank 
VanCampen was completed in 1827, superseding the old pioneer mill of 
1808. It is said howev^er that some portions of it were in operation earlier. 

About 1832 the possibilities of the water-power became so apparent as 
to attract attention, and the " Washington Company " was formed, so named 
because all its members, except Judge Church, were Washington county 
men. Their names were Philip Church, John Norton, Benjamin Norton, 
Ellis May, and Timothy H. Burbanks. (Mr. Burbanks soon sold his interest 
to Ebenezer Norton). The later prosperity of the place is thought to be 
directly traceable to the directing enterprise of this company. A survey of 
a part of the tract, called the " Phillipsburg Mill Reserve," into village lots, 
streets, public square and sites for public buildings, churches and school- 
houses, was made, and the public spirit and enterprise thus manifested 
attracted settlers, so that in a few years a thriving village grew up, many 
branches of trade and industry being well represented. At one time the 
Philipsburgh Mill Reserve was in the possession of Walter S. Church, who 
made a contract with Daniel Crabtree to erect a sawmill at the mouth of 
Philips Creek, with the privilege of taking water from the river by means 
of a canal from the Genesee, just above the dam to the creek. Mr. Church 
was to furnish the power and Mr. Crabtree was to build the mill, and the 
two be joint and equal in ownership. The property soon passed to J. Lang- 
don & Co. , and pine timber being considerably enhanced in value, the com- 
pany purchased large tracts of pine lands in Amity, Scio, Wellsville, Alma 
and Bolivar, tram roads to the river were constructed, and the logs floated to 
the mill. Another mill was constructed by the same firm near where the 
Carter Package mills now stand, which ran a large gang. This was operated 
for a long series of years. It was known as the Shongo mill and its capacity 
was from 50,000 to 75,000 feet of lumber per day. 

The Crabtree mill was purchased in 1876 by Messrs. Hall and Wier, who 
greatly increased its capacity by the introduction of improved machinery 
and labor saving devices. About 1887 or '88, Mr. Hall sold his interest to 
Mr. Wier, and soon after Mr. J. H. BisseU bought in with Mr. Wier, and they 
continued in partnership till Jan. 1, 1893, when E. I. Davis bought Wier out. 
The business, which includes a shingle and planing mill, is conducted by 
Davis and Bissell. It cuts about 20,000 ft. per day. The firm sells about 
1,000,000 ft. of lumber per year, to home customers and neighboring towns. 
When running, the business employs about 20 men, and during good sleigh- 
ing 100 teams are sometimes employed. 

About 1840 John Milton, a son of EUis May, bought that part of the Mill 
Reserve lying east of the river, and north of Philip creek, and shortly after 
laid it out and offered village lots for sale. Quite a number were purchased 
and houses and barns erected, forming a settlement which came soon to be 
called Miltonville. Some of the older people still persist in calling it by that 
name. In 1852 a tannery was established by Samuel S. Watson. Three 



448 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



years later he died, and his son R. M. Watson conducted the business for 
some time. At the present no business of the kind is done. 

A steady conservative growth of the village continued up to 1850, when 
work, which had a short time before been resumed on the Erie railway, was 
being prosecuted with great vigor, causing an influx of transient population, 
w^hich made itself felt in increased trade at the stores, shops and public 
houses, and upon the completion of the railroad a year later, gave a very 
perceptible impulse to business, and opened new enterprises and avenues of 
industry. 

In 1860 or 1861 a large flourishing mill was erected on the west side of 
the river on the water power of Messrs. W. W. Ballard & Co. The mill has 
passed through several hands, been added to, repaired and improved to keep 
pace with modern methods of manufacture. It has been for some years 
owned by Hood and Bradley, who have put in an engine of 65 H. P. and 10 
pairs of rollers for wheat, 4 for buckwheat, and 2 " runs " of stone for grind- 
ing feed, and are doing a large custom and flouring business. 

In 1866 the Belmont Manufacturing Company was organized. It w^as a 
stock company and David Rawson. the inventor of a popular mowing machine, 
was the inspiring genius. F. N. Whitcomb was also interested. The busi- 
ness was conducted by the company for two or three years, when it passed 
into the hands of D. Rawson & Co., and was in charge of David Rawson 
until his death. In 1874 Mr. A. W. Miner, of Friendship, became the owner, 
and in 1875 the firm of A. W. Miner & Co. was organized and the business 
established on a solid foundation. In 1879 the shops were partially burned. 
William P. and Charles E. Clark, from Brookfield, Madison Co., N. Y., bought 
the plant, rebuilt the shops and devoted them to the manufacture of agricul- 
tural implements and sawmill machinery. In 1889, when 60 men were em- 
ployed, the plant was again burned. Upon hearing of the fire, Mr. J. Adsit 
of Hornellsville, wired them, placing his shops in that place at their disposal, 
and four days later the men were at work in Hornellsville. They were 
then manufacturing sawmills and electric-light plants. Fears were enter- 
tained that the shops might not be rebuilt at Belmont, and the people and 
business men of Belmont determined to secure the re-establishment of the 
business here, and in a short time raised from |10,000 to $11,000 to insure 
it. Work was resumed on new buildings in 45 days after the fire, and in 
four months' time the present buildings were completed, over the heads of 
the shop workmen, and with the machinery running. Clark Bros, employ 
about 100 men. Sawmills, mill machinery, electric-light plants, and engines 
for street railways are here manufactured at these shops. Practically, all 
the different parts which enter into the construction of a sawmill are 
made by Clark Bros., and they claim to come the nearest to furnishing the 
entire outfit for such a mill of any manufactory in the United States. Their 
mills have been sent into nearly every state in the Union, and Mexico and 
Canada. One of their specialties is the Pelton set works. The business 
now amounts to $150,000 yearly. 



Amity. 449 

In 1870 Charles T. Silsby and a Mr. Cacly removed a business of manu- 
facturing butter pails, firkins and tubs from Seneca Palls to Belmont, in 
order to be near to the raw material. This employed from 20 to 25 men. 
Early in the eighties the plant was devoted to the manufacture of tooth-picks. 
Finally that business ceased and the plant was idle for a few years, when 
John Dean bought the property, and in 1894 sold it to the citizens of Bel- 
mont, Chas. S. Whitney, Wm. P. Clark and W. J. Richardson holding the 
title as trustees. It is now contracted to the Carter Package Company, 
which employs from 30 to 40 men. All kinds of wooden packages are manu- 
factured. Its capacity is 1,000 or more packages per day. E. M. Harrison 
is president, Harold Harrison treasurer, P. C. Carter secretary, and H. C. 
Carter manager of the Carter Package Co. 

About 1887 P. M. Babcock and Isaac Averill started a stock farm in the 
northern outskirts of the village for the raising of blooded horses, which 
w^ere then so much in demand. The business was conducted a few years, the 
partnership dissolved, and Mr. Babcock started another farm just south of 
the village. The business ceased to be profitable in a few years. 

In February, 1888, the American Hotel an old landmark was burned. 
For two years there was no hotel accommodation in the village. In the 
spring of 1890 a company was organized to build a hotel which should cost 
$15,000. Charles S. Whitney, L. P. Willetts, Isaac Willetts, Henry Wier, 
Wm. P. Clark, E. I. Davis and W. J. Richardson were the corporators. 
More land in addition to the old site was bought, and the capital increased to 
$30,000. Work was commenced, and as it progressed capital to the amount 
of $45,000 was found to be required; and The Belmont was finally finished 
and furnished at an expense of $57,000 or $58,000. Before completion how- 
ever a mortgage was placed upon it to secure the necessary money. Isaac 
Willets furnished the funds, took the security, and his estate now owns the 
property. The Belmont is the best hotel building of the county, is lighted 
by electricity and has all the modern hotel conveniences and appliances. 
Besides the hotel, the building includes the State Bank of Belmont, the 
postoffice, the drug store of Mills & Green and other business rooms and 
offices. 

The County Seat and buildings. — Between 1855 and 1858 the removal of 
the county seat from Angelica to some point on the line of the Erie railroad 
was seriously discussed, and some political infelicities occurring about the 
same time the times were considered ripe for such a movement. The legis- 
lature was invoked, and a bill was passed appointing a commission to make 
selection of a site for the new county seat and the necessary buildings. 
Belvidere laid claim to its location, but Belmont was adjudged by the com- 
mission to be the new county seat. No time was lost in appointing building 
commissioners and putting the work under contract. The work was prose- 
cuted during 1859, and completed in 1860. A half- shire enterprise soon 
took form and resulted in the passage of an act providing that the courts be 
held alternately at Belmont and Angelica, which continued in operation un- 



450 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



til the fall of 1892, since which time Belmont has been, and is now adjudged 
by the courts to be, the sole county seat of Allegany county. 

The erection of the county buildings at Belmont, though somewhat 
shorn of its importance by the half-shire act, still afforded an added im- 
petus to building up and beautifying the town, and the village took on new 
life. The buildings comprised a court house, clerk's office and jail. The jail 
had been used but little, however, before the half-shire act went into opera- 
tion, whereby the old jail at Angelica became the only place for the incarcera- 
tion of county criminals. The new jail was therefore unused till about ten 
years ago when the structure was made the office of the county clerk, and 
the old clerk's office became the office of the surrogate. In 1894 a new jail 
building was constructed northwest of the court house, and now that there 
is no half- shire all the county buildings are located on " Table knoll " in 
Belmont, a most beautiful location. 

The Toivn Cemetery. — Interments were early made in various localities. 
Many of the older citizens believe that the first burials were in the old bury- 
ing-ground on the Dea. Harry Davis farm south of Belmont, and it is the 
opinion of the venerable Jesse Sortore, that Deacon Davis' father was one 
of the first there buried. Another burying ground was on the road on the 
east side of the river, on the Thibou farm, another on the same road on the 
Ethan Rogers farm, and still another near Belvidere. Early in 1866 initial 
measures were taken toward the opening of the beautiful cemetery which 
now reflects so much credit upon the town. It was determined to make it a 
town affair, and the first meeting of town officers to take action concerning 
it met April 20, 1866, when there were present, E. F. Willetts supervisor, 
Leander Gorton and V. A. Willard justices of the peace, and J. H. Brown- 
ing town clerk. The offer of Mark W. Pike to sell 8.37 acres of land for 
$650 was accepted. May 29, 1866, the town board voted to pay J. C. Averill 
$400 for clearing the ground of stumps and building a certain amount of 
fence. This work was completed July 28, 1866, and the ground plowed and 
sown to wheat, which matured and was sold to E. F. Willetts for $2.25 per 
bushel. Leander Gorton and E. F. Willetts were appointed to lay the 
grounds out as a cemetery, and the tract was divided into five sections and 
250 lots, with convenient walks and driveways. The ground being elevated, 
and considerably broken by knolls and depressions, it afforded favorable 
conditions for the exercise of skiU and taste in the arrangement of road- 
ways and other features, which have made it one of the most beautiful 
cemeteries in the county. In 1873 a vault was constructed at an expense of 
$500, and by 1879 nearly $2,000 had been expended in the purchase and fit- 
ting up of the grounds, which still continue to receive proper attention, and 
show the tasteful skill of Mr. M. W. Sortore who has for many years been a 
very efficient superintendent. The first one buried here was Peter Rey- 
nolds, Jan. 13, 1868. The town is legally authorized to jDurchase additional 
erounds to the extent of 30 acres. 



Amity. 451 

Banks. — Prior to 1861 the nearest banking facilities were at Hornellsville 
and Cuba; Olean and Bath were sometimes visited on such business. About 
that time, possibly not until 1862, Andrew Langdon, now president of the 
Empire State Savings Bank of Buffalo, opened a banking office in Belmont. 
With his father, J. LeDroit Langdon, he had in 1856 opened the first hard- 
ware store in the village, on the south side of Main street. The store was 
burned in 1861. the father dying a few weeks later. The banking office was 
opened in the new brick block, part of which Mr. Langdon built, which stood 
on the opposite side of the street from the hardware store. Mr. Langdon 
writes: "The volume of business I cannot state from memory, but it was 
not very large. It was during the period of ■ wild cat ' banks, numerous 
counterfeits and high premium on gold." During the time of Mr. Langdon's 
banking business, John Thompson & Co. conducted an exchange and bank- 
ing office about a year, when it was succeeded by C. S. Whitney & Co. Mr. 
Langdon discontinued the business probably prior to 1865, for in September 
of that year E. W. Chamberlain & Co. suceeded Whitney & Co. and, until 
they went out of business in June, 1875, this was the only institution of the 
kind in the town. Then CM. Marvin conducted banking for a year or so 
when M. E. Davis succeeded to the business and conducted a private bank 
and exchange office for about ten years. The necessity for an institution 
capable of doing a more extended business becoming more and more appar- 
ent a state bank was organized and a charter secured bearing date June 
25. 1888. The bank was soon in operation. The first officers were Elmore 
A. Willetts president, and W. J. Richardson cashier. The present officers 
are E. A. Willetts president, W. K. Paul vice president, W. J. Richardson 
cashier. The directors are E. A. Willetts, M. W. Pike, W. J. Richardson 
and M. E. Davis. The State Bank of Belmont has a capital of |25,000 (au- 
thorized capital $100,000), affords all the banking facilities needed by the 
town, does a conservative, safe business, is located in The Belmont hotel 
building, and is an institution which the people fully appreciate. The con- 
dition of the bank Dec. 18, 1895, was: Resources. — Bills discounted $90,452.80, 
national bank $2,924.56, Buffalo bank $2,212.51, United States bonds $1,000, 
furniture $3,100, expenses $2,467.87, cash $7,941.94, total $110,099.68. Lia- 
bilities.— Capital $25,000, surplus $5,000, profit $5,656.33, deposit account 
$74,443.35, total $110,099.68. 

Bumiess Houses. — The principal enterprises are a cheese factory; Clark 
Bros, foundry and machine shop; Davis & BisselPs saw, shingle and plan- 
ing mills; Amity Mills, Hood & Bradley, full roller process; Belmont Mills, 
W. H. Van Campen & Son, patent " straight-grade " flour and feed; Carter 
Package Co., buttertubs, etc.; Davie & Green and M. E. Davis dry goods; 
John Nicholson, hardware, carriages, sleighs, etc.; Geo. Peck & Son and H. 
W. Farwell, watches, jewelry, etc.; J. W. Bartlett, merchant tailor and un- 
dertaker, J. H. Bissell, furniture; Mills & Green and C. G. Anderson & 
Son, drugs, medicines, etc. ; M. N. Sammet & Bro., clothing; J. Sortore & 
Sons, grocers; Adams & Newcomb, bakers and grocers; Ostrander & Co., 



452 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



boots and shoes; Allen & Pease, Wier & Co., M. D. Leilous, T. & D. Mar- 
geson, meat markets; George L. Tucker, laundry; H. E. Davis and C. L. 
Slafter, livery. 

Hotels.— The Belmont, E. D. Clark; Cottage Hotel, E. N. Black; Allegany 
House, F. Broadbent. 

Insurance. — E. W. Chamberlain, Reynolds, Ackerman & Tefft, R. A. 
Whitcomb. 

Dentists. — C. B Newton, P. D. Greene. 

Attorneys. — Reynolds, Brown & Reynolds, V. A. Willard, S. H. Tracy, 
E. W. Chamberlain. 

Physicians. — C. G. Anderson, H. A. Barney, W. J. Hardy. 

Dispatch Printing Co., — C. L. Stillman & Co. 

Photogrcqjher. — E. L. Lewis. 

Belmont is supplied with lights and fuel by the Allegany Gas Company. 
Electricity is also used for lighting to some extent. Mr. Frank Van Cam- 
pen has a dynamo in his mill, which lights his residence and two or three 
street lamps. The Belmont, and Clark Bros, also use electricity for lighting. 

The Samuel VanCampen Family. — One of the best remembered of the 
very early settlers of Amity was Samuel VanCampen, who settled on the 
east side of the river on the farm now owned by Thomas Emerson as early 
as 1806. He was a younger brother of Major Moses VanCampen, and in 
moral character, physical courage, strict integrity and religious inclinations, 
he strongly resembled him, but little can be learned of his early life. To 
show the material out of which was made those invincible spirits and domes- 
tic heroes who made the lirst openings in our forests, cut the first roads and 
built the first rude habitations, the following, a copy of Samuel VanCampen's 
indenture as apprentice, is given as it gives an idea of the typical better-class 
pioneer of Allegany. The copy is literally verbatim. Where the stars occur 
the paper is so worn as to be illegible. 

This Indenture, made this Twenty Fifth Day of February, and in the year of our Lord one 
Thousand Seven Hundred and Eighty Two, Witnesseth that Samuel Van Campen, Son of 
Cornelius Van Campen Deceased hath of his own Free and Voluntary Will, or by and With 
the Consent of his Mother Winnifred Van Campen, Placed and Bound himself Apprentice unto 
Joseph Heaton of Lower Smithfield township, Northumberland County and Commonwealth 
of Pennsylvania, Blacksmith, to Learn the Art and Mistery of the Black Smith's Trade after 
The manner of an Apprentice, to serve him and his Heirs from the Day of the Date Hereof, 
For and During the Full Term of Eight Years & two months, During all Which Term, Said 
Apprentice, his said Master Faithfully Shall Serve, His Secrets Keep, his Lawful Demands 
Gladly Every Where Obey, he shall Doo no Damage to his Said Master. Nor See it to be 
Done by Others Without Leting or Givin Notice to his Said master, or his ; he Shall not Waiste 
his Said masters Goods, Nor Lend Them Unlawfully to Others ; he Shall not commit Fornica- 
tion, Nor contract Matrimony Within the Said Term ; at cards Dice or any Other unlawful 
game he Shall not play, whereby his Said master may have Damage With his own Goods, or 
the Goods of others, he Shall not Absent himself Day or Night From his Said master's Service 
Without his Leave, Nor haunt Taverns or play houses, but in all things Behave himself as a 
faithful apprentice ought to doo During Said Term and the Said master and his Shall Use the 



Amity. 453 

utmost of their Indeavours to teach him his Said Apprentice the Said Trade Science or Ocupa- 
tion of Black Smith With all things thereunto Belonging, and Shall and Will Teach and Instruct 
or cause to be Well and sufficiently Taught and Instructed after the Best way and manner that 
he can and Shall and Will also Find and Allow unto the Said apprentice Meat Drink Washing 
and Lodging And Apparial both Linen and Wollen and all other Necessarys fit and convenient 
for Such an apprentice During the Term Aforesaid, and the Said master Shall also give the 
Said apprentice his Every Day Wearing Apparil as Also One Intire New Suite of Decent Cloth- 
ing fiting For A freedom Sute For Said Apprentice in Witness Whereof I have Hereunto Set 
my hand and Seal the Day and Year Above Written. 

Signed Sealed & Samuel Van Campen [ ] 

Delivered in the presence Winnifred Van Campen [ ] 

of us Joseph Heaton [ ] 

John Chambers 
John Camden 

Northumberland County february the 28th 1782. 

This day the * * * before me and acknowledged This Indenture to be thier Voluntary 
Act and Deed. 

given under my hand the day and year above written. Nicholas Depew 

This indenture is endorsed. 
" A Cancelled Indenture 28 May 89, of 
Samuel Van Campen from 
Joseph Heaton." 

The indenture was cancelled about a year ahead of time, and so the con- 
clusion is warranted that he was a faithful apprentice and became thoroughly- 
learned in " the Art and Mistery of the Black Smith Trade. " The original 
document is owned by Mr. Frank VanCampen, of Belmont, by whom the 
writer was greatly favored in the preparation of this sketch. As early as 
1816 Mr. VanCampen was a justice of the peace, and a member of the court 
of common pleas, and the court of general sessions of the peace. Samuel 
VanCamj^en was the first postmaster keeping the office in his house on the 
farm . Its name was Genesee Valley, and it was instituted soon after the 
town was organized. Prom the marble slab in the cemetery, which marks 
the place of his burial, we learn that this worthy pioneer died June 30, 1849, 
at the age of 80 years. 

Samuel VanCampen's children were William, born in 1790, married Har- 
riet Ingraham who died in 1843. He married second, Nancy Byrns of Bel- 
fast; Sarah married John Rathbun of Almond, whose family consisted of 2 
or 3 children, one of whom married Mrs. B. B. Clark, one of the early mer- 
chants of Belmont, and who some say built the first brick store in town; 
Moses, born in 1800, married Caroline Wilkins. Their children w^ere William, 
Ambrose, Addison and Lovinia, who married Elias Rogers; William has been 
in the employ of the Standard Oil Company at Corry, Pa., for a number of 
years; Ambrose went to Bay City, as long ago as 1860, where he died some 
ten years since; Addison is living in Belmont occupying a responsible posi- 
tion in the Clark Bro's foundry and machine shops. 

William VanCampen whose entire mature years were spent in the town 
of Amity, died on the 3d of May, 1875, at 85 years of age. Many are still 
left who were personally acquainted with him. Those who knew" him best 



454 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

say his was a noble life, and he a domestic hero, meeting manfully every 
duty, and though his career was not marked by exceptional incidents, nor 
made brilliant by wonderful exploits, his life was one of untiring industry 
and painstaking toil, which was so characteristic of his Dutch ancestry, " in- 
dustry and toil, that were as essential to the development of our national re- 
sources as were the soldierly characteristics and deeds of his uncle Moses, 
and those who fought by his side, were to the achievement of our national 
independence." Though frequently importuned to become a candidate for 
official honors and emoluments, his only public services were those rendered 
as United States marshal, as town clerk and occasionally as assessor for his 
town. He was a consistent member of the Baptist church for many years, 
and for a good share of the time a deacon. He was twice married and lived 
happily with the partners of his choice. He had three sons and four daugh- 
ters. Julia Ann the eldest married Jesse Sortore a respected citizen and 
lifelong resident of Amity. Hiram became a worthy preacher of the Univer- 
salist faith, and is now an insurance agent at New Bedford, Mass.; William 
Hanford, passed his life in Amity, principally on the farm, though for the 
last twenty years he was in the milling business, with his son Frank, who 
still conducts the business in the stone mill, the oldest in town; Mary married 
William Pettibone; Caroline became the wife of Dr. John Norton; Samuel R. 
married a daughter of T. J. Rathbone, of Elmira, and died some two years 
since in London, Eng., whither he had gone to prosecute historical researches 
in the British museum. Samuel R. was an enthusiastic student of Holland 
history and in many matters connected therewith was an acknowledged 
authority with the scholars. He had published a work on some historical 
subject and was engaged in the preparation of another when he died very 
suddenly. Two sons of his are now living in Elmira, Samuel R., a lawyer, 
and John R., engaged in business; Harriet (dec.) married Dr. Hulbert, who 
now lives in Bay City, Mich. William Hanford VanCampen had two children, 
Carrie who married Dr. F. O. Gilbert of Bay City, Mich. , and died there some 
ten years since, and Frank, the well-known and highly esteemed business 
man of Belmont. 

Belvidere village, in the northwest part of the town, was named from 
Judge Church's residence about a mile distant in Angelica. It is situated 
near the mouth of Van Campen creek and is the northernmost point in the 
county reached by the original New York and Erie railroad. From this fact, 
and also from its being centrally located in the county, it was at one time 
favored by many as the site for the county buildings. When the postoffice 
at Belvidere was established about 1835, it was named Hobbyville, from the 
postmaster general, whose name was Hobbie. The little hamlet around the 
corners was also called by the same name until about the time the railroad 
was completed, when it was changed to Belvidere. Belvidere is now a 
station on the Erie railroad, has two hotels. E. P. Sanborn and L. C. Scott 
are dealers in general merchandise. James Moran is postmaster. A cheese 
^factory here is well patronized. 



Amity. 455 

Withey is a little hamlet and postoffice on Philips creek, in the eastern 
part of the town. A schoolhouse and the Wesleyan Methodist church are 
all the pubhc buildings. Two stores, one kept by Simeon Brown, the other 
by W. H. Button, afford all the facilities for trade the place demands. Alvin 
E. Hall conducts a cheese factory at this place. The postoffice was estab- 
lished in 1887 and the present postmaster is W. H. Button. 

About 1835 or 6, John B. and Philip Church, Jr., determined to utili^ie 
the water-power a half mile east of Belvidere (about that time named Hobby- 
ville) and erected a dam and a large mill which they called the Triana mill, 
and for a while prosecuted an extensive lumber business. The buildings 
they used have tumbled down and scarce a vestige is left of its former 
importance. 

The present town officials are: Supervisor, Melvin E. Horner; town 
clerk. P. K. Holden; justices, O. F. Morehouse, Eldyn E. Reynolds, C. E. 
"Whitcomb, B. P. Mapes; highway commissioner, Henry Weir; overseers of 
the poor, George Benjamin, Peter Reynolds; collector, Delos A. VanCampen; 
inspectors of elections, 1st district, Bernard B. Ackerman, Geo. Peck, L. W. 
Ely, I. J. Elliott; 2d district, Charles Wallace, Wallace H. Windus, Paul 
Cussack, John Henry; constables, James Johnson, James D. Crawford, G. 
N. Cline, S. P. Weaver, D. A. Van Campen; excise commissioners, Alexis 
R. Halbert, Charles H. Norton and Luman Lewis. 

Supervisors* — John Simons, 1830-32; Alvan E. Parker, 1833-34; Benjamin Aldridge, 
1835-36; Walter S. Church, 1837; Moses Van Campen, 1838; Benjamin Aldridge, 1839-40; 
Batman Filz Simmons, 1841-42; Francis Norton, 1843; Benjamin Aldridge, 1844; Noah C. 
Pratt, 1845 ; Randall Reed, 1846 ; Batman Fitz Simmons, 1847-48 ; Geo. W. Horner, 1849-51 ; 
Frank Leach, 1852; G. M. Cooley, 1853-54; Consider Ellis, 1855; J. Rathbun, 1856-57; Ben- 
jamm Norton, 1858; Lucius C. May. 1859-60; Silas Richardson, 1861-65; E. F. Willetts, 
1866-67 ; Benjamin Norton, 1868-69; E. F. Willetts, 1870; Wilkes Angel, 1871 ; D. S. Lan- 
phear, 1872-73 ; V. A. Willard, 1874-75 ; Rufus Scott, 1876^78; A. C. Hall, 1879-81 ; Geo. H- 
Blackman, 1882; Elba Reynolds, 1883-4; Wm. P. Clark, 1885-6; Elba Reynolds, 1887; 
T. S. Tefft, 1888-9; C. S. Whitney, 1890-92 ; M. E. Horner, 1893-95. 

List of soldiers buried in Amity.— \xi the Belmont cemetery : Bela Bartlett, Peter Rey- 
nolds and Jame-s Sackett, of the war of 181 2-14. A. G. Cartwright, Orson Andrews, Robert 
H. Tucker, Elisha Sortore, Bradley Bowers. William Pettibone, Riley Utter. Anson T. Lawton, 
Byron D. Southworth, Timothy Eddy, Lucius Ward, David Crocker, Frank Van Orsdale, 
Charles Barnes, Samuel McGibeny, Wilbur F. McGibeny. Frederick Scribner, Jefferson Gorton, 
George Weaver, Henry Davis, Col. A. J. McNett, of the war of 1861-5. I" the Norton ceme- 
tery : Col. Jedadiah Nobles, Zebulon Nobles, of the war of 1812-14, and John Rathbun, Henry 
Hungerford, of the war of 1861-5. At Belvidere : Jerry White and William Higgins of war of 
1812-14, and William Comstock, Charles Ouesterhout, George Barnard and James White of 
war of 1 861-5. It's Weaver buried on the battlefield. 
* Furnished by Charles Stillman. 



456 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



CHAPTER XLII. 

CHURCHES, SCHOOLS AND SOCIETIES. 

CHURCH HI STORY. — The first religious services held in Amity were 
conducted by Rev. Robert Hubbard in 1814 at Samuel Van Campen's 
house. 

Baptist Church. — The first mention of religious services by Baptists in 
this town was in 1816, when Rev. Jonathan Post preached in private houses, 
barns, groves or in any place where the people could get together to hear 
him. Soon after this Rev. David Cross baptized Harry Davis. In 1818 the 
First Baptist church of Angelica was organized in a schoolhouse near where 
Cyrus Windus now lives, (it was Angelica then). The church had ten mem- 
bers, and in a few weeks nine united by baptism, making nineteen scattered 
over a large extent of country. This church existed but a few years, sev- 
eral members going out in 1822 to form a church in Friendship. Before this 
the church numbered 50 members, but seems not to have had a pastor or a 
stated place for meeting. The present church was recognized by an ecclesi- 
astical council April 24, 1832, composed of 43 members, dismissed from the 
church in Friendship for that purpose, and called the Baptist church of 
Amity, the town having been formed two years before. The name of the 
church was changed to Belmont in 1867. The first pastor was Rev. A. Tuthill, 
he first deacon Harry Davis, the first clerk William Van Campen, who served 
until 1848, when Jesse Sortore was elected, who continues in the same office. 
The pastors in the order in which they have served the church are. Rev. A. 
Tuthill, C. Randal, H. H.Whipple, Mr. Munger, E. Smith, B. M. Thomas, N. E. 
Chapin, B. M. Thomas, E. Smith, O. B. Call, A. C. Newland, D. M. Root, W. 
H. Randal, C. H. James, W. F. Purington, R. A. Waterbery, William Brooks, 
M. M. Coleman, G. E. Weeks, W. F. Benedict, H. D. Baldwin, A. M. Bennett. 
In 1853 twenty members were dismissed to organize a church in Wells- 
viUe, and in the same year Ely Davis, Jesse Sortore and Charles Davis were 
elected trustees. By direction of the church they purchased the lot where 
the church now stands and the house was dedicated in January, 1856, cost- 
ing about $3,000. In the summer of 1872 it was badly damaged by lightning, 
but was immediately repaired and furnished with a bell, at a cost of nearly $2,- 
800. The purchase of the bell and the finishing of the basement is largely 
due to the energy and push of Dr. C. B. Newton, one of the trustees. In 
1891 the house was again repaired and beautified at a cost of $1,100. In 1882 
the church purchased a house on Norton St., for $1,400, which was largely 
the gift of Ely Davis. The church has licensed three and ordained four 
ministers. A Sunday school has been maintained since its early history, 
and a Y. P. S. C. E. since 1888. The church reports a present membership 
of 178, the S. S. 201 with an average attendance of 102 and the Y. P. S. C. E. 
has 52 active and 14 associate members. The first pipe organ of the town 



Amity. 457 

was presented to this church in 1895 by Ely Davis, Esq., of Fredonia. It 
was placed in the rear of the pulpit in an addition to the church built to 
contain it. 

Tlie Methodist Ejnscopal Society was organized Jan. 15, 1834. The edifice 
was erected in 1836. The building committee consisted of the following: 
Henry Sortore, Walter Church, Aaron E. May, Hiram B. Whitcomb and 
David Downing, Jr. The first trustees were Bela Bartlett, Jonathan Sor- 
tore, Batman Fitz Simmons. Rev. W. D. Buck was pastor of Friendship 
circuit of which Belmont (then Phillips ville) was a part. Among the mem- 
bers of this society at that early time we find the familiar names of Bela 
Bartlett, J. Sortore, B. Fitz Simmons, William Sortore, John Simons, D. 
Downing, N. B. Whitcomb, Wm. Austin, Hiram Abbott. Jacob Feathers and 
others. This part of the charge had a steady growth until 1860. when some 
of its members withdrew to form the Free Methodist church. In 1871 
Belmont became a separate charge, with a membership of about 50. Pastors 
have been appointed in the order given: F. McDonald, F. D. Sargent, T. E. 
Clayton, F. D. Sargent, E. P. Hubbell, R. C. Grames, J. D. Monroe, John 
Woolton, W. J. Janes, E. A. Rice, J. W. Archibald, J. S. Brown, E. A. Rice, 
E. Mounts, E. J. Gwynn, F. W. Berlin, Henry Vosburg. The present pastor 
is S. H. Potter. The following have served as trustees: Francis Hall, M. E. 
Davis, Roswell Noble, Vorhies Sortore, S. R. Washburn, E. Sortore, G. W. 
Horner, Hirman Noble, L. Gorton, W. Simons, Wm. Noble, Jr. Many of the 
above named have also served as stewards, and others beside whose names 
follow: Leonard Nichols, J. Palmer, A. Merrill, Mrs. Nichols, Mrs. R. Noble, 
Phebe Noble, D. Shepherd, Salmon P, Bingham, W. Windus, H. Palmer. E. 
A. Robinson, R. M. Watson, Eugene Brov/n, Mrs. Susie Crandall, Miss 
Libbie Robinson, William Blanchard, Rev. W. C. Craig, also three local 
preachers, F. E. Wood, F. W. Eaton and W. E. Craig. The latter still makes 
Belmont his home. The present membership is about seventy-five. It has 
a Sunday school in fair condition. S. R. Washburn is the superintendent. 
It also has a young peoples' organization — an Epworth League — in good con- 
dition. Mrs. W. E. Craig is the president. 

The Presbiiterian Church. — This church was organized Jan. 30, 1832, at a 
meeting where Rev. Moses Hunter presided. The original eight members 
were Ellis May, Lucius S. May, Harvey H. May, John Norton, Jeriah Whit- 
comb, Aaron E. May, William Whitcomb and John H. May. More members 
were soon added. The first trustees were John Norton, Samuel Van 
Campen and Ellis May. For nine years services were held quite regularly 
in the schoolhouse which stood on the site of the surrogate's office. Then 
the building of a church edifice was seriously considered and a suitable lot 
was purchased. Mr. Ellis May for %\00, on the 20th of August, 1841, con- 
veyed to Jeriah Whitcomb, James Spaulding and John M. May, as trustees 
of "The First Presbyterian Congregation in Amity," the grounds upon 
which had been erected and dedicated the church which, altered, improved 
and added to, is still standing. The conveyance stated that the sale was "of 



458 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

a meeting-house site, parsonage, school house, and other rehgious purposes, 
as may be necessary for the use of the ' First Presbyterian Congregation in 
Amity,' and no other purposes whatever." The first pastor was Rev. 
Jabez Spicer, who came in September, 1832, preaching half the time. It is 
impossible to give the names and terms of service of all pastors of this 
church, but the edifice was erected under the pastorate of Rev. Benjamin 
Russell, and Rev. Samuel W. May and Rev. O. S. Powell ministered in early 
days. In 1860 and 1861 Rev. Allen Traver was pastor, and in 1866 Rev. J. 
S. Bingham. Rev. Nathaniel Elmer succeeded him for several years, after 
which for some time there was no regular pastor. Rev. Joel S. Kelsey 
became the pastor in June, 1876. From Sept. 30, 1854, until August, 1866, 
the church was under Congregational government. Then Presbyterian 
government was resumed by an unanimous vote. Among the most distin- 
guished of the clergymen of this church were Revs. Bingham and Rogers, 
the former a missionary in Southern China, and the latter in South America. 
The last pastor is Rev. D. A. Blose, who served with ability and general 
acceptance for several years, and resigned his pastorate in 1895. 

Saint Philijfs {Ejyiscopal) Church. — In 1853 what few communicants there 
were here (and some others) formed themselves into a society to establish a 
church in " Phillips ville. " They called a meeting at the residence of Rev. 
Dr. Bush, Jan. 5, 1854, when there were fifteen present. February 21, 1853, 
St. Philip's church was incorporated under the act of the state legislature. 
Charles Denroche and Charles J. Home were chosen wardens. September, 
1853, Judge Philip Church generously presented the lot where the church 
now stands. Rev. Louis Thibou of Angelica, was the first minister. He 
remained in charge until his death, which occurred Nov. 28, 1876. Rev. 
Thibou was succeeded by Rev. Scofield and then in succession the church 
was served by Rev. J. Hobart De Mille, Rev. A. B. Clark, Rev. Wilberforce 
Wells and Rev. S. A. Whitcomb, who now occupies the rectory. Services 
were held in the Methodist, Presbyterian and Baptist churches, until the 
church was finished. The first baptism was administered Oct. 2, 1859. The 
first marriage ceremony was performed Feb. 14, 1860. The first burial took 
place April 18, 1860. The first confirmation May 26, 1860, by Rt. Rev. Bishop 
William Heathcote Delancy. The class consisted of thirteen. The corner 
stone was laid for the church June 6, 1861. At the time the society was few in 
numbers, the country on the eve of the civil war and money was scarce, so 
the church was not completed until 1863. Then there was a large debt 
against the church which was not paid off until 1865. May 31, 1865, the 
church was consecrated by Rt. Rev. Bishop A. Cleveland Coxe, also 
with a class of seven. Up to 1895 there were confirmed in the church 
39. By the efforts of the ladies of this society, the house and lot 
adjoining the church property was purchased for a rectory. 

Ghrii^V 8 Clmrch Belvidere {Episcopal). — Regular services by Rev. Robert 
Horwood, rector of St. Paul's church, Angelica, were estabhshed in May, 
1859, although a visitation to the village had been made by the Rt. Rev. Wil- 



Amity. 459 

liam Delancy, D. D., bishop of Western New York, as early as 1854. These 
■first services were held in the schoolhouse. July 5, 1860, a parish was 
organized under the name of Christ's Church. Mrs. Angelica Warren and 
Mrs. Elizabeth Horwood, daughters of Hon. Philip Church, then set them- 
selves to collect money to build a church, and by the 8th day of August of 
the same year, at a vestry meeting, they reported the raising of a sufficient 
fund and it was decided to at once erect an edifice for divine worship large 
enough to seat 100 persons. August 18. 1859, the parish was admitted into 
union with the Western New York convention. The corner stone of the 
church was laid Nov. 1, 1859, by Rev. Robert Horwood. The first adult 
baptism took place in the schoolhouse Nov. 6, 1859, and the first confirma- 
tion was administered there by Bishop Delancy May 24, 1860. Sept. 29, 
1860, the church was consecrated and the first administration of the holy 
communion occurred. The seats were declared free. Rev. Horwood resigned 
the rectorship June 11, 1863, when the Rev. M. Scofield visited the parish in 
connection with St. Paul's at Angelica, and upon invitation became rector, 
and continued until February, 1867. The following have since served as 

rectors: Revs. J. Hunter, H. S. Jones, J. Leech, Sterrett, M. Scofield, 

and J. Wayne. Stated meetings are not now held, only occasional services. 
The Catholic Church.^ — The history of the Catholic church in the parish 
of Belmont dates back to 1840, when divine service was conducted by Rev. 
Thos. McEvoy of Java, N. Y., in a schoolhouse at Friendship. The next 
service, conducted by Father McEvoy also, was at Belmont in Mr. McCas- 
son's house in 1843. In 1845 Rev. Jas. Rhattigan otticiated at Belvidere in 
the house of Mr . Timothy Culbert, one of the Catholic pioneers of the county. 
In the summer of 1846 Father McEvoy said mass at Scio in the house of Mr. 
Wm. Clancy. The average attendance at these services was 150 and some 
came from a distance of twenty miles. From 1846 to 1848 mass was cele- 
brated frequently at Scio, Belmont and the Irish Settlement, always in 
private houses. 

In 1848 the Scio church was completed. The land for the edifice and a 
cemetery was donated by Mr. Hugh Riley. The builder was Mr. Brian 
Coyle of Scio. Its first trustees were Hugh Riley and Terence Brady and 
jDrominent among those who gave financial aid to the church's erection were 
Peter and Thos. Coyle, Jeremiah Sheehan, Jas. Crosby, Jno. and David 
Magner, B. Brady, J. Keenan, J. Quinn. M. O'Leary and Jas. P. and L. CUne. 
The early membership was about 300. Rev. Michael O'Brien, now of Lowell, 
Mass., was the first pastor of the church named by him St. Joseph's church. 
His jurisdiction extended over most of Allegany county. 

The necessity of a church in the central part of the county was then 
much felt. Father O'Brien set at the work at once, and a small church was 
erected in the village of Angelica, and dedicated in 1850 by Bishop Timon of 
Buffalo. Its first membership was about 200. It was attended by Father 
O'Brien till 1852. During the two succeeding years the Angelica church 

* By Rev. J. J. Dealy. 



460 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

and the Scio church was attended by Father Moore of Hornellsville and the 
Franciscans of Allegany College. They were succeeded by Rev. Jno. Two- 
hey till 1858. Rev. Mr. Creedon then was pastor till 1861 when he volun- 
teered as chaplain in the war. 

He was followed by Rev. E. McGlew who built the church at Belmont 
in 1862, and was pastor there as well as of the Scio and Angelica churches 
until 1864, when Rev. A. J. McConnell was appointed pastor. In 1869 he 
was succeeded by Rev. J. H. Leddy, the first rector to reside in Belmont. 
In 1873 he was followed by Rev. J. Lanigan for six months. Next came 
Rev. E. McDermott, who built the parochial residence in 1874 and was here 
until June, 1875, when Rev. George Dunbar became rector. He died in 
March, 1881. The succession of pastors from 1881 to 1895 is Revs. A. R. 
Barlow 1 yr., J. Lasher 1 yr., P. Berkery 7 yrs., J. Lafferty 6 mos., D. Riley 
18 mos., F. J. Burns 2 yrs. 

January 20, 1895, Rev. J. J. Dealy, the present rector, was appointed 
pastor of the parish of Belmont. Besides the Scio, Angelica and Belmont 
churches, he has charge of AUentown and the Catholic portion of the county 
house. According to the census of 1895 there are about 110 families in the 
parish. The property is conservatively valued at |6,000. The mission 
gives yearly about $125 for the support of the charitable institutions of the 
diocese, and about $100 for the education of young men for the ministry. 

The Belmont Union Free Sehool and Aeademy .* — In 1810 Polly Baker taught 
the first school in a log house which stood near the farm of Martin Noble. 
This was used as a schoolhouse until 1831, when a room in the tavern at 
Tracy's corner was used. This was a strange combination to be conducted 
under the same roof. Elder Tuttle soon purchased the tavern and kept 
a select school there until 1835, when a schoolhouse was erected on the 
church property, near the present site of the surrogate's office. Mr. Tuttle's 
school was quite popular, and pupils attended from miles around, " boarding 
at home " even when living considerable distance away, and when too far 
removed, securing board in the village. Tuition at this school was frequently 
paid in wheat, rye, potatoes, and sometimes by cutting wood. A Miss 
Spicer succeeded Rev. Tuttle as "ye pedagogue " at the "Table Knoll" 
school, and as late as her day, from the beautiful growth of pine which cov- 
ered the elevation now crowned with our county buildings, the pupils fre- 
quently saw herds of deer gamboling in the primitive forest. This " Table 
Knoll " schoolhouse was a great advance upon the old log schoolhouse, and 
quite likely the progressive trustees were charged with squandering the 
peoi^le's money, and getting high notions in their own and others heads. The 
front part of it was mainly devoted to an entry, with wardrobes on the sides, 
one for the boys and the other for the girls. A door opposite the front door 
led into the school room, the seats of which ran lengthwise of the building, 
the girls sitting on one side, the boys on the other. The front seats were 

* Largely taken from the excellent history prepared by Mr. N. Fuller, a graduate of the school in 1895, and 
read at the commencement exercises of that year. 



Amity. 461 

made low for the little ones, the back seats for the larger pupils being con- 
siderably higher. Miss Betsy Whitcomb taught here for one dollar a week, 
teaching alternate Saturdays or until noon every Saturday. 

In 1837 Mr. Hewitt was engaged to teach. He had studied law, was well 
educated and considered an excellent teacher. His " hobby " was geography 
and the text book used wasOlney's. He imj^ressed upon his pupils the great 
importance of correct positions in sitting while engaged in study, and put 
them through or drilled them in this. At his first order "right angles" 
the feet were placed square on the tioor, forming a right angle at the knees; 
the order, " shoulder arms " simply meant to fold them. Some of the old 
men yet remember the school kept by Mr. Bly in 1841, a man who believed 
in the old adage " spare the rod and spoil the child," for he kept a great 
stock of whips, of assorted sizes, tough and well seasoned, with some so 
long that he could reach the pu]3ils on the back seats. John B. Coal suc- 
ceeded Bly and was the first teacher to introduce botany. In 1849 the 
schoolhouse was removed to the new site on South street where the academy 
building stands. In 1852 it was moved back and used for the woodshed of 
a new, and larger building, dedicated the same year by Walter D. Renwick. 

During these years the village was growing, a settlement (Miltonville) 
had sprung up on the east side of the river, and a school was opened there 
in the room of a tavern which stood on the site of the Allegany House. Poor 
bridges, or no bridges, and the difficulty and danger in crossing the river 
which was frequently swollen, contributed more than anything else to bring 
about this result. In 1842 Melissa Dickey taught a school in a dry kiln 
about opposite Jonathan Boorn's house. Soon after a slab building costing 
fS15 was erected opposite Charles Wright's. Dr. Benjamin Norton taught 
school here for several years. Next came a red building on the lot where 
the old schoolhouse now stands. A four-year-old boy dropped a lighted 
match through a knot hole, and up went the building in smoke. The next 
winter the old Williams house on Triana street was used for a school, and, 
in 1852, a new schoolhouse was erected. Mr. Hewitt and Miss Westover 
were its first teachers. Then followed 30 years, during which, owing to the 
poor conditions and inefficient management of the two public schools, select 
schools were kept at different times with varying success, notable among 
them being the school taught by Mr. Hewitt in the building on the site of 
the Vanderhoof block, and among the prominent teachers in Belmont were 
Senator Teller, Dr. McDonald, Leander Gorton and Stephen Pollard. 

In 1881 the two school districts were consolidated and the resulting 
school graded. The first corps of teachers according to their rank, were N. 
J. Baker, Miss Bingham, Mrs. Mattoni and Miss Graves. The present 
academy building was erected in 1888, and Theo. S. Pulver was the principal 
for the first year. Prof. Jay Crissey came in 1H89. and regent's examina- 
tions were held the following November. Prof. Crissey was continued at 
the head of the school until the fall of 1895, when he resigned and Prof. 
Albert Ball was engaged. The registered number of pupils is 299, the 



462 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



attendance averages about 250, and the present instructors are: Albert Ball, 
principal, ancient languages and sciences; Elizabeth M. Ostrander, modern 
languages and drawing; Anna B. Nourse, mathematics, history and vocal 
music, May L. Carpenter, preparatory department; Pauline W. Renwick, 
grammar department; Alice L. Renwick, intermediate department; Jennie 
B. Mason, primary department and vocal music; Lola Holden, stenography. 
The board of trustees under whose direction the school building was 
erected in 1888, were A. Van Campen, J. H. Bissell, T. S. Tefft, R. A. Whit- 
comb, Wm. P. Clark, D. H. Bradley and E. I. Davis. The board of educa- 
tion now is, James K. Hall, H. A. Norton, James H. Anderson, D. H. Bradley, 
H. C. Vanderhoof, Charles Youngs, W. P. Clark, M. W. Sortore, and the 
officers are: Elba Reynolds, president; Eldyn Reynolds, secretary; John 
Bradt, treasurer; Giles Davis, collector; E. N. Black, attendance officer; 
Charles Youngs, M. W. Sortore, James K. Hall, executive committee; D. H. 
Bradley, H. C. Vanderhoof, H. A. Norton, finance committee; Elba Reynolds, 
W. P. Clark, James H. Anderson, school visitation and text books. 

The Belmont Literary and Historical Society, and Free Public Library 
Building. — Two of the many things of which Amity, and Belmont especially, 
has just cause to be proud are the above mentioned society and building. 
The society was formed by some ladies of Belmont, who, in October, 1885, 
met for the purpose at the home of Mrs. Dr. I. P. Truman. These officers 
were elected, Mrs. J. H. Russell president, Mrs. Charles Gorton vice presi- 
dent, Mrs. Truman secretary and treasurer. A name for the society was 
determined upon, and a committee appointed to draft a constitution and by- 
laws, which in due time were adopted. The first article of the constitution 
reads, "The object of this society shall be the intellectual improvement 
of its members, and the formation and maintenance of a public library." 
In November a list of books was sent for, and Dec. 4th Miss Delia Noble, 
now Mrs. Lester Bellamy of Transit Bridge, was elected librarian. They 
were so few in number, only 40, that they w^ere brought each week to the 
place of meeting, a room in the engine house, in a market basket. The next 
June the society closed its first year's work with 31 members. The next 
September, and each succeeding September has found the society re-orga- 
nized, showing it with greater growth and prosperity. In 1887 the first cata- 
logue of books was made and though the library numbered but 140 volumes, 
even then it was very valuable, because of the care used in selecting them. 

In March, 1888, the society was incorporated, and the certificate of in- 
corporation was presented to the society by its president, Mrs. Prank Van 
Campen. without expense to its members. This was a wise step, as it placed 
the society upon a firm foundation. The first board of trustees were then 
elected. They were, Mrs. M. E. Davis, Mrs. Hamilton Ward, Mrs. E. W. 
Chamberlain, Mrs. A. J. McNett, Mrs. W. K. Paul and Mrs. C. G. Anderson. 
The idea soon occurred to Mrs. Van Campen that a building might, should, 
and could be erected. 











BELMONT FREE LIBRARY. 



Amity. 463 

Some shook their heads, regarding the enterprise as impossible of exe- 
cution, but so thoroughly in earnest were these ladies that they immediately 
began to raise money and in February, 1889, the first installment of the 
building fund was raised (it being the proceeds of a concert, and only $5) 
and by June, 1892, $800 was in the bank to the credit of the society. Mrs. 
Hamilton Ward then presented the society with a valuable lot, as a site for 
the proposed building. This stimulated to renewed efforts, which soon 
secured |1,000 more, when Mrs. Ward presented an equal sum. The trus- 
tees then let the contract for erecting the fine brick structure which they 
now ow^n. The funds were only sufficient to enclose it and finish off two 
small rooms one for the library and a session room. They were occupied 
Jan. 1, 1894. The next June the society voted to borrow sufficient money to 
complete the building, and the structure was finished in a few months. It 
is furnished with a furnace, gas for lights and fuel, electric wires, a kitchen 
and dining room, a session room, library, reading room, dressing rooms, 
and a hall, Ward Hall, with a seating capacity for 400. The library now con- 
tains 1,425 carefully selected volumes, and has over 400 regular readers. 
In the reading room are the latest periodicals and papers. The hopes of its 
founders are fully realized. Since 1892 it has been under the Regents of 
the State of New York, and a free public library, and each year |200 at 
least are expended for books. 

During the effort to build the structure and increase the library the 
"intellectual improvement of its members " has not been neglected and the 
work of a " literary and historical club " of the most active character has 
been fully carried on. The programs have been rich and varied. Interest- 
ing papers have been prepared and read; parliamentary and pronunciation 
drills are given. A critic appointed each month fearlessly corrects the 
errors. The society now numbers over 60 and the members consider that it 
has been to them a lasting benefit, giving them higher aims and loftier am- 
bitions, and placing them on a higher intellectual plane. With $1,000 invested 
as a reserve fund, the gift of a friend, said to be Andrew Carnegie, and but 
a small indebtedness the society is in a prosperous condition and the ladies 
deserve high praise for their faithful perseverance in procuring a free library 
procured exclusively by their own efforts and housed in a structure owned 
and controlled by women. 

The presidents of the B. L. & H. Society have been: Mrs. J. H. BisseD, 
Mrs. M. E. Davis, Mrs. Frank VanCampen, Mrs. Bissell, and Mrs. Hamil- 
ton Ward. The present officers are: president, Mrs. Hamilton Ward; 1st 
vice president, Mrs. C. E. Clark; 2d vice president, Mrs. E. I. Davis; secre- 
tary, Mrs. George Austin; treasurer, Mrs. M. E. Davis, (she has held that 
position for the last 5 or 6 years); hbrarian, Miss Ella Sortore; 1st assistant 
librarian, Florence Holden; 2d assistant librarian, Mrs. Hattie N. Mattoni. 
The trustees are Mrs. M. E. Davis, Mrs. C. E. Clark, Mrs. J. H. Bissell, 
Mrs. Frank VanCampen and Mrs. E. I. Davis. 



464 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

The Tourists Club, a ladies' club with a membership limited to twenty, 
was organized in the spring of 1893. Its objects are, the social and literary 
improvement of its members and its meetings are held weekly on Tuesdays. 
Its first officers were Mrs. S. M. Anderson, president; Mrs. H. A. Richard- 
son, vice president; Mrs. Alice Brown, secretary; and Mrs. Harriet Willett, 
treasurer. The present officers are: president, Mrs. F. B. Keeney; vice 
president, Mrs. D. T. Williams; recording secretary. Miss Blanche Pease; 
secretary, W. J. Richardson; treasurer, Mrs. B. P. Mapes. 

The Musical Student's Club is a ladies' club which has been in existence 
several years. Its object is mutual help and encouragement in the study of 
music. Meetings are held monthly. 

W. C. T. U. present officers are: Mrs. J. W. Bartlett, president; Mrs. A. 
M. Anderson, vice president; Mrs. H. N. Mattoni, secretary; Mrs. Helen A. 
Richardson, treasurer. 

Fire Department.- — March 11, 1882, a meeting of the citizens was held in 
Newton's Hall to organize a fire company. J. H. Bissell was chosen as tem- 
porary chairman, D. H. Bradley was elected president of the organization 
(named Belmont Fire Company) and E. A. Palmer, secretary. At a later 
meeting held to complete organization the charter members were: J. H. Bis- 
sell, D. H. Bradley, W. H. Somers, V. A. Willard, F. H. Roth, E. S. Richard- 
son, J. E. Norton, C. H. Wright, N. J. Baker, E. A. Palmer, J. H. Anderson 
and E. V. Sortore. These officers were elected: foreman, J. H. Bissell; 
assistant foreman, N. B. Fuller; secretary, H. C. Norris; treasurer, W. H. 
Somers. A hose company was soon after organized and named after the 
county clerk, Geo. H. Blackman. An engine company was also formed and 
named for the sheriff, I. J. Elliott. There is now but one organization. The 
officers are: chief, J. H. Bissell; assistant chief , E. S. Richardson; treasurer, 

E. N. Black; secretary, C. E. Wallace. The department is very efficient, has 
a good horse power engine, hose cart, etc., and an engine house. 

Philli'ihwille Lodge, No. 356, I. 0. 0. F. was instituted Nov. 7, 1847. by 
District Deputy Grand Master Joab B. Hughes. It continued in active 
operation until after 1850, when a rupture occurring in the Grand Lodge of 
the state, this lodge with many other country lodges gave uj) its charter. 
It then had a membership of about 100. Its first officers were: Randall 
Reed, N. G.; Alvan E. Parker, V. G.; Henry A. Parker, Q. S.; Peter T. 
Firm, P. S.; Mark W. Pike, Treas. Early in 1873 these members petitioned 
for re-instatement, H. N. Wheelock, G. M. Cooley, J. W. Norton, OHver Nor- 
ton, E. E. Hyde, Benjamin Norton, Henry S. Norton, and the lodge was 
re-instated June 10, 1873, and these officers elected: N. G., H. N. Wheelock; 
V. G., G. M. Cooley; Sec, E. E. Hyde; Treas., Josiah Jadwin; Chap., Rev. 

F. D. Sargeant; Con. Rev. F. D. Sargeant; Warden, J. W. Norton; R. S. N. 
G., J. N. Hyde; L. S. N. G., F. Vanderhoef; O. G., Charles Karze; I. G., O. 
W. Norton; R. S. S., WiUiam Hood; L, S. S., E. R. Bosworth; P. G., Ben- 
jamin Norton; R. S. V. G., John Leilous, Jr.; L. S. V. G., Benjamin Roberts. 
This lodge ceased to exist several years since. 



Amity. 465 

Beimont Lodge, No. 474, F. A. M. was instituted July 2, 1859. Its charter 
members were: E. W. Chamberlain, R. Reed, C. Ellis, C. J. Horne, F. A. 
Whitcomb, H. Ward, J. Dickey, A. Miller, and G. M, Cooley, and the first 
officers, E. W. Chamberlain, W. M.; R. Reed, S. W.; C. Elhs, J. W. The 
presiding officers have been: E. W. Chamberlain, C. Ellis, B. B. Clark, R. 
Reed, B. Norton, L. Gorton. O. A. Fuller, V. A. Willard. The present 
officers are: W. A. Pollard, W. M.; Charles Wallace, S. W.; J. W. Hinman, J. 
W.; F. Vanderhoef, treasurer; Stephen Pollard, secretary; J. G. Willett, 
S. D.; J. W. Dean, J. D.; W. H. Brown, chaplain; Wilham Wilson, S. M. C; 
Frank DeLong, J. M. C; A. W. Bennett, Tiler. The lodge is in a flourishing 
condition, and has 55 members; 213 members have been initiated. 

Belmont Lodge, No, IJ^o, A. 0. U. IF., was organized April 4, 1878, with 16 
charter members. The first officers were: Past Master Workman, Joseph 
W. Bartlett; M. W., Thomas Dougan; G. F., Edward Bacon; O., Jefferson 
Gorton; Rec, A. P.Cole; Fin., R. M. Watson; R., D. G. Freeborn; G., F. 
N. Smith; I. W., J. W. Pease; O. W., George Mason. The officers for 1896 
are: Past Master Workman, Leman R. Lewis; Master Workman, Virgil A. 
Willard; Gen. Foreman, J. H. Arnen; Overseer, Leman R. Lewis; Recorder, 
Edwin S. Richardson; Financier, J. W. Bartlett; Financier, Thomas S. Tefft; 
Guide, C. Fred Clarke; Inside Watchman, W. D. Hood; Outside Watchman, 
E. I. Davis. The lodge has 47 members. Since organization 6 members 
have died. 

BeUnont Union E. A. U. was organized May 8, 1880, by L. J. Parker, Dep. 
Supreme President, with 14 charter members. These officers were elected 
and installed: Anson C. Hall, president; John P. Roth, chancellor; Gen. 
Rufus Scott, advocate; Solomon H. Tracy, vice president; Benjamin Norton, 
secretary; Henry Wier, accountant; Edward Bacon, treasurer; Alfred W. 
Bennett, auxiliiary; Wm. H. Bloom, chaplain; William Sankey, sentinel; S.J. 
Scheanck, -watchman; William H. Granby, warden; Franklin Davis, conductor. 
The present officers are, Mrs. Rhoda Hyde, president; Mrs. Lena Bartlett, 
vice president; W. V. Robinson, chaplain; James Johnson, secretary and ac- 
countant. There are 40 members at present. 

Fidelity Tent., K. 0. T.M., No. 130, was organized Nov. 10, 1889, with B. 
P. Mapes, P. C; F. G. Helme, Com.; E. N. Black, L. Com.;G. L. Tucker, 
Jr., R. K.; H. C. Vanderhoef, F. K.; J. W. Hinman, Pre!.; S. Davidson, S.; 
W. J. Hardy, Phys.; I. V. Averill, M. at A.; Louis Elliott, 1st M. of G.; Chas. 
Wright, 2d M. of G.; A. Simons, Sen.; Ed. Delong, P. There are 140 mem- 
bers. Present officers: P. C, Chas. Wallace; C, R. F. Bower; L. C, R. H. 
Mellefont, Jr.; R. K., Geo. Peck; F. K., H. C. Vanderhoef ;.Chap., J. C. Phip- 
pen; Phys., W. J. Hardy; Serg. T. S. Windus, M. at A., Richard Saunders; 
1st M. of G., Fred Casterline; 2d M. of G., Adelbert Dyke; S., D. W. Cran- 
dall; P., T. J. O'Brien. 

Elizabeth Hive, No. 52, L. 0. T. M. , organized May 28, 1892, with these 
officers: P. L. C, Mrs. Lovinia Leilous; L. C, Mrs. Louise Brundage; Lieut. 
C, Mrs. Emily G. Clark; R. K. Mrs. Mary A. Adams; F. K., Mrs. Vinnie 



466 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Simons; Phys. Dr. H. A. Barney. There are 48 members. Present officers: 
P. L. C, Mrs. Lovinia Leilous; L. C, Mrs. Mary Sortore; Lieut. C, Mrs. W. 
A. Tefft; R. K, Mrs. Harriet N. Mattoni; F. K., Mrs. Mary S. Adams. The 
hive is in a flourishing condition. 

Royal Legion, iVb 5^, was organized July 14, 1892, with these officers: 
President, Mrs. Lovinia Leilous; vice president. Mrs. Mary A. Adams; sec- 
retary, George A. Scott; treasurer, John Q. Adams. This is a benefit or- 
ganization, and has 110 members in Belmont, and the present officers are: 
Hugh Johnson, president; Maranda Ives, vice president; Joseph Bartlett, 
treasurer; Sarah J. Bentley, chaplain, Mrs. A. M. Anderson, secretary. 



Something of Some of the People. — George H. Austin, son of Seward Austin, was 
born in Cameron, Aug. 22, 1862. He attended the common schools and Alfred University. 
In 1890 he married Hattie E. Chandler. Since 1887 he has been a cheese manufacturer, and 
in 1893, purchased the Richburg cheese factory; in 1894 he exchanged it for the Gilt-edge 
cheese factory at Belmont. This factory uses the milk of 400 cows, and has a Babcock tester. 

Isaac V. Averill, son of Julius C, was born in Belmont July 4, 1853. His father, a native 
of Rutland Co., Vt., came to this county in 1841, and made his home in Belmont in 1842. mar- 
ried Mary Richardson and had 10 children. He pulled out the stumps on the Erie railroad, 
and on contract built two miles of the road, losing $10,000 by the company's failure. He died 
in 1873. In 1874 Isaac V. Averill went to Bradford, lived there 13 years and kept a restaurant. 
In 1885 in company with F. M. Babcock he established the Allegany Stock Farm, of which he 
has been sole proprietor since 1 891. Here he makes a specialty of raising trotting horses, 
keeping from 12 to 15 Hambletonians and Mambrinos. In 1889 Mr. Averill made his home 
in Belmont, and, in 1893, married Mary E. Bennett. He is a past commander of the K. O. T. 
M. at Belmont. 

Bela Bartlett, born at Bath, N. H., in 1800, was great-grandson of Josiah Bartlett, the 
signer of the Declaration of Independence. Bela when 14 became a soldier of the War of 
181 2, and, after the war, came first to Monroe Co., then to Warsaw, where he lived until 1832, 
and married Pamelia, daughter of Roderick Chapin. In 1832 he established himself as a 
cabinet maker and undertaker in Belmont, and only retired from business on attaining 75 years 
of age. He died in 1880. Of his nine children five are living. He was prominently connected 
with the development of Belmont, and a man highly esteemed. Joseph W. Bartlett, son of 
Bela, was born Sept. 13, 1837. When 17 years old he went to Troy and for eight years was a 
tailor there. He then went to California and, 11 years later, in 1875, returned to Belmont, 
where he has since been a merchant tailor and undertaker. In 1871 he married Lena McCrea 
of Pictou, N. S. Their son Joseph is a medical student. 

George R. Benjamin's grandfather, Asa, one of the pioneer settlers of Belfast, came from 
Oneida Co. about 181 8. His son, Lee Benjamin, was born in Belfast, May 10, 1824. He mar- 
ried Loranda, daughter of Joseph Baker of Andover, and had 4 children. Their son, George 
R., was born in Andover, Feb. 7, 1846. He worked on the farm until he was 25 years of age, 
when he learned the mason's trade and has since been engaged in contracting and building. 
The Belmont schoolhouse, the Literary Building, and the County Jail of Belmont (the latter in 
1894) were erected by him. He employs from 15 to 20 men. In 1869 Mr. Benjamin married 
Lucy Gibson, who died in 1879. They had 6 children. In 1880 he married Lovie, widow of 
Capt. A. G. Cartwright, of Roanoke, N. C. They are members of the Baptist church of Bel- 
mont. Mr. Benjamin has held the office of constable 4 years, and in 1892 was elected overseer 
of the poor. He is also street commissioner. 

Elbridge N. Black, son of Alexander and Mary A. (Morse) Black, was born in Ward, 
Sept. 24. 1853. His mother was a daughter of Newman and Polly (Spangler) Morse. Mr. 
Black was educated at Alfred University. He married. Mar. 24, 1875, Emma A., daughter of 
Thomas and Chloe (Vaughn) Foster. They had one daughter, Augusta. Mrs. Black died in 
1876. Mr. Black was formerly a farmer. In 1881 he made his residence in Belmont, and is 
now the successful proprietor of the Cottage Hotel. 



Amity. 467 

William D. Bunnell, son ot Geori^e A. and Weighty J. (Royce) Bunnell, was born Mar. 17, 
1862, in Ward. George A. Bunnell was born Maj( 11, 1826, at Berkshire, Tioga Co. He 
settled in the west part of Alfred in June, 1849, (later part of Ward.) He was elected collector 
at the first town meeting in Ward, and succeeded himself 3 times. He was supervisor several 
times. His principal business was farming, but he was a natural mechanic, and in 1886, 1887 
and 1890 he bought timber in Allegany county and framed barns at Wellsville and shipped 
them to New Jersey and there put them up. Mr. Bunnell died May 6, 1895, leaving a w\ie, 3 
daughters and his only son, William D. His daughters are Mrs. Reuben Austin, Mrs. Clara 
Collins and Mrs. Anna Morehouse, all of Ward. William D. Bunnell was married Dec. 24, 
1882, to Allice, daughter of L. W. and Viana (Alles) Collins. [The Collins family have served 
in town offices in Ward.] Their children are Lulu E., George W., Eldyn L. and Mary A. Mr. 
Bunnell was a student of Alfred University. His business has been farming and auctioneering, 
and for several years he has represented the manufacturing house of Mast, Foos & Co. of 
Springfield, Ohio, in the sale of pumps and mills. Mr. Bunnell was town clerk for 4 years, and 
in 1890, 1892, and 1893 was elected supervisor of Ward, the last year having but 3 votes cast 
against him. In March, 1894, he made his home in Amity. 

Frank Van Campen, son of William Hanford and Amanda Knighi Seely Van Campen, 
was born in 1845. Besides home schools he attended Belfast and Lima seminaries. In 1863 he 
accepted a position in the quartermaster's office in Elmira and that fall entered the First 
National Bank of that city, remained until April, 1866, when he became cashier of the Second 
National Bank of Havana, N. Y., until 1869, when he returned to Belmont, and, with his father, 
bought the old stone flouring mills and water power, and has since been in the milling business. 
He married June 28, 1871, Bettie D., daughter of Charles and Olive (Miller) Richardson of 
Gardiner, Maine. Their children are Helene R., Wm. Richardson and Franc Marina. Mrs. 
Van Campen was president of the Belmont Literary and Historical Society for two terms, 1887 
and 1888, and is now serving a 5 years" term as trustee of that society, and is also trustee of the 
Belmont Free Library. 

Benjamin Crabtree, a native of Massachusetts, settled at Amsterdam, N. Y., previous to 
1800. In 181 3 he came to Friendship. Daniel Crabtree, son of Benjamin, was born in Amster- 
dam in 1809, came to Friendship with his father, and, in 1837, settled in Amity, built a sawmill 
at Belmont, still known as the Crabtree mill. He was a carpenter and millwright by trade. He 
married Betsey, daughter of Silas Whitcomb ; they had 8 children. Mrs. Crabtree died in 1886, 
her husband the same year. He was an active temperance man. His son, Emerson W. Crab- 
tree, was born in 1847, and has always resided in town. He is a farmer and lumberman and 
has the homestead of 165 acres. He has been highway commissioner several terms, is a Re- 
publican and takes an active part in political affairs. 

Benjamin Green Crandall, son of Peter and Nancy (Blivens) Crandall, was born in Berlin, 
N. Y., Dec. 17, 1797. In 1818 he came to Amity with his father and brother William, and set- 
tled 2 miles south of Belmont. In 1823 he married Anna, daughter of Samuel Van Campen. 
who had 4 children (one of them Dr. Charles M. Crandall), and died May 3, 1832. His second 
wife was Mary C. Stebbins (married Oct. 3, 1833), who had 8 children. She died in Friendship 
Jan. 8, 1888, Mr. Crandall Feb. 18, I874. Harrison Crandall, son of Benjamin G. and Mary C. 
(Stebbins) Crandall, was born Sept. 15, 1835. At the age of 18 he went to learn the black- 
smith's trade. Dec. 28, 1863, he enlisted in Co. I. 141st Regt. and was engaged in 3 regular 
battles. July 20, 1864, he was wounded at the battle of Peach Tree Creek, was taken to the 
hospital, and remained there until discharged July 8, 1865. He is a member of Revere Post 
G. A. R.' Since the war he has been engaged in blacksmithing. In 1872 he married H. Eliza- 
beth Curtis. Their children are Albertus Hayes and Orsa Eloise. E. M. Wilson of Belfast 
sends us these additional facts: Peter Crandall was a Revolutionary soldier and a descendant 
of Rev. John Crandall, a Welch Baptist preacher that joined Roger Williams' settlement at 
Providence, R. I., about 1637. From Rhode Island Peter emigrated to the Patroon Van Rens- 
selaer's Manor on the Hudson, afterward the seat of the " Anti-Rent " war, where he developed 
a fine farm from the forest, and either selling out or not obtaining title came in 1818 to Amity 
where he died in 1838. Mary C. (Stebbins) Crandall was descended from a Massachusetts 
family which traces its line to the 13th century. The name and armorial bearings are recorded 
in England from that time. Benjamin G. Crandall was a carpenter as well as a farmer. He 
made his home in Eagle (then Allegany county) from the winter of 1835-6 for about 12 years, 
when he returned to Amity. He was a Whig and later a Republican, and took the Albany 
Jou7-nal for over 40 consecutive years. He was an ardent " militia man," and was commis- 
sioned captain of infantry Aug. 30, 1826, by Governor Clinton. He was a Baptist from early 
manhood. " Contrary to the general rule he was not known as ' Major ' or ' Colonel ' ever 
after, but as ' Uncle Ben,' which was far better." 



468 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Joshua Baker, a native of Washington county, born in 1785, settled in West Almond in 
1 831. Of his descendants was Edwin, whose son Joshua was born in West Almond, March 
9, 1 831, and in 1869 married Edna, daughter of John Leilous. Their children are Mabel, Ed- 
win, Floyd, and Clarence. Mr. Joshua Baker died Feb. 25, 1888, in Amity. His family reside 
on the home farm. 

Isaac Van Deventer, son of Abraham Van Deventer a colonel in the war of 1812, was 
born in Romulus, N. Y., in 1812. He married Phoebe Hamilton. Some years after his marriage 
he came to Cuba and later to Friendship and was a farmer. His wife died in 1884, and he now 
resides in Hinsdale with Mrs. Bryant, one of his five children. Oliver J. Compton, son of Jesse, 
was born in Wayne. N. Y.. July 28, 1848. In 1849 his father moved into Clarksville, and en- 
gaged in farming. In 1869 Oliver married LeEtte Van Deventer, daughter of Isaac. They 
have 5 children. For several years after his marriage he was a farmer. In 1884 he removed 
to Belmont where he is a contractor and builder. 

Rev. John J. Dealy was born in Willing June 4, 1862. His early education was acquired 
at the public schools of Willing and Wellsville ; and from 1878 to 1881 he attended select 
schools in Wellsville and Hornellsville. From 1881-2 he studied at St. Charles College Balti- 
more, Md., and in 1890 graduated from Niagara University, Buffalo. The same year he was 
appointed assistant rector of St. Mary's church, Olean. Jan. 8, 1891, he was transferred from 
Olean to St. Columbia church in Buffalo. Oct. i, 1892, he was appointed assistant rector of 
the Annunciation church, Buffalo. July 20, 1894, he was sent to Elmira to be assistant pastor 
of St. Patrick's church, and chaplain at the State Reformatory. From there he came to Bel- 
mont. Mr. Dealy is an energetic, wide-awake, progressive man ; as tolerant of the religious 
opinions of others, as he is tenacious of his own, and has many warm friends outside of his 
church. He is a zealous worker in temperance and other reforms, a pleasant, impressive, forci- 
ble and eloquent speaker, and in frequent demand to address societies and public meetings. 

Joseph Demmer was born at Williamsville in 1839. When he was 15 years old he went on 
the Buffalo division of the Erie railroad as water-boy for a year, then entered the office at 
Hornellsville, learned telegraphy, and was there about 2 years when he came to Andover. In 
i860 he located in Belmont and for four years was telegraph operator. Since 1864 Mr. Dem- 
mer has been station-agent, and agent for Wells-Fargo Express Company. In 1864 he mar- 
ried Lucy, daughter of Henry S. Norton. They have 2 children. Marietta (Mrs. J. H. Ander- 
son), and Charles Carroll. 

George W. Estabrook was born at East Haddam, Conn., Aug. 11, 181 5. March 19, 1835, he 
married Polly M., daughter of John Starr, of Newfield, N. Y. Mr. Estabrook was a resident of 
Andover for several years, was postmaster, and for several years ticket agent for the Erie rail- 
road. He became a citizen of Belmont, and October, 1890, married for his second wife, Matilda, 
widow of Dr. William S. Todd. Mr. Estabrook died June 17, 1892. His widow resides 
in town. 

John Gorton, a native of Painted Post, N Y., settled in 1833 about one; mile west of Bel- 
mont as a farmer. By his wife Charlotte Case, he had six children. He died April 4. 1848, 
his wife July 14, 1879. His only son Leander was born June 25, 1835, educated at Alfred Uni- 
versity, in 1858 he married Celestia E. Niles, by whom he had tive children who are all living. 
In i860 he engaged in civil engineering and surveying, following this until 1879 when he was 
employed by parties who afterward organized the National Transit Company, in surveying and 
securing the right of way for pipe lines from Olean to New York City. He was employed by 
by this company until 1891. He was justice of the peace for 14 years at Belmont where he 
now resides. Charles Gorton, oldest son of Leander, born in Belmont, Dec. 4, 1859, attended 
Alfred University, is now civil engineer, and has for several years been agent for the National 
Transit Company in procuring right of way and adjusting claims. He married Ella J. Clark. 
Children, Julia C, Ruth M., Mildred. 

Asel Halbert, a native of Chesterfield, Mass., settled in Almond in 1839, where he resided 
until 1854, when he moved to Bolivar where he died in 1868. He was a farmer. He married 
Almira Donaldson who died in 1861. But two of their 12 children survive, Asa, a retired drug- 
gist, who resides at Portville, and Alexis L. Halbert, who was born June 20, 1828, in Chenango 
county. In 1852 he married Maria Crandall of Ward. They had 5 children. She died in 1878. 
In 1879 he married Catharine, daughter ot Rev. Lorin Bennett of Ward. Their son bears the 
name of Leroy. Mr. Halbert taught school several terms and carried on farming. In 1882 he 
located in Amity where he has since resided. The family are members of the Baptist church. 
Mr. Halbert enlisted in the 85th N. Y. Regt. He joined the regiment at Roanoke Island, N. C, 
in (864, was with it until the close of the war, and was honorably discharged in 1865. He is a 
member of Revere Post, No. 195, G. A. R., and has been its quartermaster since 1885. 



Amity. 469 

George Wortzer Horner was born in New Jersey, Dec. 12, 1808. In 1810 his father, Tim- 
othy Horner, came to Ovid, N. Y., and after a few years located here. George W. came in 
1822, learned the trade of a millwright and followed it for many years. In 1843 he married 
Harriet Noble. They had 5 children : Cornelia, George W., a resident of Pullman, Washington, 
Leonora (wife of Rev. E. P. Hubbell, of Buffalo), George W., (died when 17) and Melvin E. 
Mr. Horner held the offices of supervisor and highway commissioner. He was an active 
member of the iVI. E. church. He died March 10, i8g^. His wife died March 21, 1888. Mel- 
vin E. Horner was born April 13, 1852. He married Flora Gorton and has 5 sons. He has 
held the office of supervisor 3 years, and that of highway commissioner 5 years, is a member of 
Belmont Lodge of F. & A. M.' 

Riley Johnson, son of Oliver, was born in Ovid. N. Y., and came to Almond about 1829 
and located in McHenry Valley and took up 400 acres of wild land and cleared the land and 
tilled the soil. He married Emelme, daughter of Frank Brooks, of Uansville. Mr. Johnson 
died in 1892, Mrs. Johnson in iSgi. Tney had three sons: Lyman lives at BuUis Mills, Hugh, 
who was in Co. H, 130th Reg't. N. Y. V., resides at Belmont, and James, who was in Co. H, 
130th Reg't. N. Y. v.. was discharged July 28, 1865. He then returned to Almond, and in 
r866 married Jane, daughter of Nathaniel Green and was a farmer. He has 4 children. His 
wife died July i, 1894. In 1883 he moved to Belmont and for the last 10 years he has acted as 
deputy sheriff 

Thorn is Kane, son of Patrick, was born in Ireland and came to America in 1840 and for 2 
years worked at his trade of tailoring. In 1842 he came to Ward and engaged in farming. He 
married, first, Annie Bniley and had 2 children. She died in i860, and Mr. Kane's second wife 
was Ann Conlon. They had 6 children, 4 girls and 2 boys. The boys are joint owners of a 
tract of land in Amity and are progressive farmers. Patrick Kane, son of Thomas and Annie 
(Bailey) Kane was born March 4, i860. He was educated at the district schools and at Alfred 
University and has been a teacher in the schools of Allegany county for 10 years. 

John Leilous, born in Dublin, Ireland, was pressed into the British service when 13 years 
old just before the Battle of Waterloo. In 1812 he escaped from the British fleet on Lake 
Champlain, w^ent to Rutland, Vt., and there married Mary Parker. In 1837 he came to Amity, 
purchased a farm and engaged in lumbering. Of his 13 children five came to this county. John 
Leilous, Jr., son of John, was born July 31, 1820, in Clarendon, Vt. Coming herewith his father 
when 17 he engaged in farming and in lumbering. In 1841 he married Sophronia Easton who 
died in 1861. They had eight children. In 1863 Mr. Leilous married Lavinia, daughter of Sam- 
• uel McGibeny. One child Effie. 

John Lewis, son of Henry, was born May 29, 1826. in Lisle, Broome county. His father 
was also born in Lisle (in 1800), married Louisa Eddy, a native of Otsego Co., (born in 1799), 
They came to West Almond in 1833, purchased 140 acres of land, which, in 1839, they sold and 
purchased another. Henry Lewis died Dec. 2, 1846, and his wife Dec, 23. John Lewis was 
reared in West Almond, m May, 1848, married Mary, daughter of George McGibeny. and, in 
1847, settled in Ward as a farmer. He was drafted in 1863. He has been a highway com- 
missioner, assessor, constable, and held other offices. He now resides in Amity, has five chil- 
dren and a productive farm of 250 acres. 

Charles E. Mills, son of Marcus T. and Laura (Crandall) Mills, was born in Wirt, in 1863. 
He received the educational advantages of Friendship Academy. In 1881 he commenced clerk- 
ng in the drug store of Wm. H. Scott, of Friendship, and in 1891 retnoved to Belmont and 
formed a partnership with George A. Green as Mills & Green, druggists. Charles E. Mills is a 
descendant of James Mills, who married his wife Polly Basly in New York City. In 1820 he 
came from New York City to F'riendship where he lived 2 years, when he removed to Akron, 
Ohio, where he died. He had 9 children. John S. Mills, his son, came to Friendship witn his 
father, accompanied him to Ohio, then came to Lockport where he learned harnessmaking. He 
then returned to Friendship and engaged in harnessmaking. In 1837 he married Harriet A., 
daughter of Eli and Silvia Francis Baird. He resided in Friendship until his death in 1886. His 
wife now lives in Friendship. Mr. Mills was paymaster-general in the state militia. He had 4 
sons and 1 daughter: Marcus T., A. C, J. L. B., H. I., and Silvia A. (Mrs. Geo. Travis). 

Benjamin Milks, a native of Otsego Co., was born in 1799. He married Dorus Grinnell. 
He settled at Whitesville about 1830, and kept a hotel. He was a shoemaker by trade, and also 
transacted some legal business. In 1848 he bought a farm in West Union, and after residing 
there several years, he passed a few years in Canisteo and Hornellsville. In 1870 he came to 
Amity, where he and his wife died in 1879. Of their 4 children Benjamin F. Milks is the only 
survivor. He was born Dec. 3, 1833. In 1858 married Sarah J., daughter of Charles Rosen- 
bark (one of the early settlers of Ward, he came from Steuben Co.). She died in 1888. Mr. 
Milks' second wife was Laura L. Gillett, they have a son, Perrv Earl. Mr. Milks, when a boy 
of 15 years, left home and worked in a sawmill, and learned the trade of millwright, and has 



470 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



been engaged in building and operating mills, and been a miller in most of the northern states 
east of the Mississippi river. In 1870 he purchased a farm in Amity, where he resides. 

Parish Morehouse, son of Archibald, was born in Washington Co., in 1821. His father 
came from that couny in 1836 and located on a tract of forest land in West Almond where his 
industry developed a tine farm. He married Mary Parish in Washington Co., who bore him 12 
children and died in 1847. Mr. Morehouse died in 1849. Parish was but 15 years old when he 
accompanied his father to his West Almond home, and aided by his labor to create the home. 
In 1845 he married Lucinda Casterline, and in 1850 located a home in the north part of Amity 
on the north branch of Philips Creek. Of the 9 children of Mr. and Mrs. Morehouse 7 are liv- 
ing. Cyrus Casterline, born in Seneca Co., married Nancy Smith of Ithaca. Of their six chil- 
dren 2 are living : Cyrus, living in Michigan, and Lucinda (Mrs. Parish Morehouse). Mr. Caster- 
line settled in that part of Amity later set off as Ward in 1818, and developed a farm out of the 
wilderness. He died in 1856, his wife in 1874. 

Ira Henry Myers, son of David, born in Granger, July 9, 1851, was graduated from Cornell 
University in 1877, studied law with Ferris & Dow at Ithaca, and Hon. Hamilton Ward at 
Belmont, and was admitted to the bar in 1879. He practiced law in Belmont ten years and 
established an office in Buffalo where he is now in practice. He married Florence M. Whitney 
of Belmont. One child, Helen P. 

John Norton came to Belmont, then Philipsburg, in 1831, and his son Francis in 1832. He 
died there about 1836. John Norton, Philip Church. Ellis May and Timothy H. Burbanks at 
one time owned nearly the whole of Belmont. John and Francis Norton were prominent in the 
early settlement and took active part in the educational, religious and business interests. Francis 
Norton was superintendent of schools for Amity many years. His children were Ruth A. (Mrs. 
Mark Pike of Belmont, dec), Dr. John (dec), Jeriah W. (dec), Diana (dec), Joseph S., William 
(dec), Frances (dec), and Alice (Mrs. M. W. Sortore of Belmont.) 

William Noble was born Oct. 22, 1782, in Hartford, Conn, and died in Amity Feb. 18, 1868. 
Jan. 4, 181 1, he married Susan Gilbert in Whitehall, N. Y. Mrs. Noble was a native of Ver- 
mont. They located a home near Whitehall, built a fine house, but lost it by defects in the 
title. At this time he met Orange Church who sold him an Amity farm, but before he reached 
his new purchase Mr. Church was killed. Mrs. Church however ratified the sale. The Noble 
family left Whitehall with two yokes of oxen, George W. the oldest son, nine years old, drove 
one yoke. The Amity farm had but a small clearing and a log house, but Mr. Noble developed 
a fine farm by industrious labor. The family were zealous Methodists, and generous contribu- 
tors to the first church erected in town. Mr. Noble was a Whig and a Republican. His wife 
survived him, dying at 94. Their oldest son, George W., died in Chicago, 111., in 1885, where 
their youngest son, Gilbert, also lives. Hiram Noble, son of William, was born at Whitehall in 
1820, and was but four years old when he came to Amity. He has always been a farmer, 
owns about 160 acres. He married in September, 1847, Emily Sortore. They have six chil- 
dren. The family are members of the M. E. church. Martin Noble, son of William, was born 
in 1822 in Whitehall. In 1847 he married Phcebe E. Ketchum. Their only surviving child, 
Laura A. married Lester Bellamy of Angelica. Mr. Noble was a millwright 12 years, a black- 
smith 13 years, had a wagonshop a few years, kept livery stable 18 years and has later been a 
farmer. Roswell Noble, son of William, was born on the old homestead in 1826, married 
Catharine Whaley of Illinois, owns the homestead farm settled on in 1824. He kept a livery 
stable in Belmont about 7 years and most of his life has been engaged in farming. He passed 
two years in Chicago, but prefers life on the old farm. 

John W. Pease, son of Abner and Pamelia (Winslow) Pease, was born May 4, 1828, at 
Lyons. While yet a lad he went to learn the mason's trade and has since followed the busi- 
ness. He has erected many buildings in the county by contract, he has built the foundation 
for 36 bridges on the Genesee river and its tributaries, he built the First National Bank build- 
ing at Cuba, and has done more mason contract work than any other man in the county. He 
was a contractor on the R. & P. railroad, has been foreman for the Erie railroad for several 
years. In 1890 he opened a stone quarry of pure sandstone and does a good business in that 
line. Mr. Pease married Sarah Clark of Mt. Morris. Their children are Eugene W., Blanche 
B., Frank L , a merchant in Corning, and Emma E. (Mrs. Elgin Conklin of Corning). Mr. 
Pease, after residing 2 years in Angelica and 8 years in Belfast, settled here. 

Peter Post, son of Abram, was born April 6, 1807, at Angelica, and at his death in 1894 
was the oldest native resident of the county. His father, a native of Jersey City, N. J., was son 
of John, who came from Holland to Jersey City before the Revolution. Abram came to An- 
gelica about 1801, bought 150 acres, and made a pioneer home. He was a noted hunter and 
killed many deer and bears. His wife was Hettie Metzger. They had 9 children. He died an 
old man at Belfast. Peter Post was engaged in lumbering and for four years owned a large 
sawmill near Belfast. About i860 he settled in Belvidere where he kept hotel until his death. 



Amity. 471 

Stephen Pollard, son of Stephen and Sarah (Anderson) Pollard, was educated as a teacher, 
and was graduated from Friendship Academy. He was a successful teacher until 1890, when 
he was elected school commissioner of the Second District of Allegany county, which, by re- 
election he still holds. 

Alexander Potter, son of Alexander and Mary (Ware) Potter, was born May 8, 1S19. He 
married in 1850 Hannah T. Tuck, both being natives of Kennebec Co., Maine. Mr. Potter 
came to Belmont in 1852, and built mills for various parties until 1861, when he devoted him- 
self to the manufacture of oil barrels until 1868. In 1870 he built a shop for making wagons 
and has since carried on that business. Mrs. Potter died Jan. 11, 1874. Of their 8 children 5 
attained maturity ; Herbert R., of Eau Claire, Wis.; James P., of Duke's Center, Pa.; Emma, 
of New Hudson ; Jesse L. and Eddie A. The latter was born in Belmont in May, 1856, mar- 
ried Ettie Hardy, and has one child, Lottie. Mr. Potter was the popular landlord of the Hotel 
Belmont until 1894, and has a livery stable. 

Mark W. Pike was born in Vermont. He attended Livonia, N. Y., Seminary, and married 
Ruth A., daughter of Francis Norton. Children, Harriet E., Mary A., Ruth G. Mr. Pike was 
an active business man, engaged extensively in lumbering, owned over 1,000 acres of oil lands 
in Alma, and there created the village of Pikeville, going three miles into the woods to build 
saw and shingle mills, fifteen dwellings and a schoolhouse. Here he taught the Sabbath 
school, and his wife led the singing. Later Mr. Pike bought a large tract of timber land in 
Sheboygan Co., Mich., built mills, a large hotel, secured the locating of a railroad station, and 
developed the village of Rondeace, giving lots to those who would build on them. He was a 
very kindhearted and benevolent man, who was ever actuated by Christian principles, was 
Presbyterian in religion, doing much for his church. A Democrat in politics he held every office 
in the gift of the town, but refused to aspire for higher political place. He died May 31, 1892. 
Mrs. Pike died in 1895. 

Hon. Silas Richardson, son of Silas, was born in Greene, Me., August, 1820, and came to 
this county about 1845. His wife was Sarah A. Miller and their children were Edwin S. and 
Lizzie M. (Mrs. Horace Dobbins of Buffalo). Mr. Richardson was in lumbering and mercantile 
business for many years. Politically he was a Republican, and took an active part in political 
affairs. He was in the legislature in the years 1867 and 8. He died May 26, 1885. Edwin S. 
Richardson was born in 1856. He was graduated from the Rochester Business University in 
1879. In 1 88 1 he married Jennie A. Roth. In November, '89, he entered the county clerk's 
office as clerk, and in '92 was appointed special deputy clerk. 

William J. Richardson, son of Alvan, (see Wirt) was born in Wirt, Mar. 31, 1849. He 
resided on the farm with his father, and was engaged in agriculture and teaching. In 1880 he 
was census enumerator ; he has been two years supervisor and served as town clerk two years. 
In '82 he was elected cashier of the First National Bank of Richburg. In '87 he came to Bel- 
mont as cashier of the State Bank of Belmont. Mr. Richardson married Helen, daughter of 
Andrew Jordan, and has one son, Fred. The family are members of the Baptist church. Mr. 
Richardson stands high in the estimation of the people, is much interested in all things apper- 
taining to the advancement of the community, is treasurer of the Allegany County Historical 
Society, and one of the vice-presidents of the Allegany County Sunday School Association. He 
is also a Freemason, holding membership in the lodge at Belmont. 

Justus Scott settled here in 1822, one mile east of Friendship. He was a shoemaker and 
a farmer. He married Alice White. They had 13 children. His son, Asa, was 15 years old 
when his father moved here. Asa was in the lumber business for several years and kept a 
store in Friendship. He married Mary Hughes ; of their 5 children 3 survive. Asa Scott died 
Jan. 6, 1892. His widow resides here. George Scott, son of Justus and Alice (White) Scott, 
was born July 15, 1831, on the old homestead. He received a common school education, 
became one of the leading farmers of the town and took great pride in agriculture. He mar- 
ried Rebecca, daughter of Elias Benjamin, and had 2 children, Charles J., who is a farmer on 
the ancestral acres, and George A. Scott, who was born in 1866, and was graduated from 
Rochester Business University in 1889. He taught school 4 years. In 1891 he was elected 
secretary of the State Farmers' Alliance, and, in October, 1892, became editor of the Spirit of 
Reform, ?i.w Alliance paper of Belmont. In 1891 he was the nominee of the Peoples' and Pro- 
hibitionist parties, and received 3,000 votes. He was the first candidate ever nominated by the 
Peoples' party. Mr. Scott married, Feb. 22, 1893, Lottie J. Webster of Wellsville. In 1894 he 
was elected secretary of the National Protective Legion. 

Thos. J. Slafter, born in Thetford, Vt., in 1831 settled six miles from Belmont in what is 
now Ward. He was a millwright, and married Rebecca Seaver of Worcester, Vt. Children : 
Oramel W., Carlos L.. Mary J. (Mrs. Haskell Fillebrown). Mr. Slafter died in i87i,his wife in 
1870. Carlos L. Slafter was born Mar. 16, 1832, in Amity and has lived here most of his life. 



472 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

He has been in the livery business since 1880. In 1885 he built the Belmont opera house 
which burned Dec. 29, 1893. Mr. Slafter married Lucy C. Tracy. They have one child, 
Anna H. 

Roger Stiliman, son of David R. and Martha M. (Greene) Stillman of Alfred and grandson 
of Isaiah and Betsey (Bassett) Greene, vi^as born in Alfred June 18, 1855. He availed himself 
of the educational advantages of Alfred University, then learned the printer's trade at the Sab- 
bath Recorder ofifice at Alfred, and was foreman of pressroom and job department for there 
years. He has travelled extensively, been connected with numerous newspapers, was publisher 
of the West Wintield News in Herkimer county in 1886, and later purchased the New Berlin 
Gazette in Chenango county. In 1893 he purchased one-half interest in the Belmont Dispatch, 
of which he is editor. He married, June 8, 1880, Carrie L., danghter of Wesley and Maryette 
(Wright) Gibbs of Almond. 

Benjamin Tefft came to Almond from Westerly, R. I., about 1825. He married Isa- 
bel, daughter of Job Kenyon. They had 6 children. Mr. Tefft was a farmer. He died in '66 
his wife in '51. Thomas S. Tefft, their son, was born Dec. 8, 1843, in Angelica. In '62 he en- 
listed in Co. H. 130th N. Y. V. and served until the close of the war, having seen service in the 
42 battles in which his regiment was engaged, and was honorably discharged. He is a mem- 
ber of Revere Post No. 195, G. A. R , and is also a Freemason. Mr. Tefft then learned the 
carpenter and builders' trade, and continued it for 17 years. In '82 while buildmg a bridge at 
Bradford, Pa. for the Erie railroad, he slipped when boarding a train, and fell under the cars 
and both legs were cut off. In 83 he entered the office of the county clerk of Allegany county, 
and has served as clerk and deputy clerk ever since. He was supervisor in 1888-9 and has 
been justice of the peace and town clerk. In '71 Mr. Tefft married Waity Adelaide, daughter 
of Henry Reynolds of Ward. They had 8 children, 7 of whom survive. 

George L. Tucker, son of Richard and Catharine F. Tucker, was born in New York City, 
June 30, 1820, son of a prominent commission merchant of that city. George was educated at 
Rev. Augustus Mechlinburg's school, and, in '45, made his home with his brother Robert H. 
in Friendship staying there two years. He then engaged in farming at Aurora for 3 years, 
later came to Belmont, where he resided until '61, when he enlisted in Co. H, nth Pa. Vol.= 
He was later color sergeant in the 85th N. Y. He was captured at Plymouth, N. C, taken to 
Andersonville prison, detained there three months, was in Charleston a few days, then con- 
veyed to Florence, S. C, where he was nine months in prison. In July he was discharged and 
came home. He is a member of Revere Post, No. 195, G. A. R. He married in '61, Ida, 
daughter of Bela Bartlett and has three children : George L., Richard I. and Catharine. 

George L. Tucker, Jr., was born May 16, 1866, was educated at Belmont and at Borden- 
town, N. J. He went to Clinton, Iowa, when he was 19 and entered a newspaper office ai..^ 
was later foreman of the Advertiser office at Lyon for eight months. In 1888 he returned to^ 
Belmont and opened a job printing office, and soon after, in company with H. C. Norris, estab- 
lished the Andover Nezus. He carried on the hardware business at Belmont for 3 years, and is- 
now a Pullman car conductor on the Erie railroad. In 1 890 Mr. Tucker married Grace, daughter 
of Frank and Laura (Cook) Vanderhoef. They have two daughters: Grace and Rebea. Mr. 
Tucker has a fine collection of Indian relics, which were on exhibition at Allegany's " centen- 
nial " and attracted much attention. 

Hon. Hamilton Ward, who has made his home here since he commenced the practice of 
law in 1 85 1, has attained a national reputation, and is the most prominent citizen of the town. 
He married Mary Chamberlain and has two children. Hamilton (seepage 292), and John C, a 
student of Harvard University. Mrs. Ward has been a leader in literary circles, in the estab- 
lishment and success of the Belmont Literary and Historical Club, and a liberal contributor to 
the library building. Judge Ward's biography (page 262) was in print before he was appointed 
member of the Appellate Court of the Fourth Department, which sits at Rochester. This honor 
was most worthily bestowed. 

Charles S. Whitney is a son of Michael T. Whitney who was born in Montpelier, Vt. When 
a young man Mr. Whitney walked from Vermont to Olean, N. Y., in 1822, on his way west to 
seek his fortune. At Olean he took passage on a raft of lumber down the Allegany and Ohio 
rivers, and brought up at or near Gallipolis, Ohio, where he engaged in teaching school. He 
married one of his scholars. Miss Harriet Smith. In 1826 he moved with his family on to a 
farm 3 miles west of the city of Cleveland, Ohio, which is now in the city limits. In 1832 he 
sold his farm and packing his goods and family into a cloth covered wagon drawn by a yoke of 
oxen he started again for the far west and the Indian country near the Maumee river, where now 
the city of Toledo is located, and where he purchased a farm of 80 acres at $1.25 per acre, then 
covered with timber and now a part of the city. In 1835 he sold his farm and engaged in mer- 
chandising, and died in 1837. He left a family of 4 children, the oldest, Charles S. Whitney, 
was born Feb. 12, 1824. He having to "shuffle" for himself (with no sr.hooling after his fa- 



# .< 




^_^^^S,^^^^^-<^i^jt 



Amity. 473 

ther's death), engaged in various pursuits, working on a farm by the year, warehouse boy, clerk- 
ing in a grocery, postoffice, etc., etc., until 1848, when he started in the mercantile business tor 
himself. In 1850 he followed the gold excitement to California, where he remained one year. 
In 185 1 he came to Belmont, married Clara A. Parker, the daughter of A. E. Parker, was en- 
gaged a few years in general trade at Belmont with A. E. Parker, finally purchased Mr. Parker's 
interest, and continued the business several years alone. He was postmaster 6 years under 
Abraham Lincoln's administration, served 3 terms as supervisor of Amity. He gave up mer- 
cantile business and the postoffice in 1866, and has since been engaged in the oil business. 

William Willett came from Washington county in 1847, settled in Wirt, about 2>< miles 
south of Nile, engaged in the lumber business, and for several years operated a sawmill. In 
1853 he moved with his family to Will Co., 111., where he resided until 1859, when he moved to 
Ionia Co., Mich. He served three years in the 6th Mich. Cavalry with distinction during the 
Rebellion, and after the war returned home, where he died in 1870. George Willett, a younger 
brother of William, came to Allegany county in 1843, lived in Wirt, and later in Richburg. 
After the oil-fields of Allegany were opened up, he moved to Friendship. George Willett was 
widely known as one of the most expert millwrights in the country. He now resides in Fre- 
donia with his only daughter, Mrs. DeMuth. C. W. Willett, a son of Wm. Willett. was born 
in Wirt in 1850, and went west with his parents in 1853. At an early date he found employ- 
ment in a sawmill, and, by careful attention to the details, was rapidly promoted, until he had 
full charge of one of the largest mills in the country. Mr. Willett gained considerable notoriety 
as an expert mill-builder, and drifted into the machine business. For a number of years he 
represented the Filer & Stowell Co. of Milwaukee, Wis., on the road. He has also been con- 
nected with two other well-known firms, and during his travels has visited nearly every town 
and hamlet in the country from the Pacific to the Atlantic. In 1891 Mr. Willett became con- 
nected with the well-known firm of Clark Bros, of Belmont, and has been with them up to date. 
Mr. Willett is widely known among mill-men as a wide-awake and progressive man, and he has 
contributed in no small way to bring about the present high standard of economic methods in 
the manufacture of lumber. 

S. Hale Whitcomb, son of Jeriah, was born April 15, 1826, in Granville, Washington Co., 
and came with his father to Belmont in 1833. Here his father engaged extensively in lumber- 
ing and carried lumber to Olean, and from there it was floated by him to Natchez, New Orleans, 
etc., in arks. He died Mar. 16, 1873. Mr. Whitcomb in 1850 became superintendent of the 
Belvidere farm of Judge Philip Church, continuing as such until 1858, when he removed to 
Geneseo to take charge of the home farm of Gen. Wadsworth. In 1864 he returned to Bel- 
videre to the Church farm which he conducted until 1874 when he took charge of the lumber 
and land interests of the estate of Philip Church, Jr., in which position he continued until 1879. 
Since which time he has been engaged in farming, buying and selling real estate and oil matters. 
In 1850 he married Jane V., daughter of Wm. Pitt. Their children are Eugene P., oil operator 
of Bradford, and Chas. E. a farmer of Belvidere. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

ALVAN EARLE PARKER. 



"Even farther back than the beginning's of English history must we go 
for the origin of the name Parker. It is as old as Parcariiis, park-keeper or 
shepherd. From this employment it was derived, thus extending back 
through the ages unbroken to the making of the Roman language." The 
first American of the name was Abraham, of Woburn, Mass., taxed there 
Sept. 8, 1645, the first taxpayer on record in this country. His estate joined 
that of Moses Cleveland, ancestor of President Cleveland. Abraham had 
numerous younger brothers, early settlers and original proprietors of 
Chelmsford and Groton, Mass., leaders and prominent men. Their progeny 
became active in the settlement of the Connecticut valley and are largely 
represented in most of the towns of Vermont. The town records of Chester, 



474 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Vt., say, "Elijah Parker purchased land Dec. 17, 1778," his residence being 
given as "Westminster, Cumberland Co., Province of New York" (later 
Vermont), " Yoeman. " Timothy Parker, of the same place, " housewright, " 
purchased land in Chester, April 3, 1779. Neither Elijah nor his father 
Timothy appear as residents of Chester until 1780, when they are recorded 
as petitioners for a town meeting held Aug. 18, 1780, to add an extension to 
the meetinghouse. Timothy Parker, Esq. , was chosen one of the building 
committee. In 1781 Elijah Parker was chosen constable and collector, and 
Timothy Parker grand juror. Elijah dealt extensively in real-estate, buying 
and selling. He was born Feb. 1, 1756, married Mary Earle, June 7, 1781, 
and died March 22, 1822. Mary Earle was born in Shrewsbury, Mass., 
March 5, 1764, and died in Belmont, N. Y., Sept. 29, 1855, in her 91st year. 
Her children were Catherine (married Dr. Timothy Parker), Timothy S.. 
Arvilla (married 1st, Martin Taylor, 2d, Joel Rose), Phila (married Solomon 
Willard), Elijah and Ashbell (twins), and Alvan Earle Parker. According to 
the Earle Genealogy, Mary Earle was a descendant in the sixth generation 
from Ralph Earle, the emigrant, the line being Ralph 1, William 2, Ralph 3, 
Robert 4, George 5. This George Earle, born in Leicester, Mass., in 1735, 
was son of Robert and Mary (Newhall) Earle, and married in 1757, Mary, 
daughter of Thomas and Azubah (Rice) Baker, of Shrewsbury, Mass. He 
was a gunsmith, removed to Chester, Vt. about 1770, commanded a company 
of militia at the Battle of Bennington, and died suddenly July 2, 1806. His 
children were George, Frederic, Artemas, Mary, Lydia, Xenophon. Walter, 
Catharine, Alvan. Ralph Earle, the emigrant, born 1606, at Exeter, England, 
in 1634 married there Joan Savage and came to America early, dying at 
Portsmouth, R. I., in 1678. His wife was some ten years his senior, and 
exceeded her 105th year of life. Ralph was, in Oct., 1838, with 38 others 
named in the Newport, R. I., records as being " admitted to the inhabitants 
of the Island now called Aqueedneck, having submitted themselves to the 
Government that is, or shall be, established according to the word of God 
therein." He was a long time " innkeeper " at Portsmouth, " was much in 
town affairs and of good repute. " Alvan Earle Parker, son of Elijah and 
Mary (Earle) Parker, was born in Chester, Vt., Nov. 26. 1799, went to 
Clarendon, Vt., in 1821, where he took the "freeman's oath" in September, 
and married in September, 1823, Sarah, oldest daughter of Benjamin and 
Rachel (Wetherbee) Parker, who was born in Clarendon in 1795. They 
resided in Clarendon and Rutland, Vt, until 1830 or 1831 when they came to 
Amity, locating in the rude hamlet of Philipsville, now the charming county- 
seat Belmont. Mr. Parker brought a small load of the merchandise adapted 
to the pioneer wants of the new country by horse team for miles through an 
almost unbroken wilderness from Rutland, and started the first store of the 
village in the upper story of a carding mill which stood on the site of the 
gristmill at the end of the bridge crossing the Genesee on Schuyler street. 
The business increased to large proportions and was conducted by Mr. 
Parker over 20 years, when he was succeeded by his son-in-law, C. S. 



Amity. 475 

Whitney. He was a Republican from the organization of the party, and for 
long years was supervisor, postmaster and a justice of the peace. His clear 
penmanship and accurate business judgement made his services in much 
demand for the drafting of legal and other papers, and he was i^opularly 
known as " the old scribe." The fidelity with which he transacted all busi- 
ness was appreciated by the people and he was identified with every thing 
as a leader and counsellor. He was an honest man, who, while demanding 
his just dues, acknowledged the full demands of others. By his industry, 
foresight, and diligent attention to business he acquired wealth, although at 
the beginning of his business activity he had but small means. In his later 
years both he and his wife were members of the Episcopal church. Mrs. 
Parker was much esteemed throughout the community, especially for her 
extreme kindness of heart and her readiness to aid the needy. She died 
Jan. 26, 1876. Mr. Parker died April 5, 1890, after a residence of nearly 60 
years in the town and village. Their children were Henry A. (dec), Frances 
E.(widow of Dr. Archibald Morris), Clarissa (Mrs. C.S. Whitney )(dec.), Charles. 

ISAAC WILLETS.* 

Isaac Willefs was not a native of Allegany county, having been born 
near Aurora, Cayuga Co., N. Y., Dec. 2, 1825. Although not a professing 
member of the Society of Friends, more popularly called Quakers, he came 
from a long line of Quaker ancestors, having been descended from Richard 
and Mary Willets, who came from the west of England and settled at Hemp- 
stead, Long Island, in 1680. They were Quakers and Mary Willets was a 
preacher of considerable note. Their descendants, particularly those who 
lived on Long Island and in its vicinity, were always active in the affairs of 
the church, forming an unbroken line of Quakers down to the present time, 
and establishing a record of over two hundred years strict adherence to the 
principles of the faith. The late Samuel Willets of New York City, a cousin 
of the father of the subject of the sketch, liberally endowed Swarthmore 
College, an institution of learning, under the supervision of the Society. 
Early in the present century, Abram and Henrietta Frost Willets, the parents 
of Isaac Willets. left Long Island and settled in a small Quaker community 
near Aurora, on Cayuga Lake. Railroads to what was then regarded as 
"the west " were then unknown, and they made nearly all the journey by 
water, going by way of the Hudson River and the Erie Canal, the latter having 
been opened but a short time previously. Isaac Willets spent his younger years 
in the vicinity of his father's home, attending the country schools in his 
youth and assisting his father on the farm during his early manhood. In 
1855, 'When he was thirty years old, he came to Allegany county, whither 
his brother, Leonard Willets, had preceded him, and engaged in the lumber- 
ing business at Oramel. In 1859, he married Harriet Ayers, daughter of 
Wilson Ayers of Transit Bridge, and soon afterwards, in 1860. moved with 
his young wife to Kendall Creek, near Bradford, Pa., where he and T. B. 

*Contributed. 



476 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Chamberlain, of Belfast, had purchased a large tract of timber land. He 
lived there during the succeeding eight years, engaged in manufacturing 
the timber into lumber, and getting the product to the Pittsburgh and Cin- 
cinnati markets, by " rafting " it on the Allegany and Ohio rivers. It was 
during his residence at Bradford that the Civil War was begun and closed. 
Ever ready to proclaim his convictions, he did not hesitate to declare his 
belief that the Southern states were fighting for constitutional rights, and, 
in consequence, his mills became known far and near as the "Secession 
mills. " He declared that he would resist being forced into the Union army, 
and, as he was drafted just before the close of the war. the cessation of hos- 
tilities left the closing chapter of his connection with those troublesome 
times open to conjecture. While living at Bradford he associated others 
with himself in drilling a test well for oil in that vicinity. Considerable oil 
was found, but, because of their unfamiliarity with the work of operating oil 
wells, the well was abandoned. The fact that eleven years afterward the 
famous Bradford oil-field was developed, attests the reliability of his belief 
that oil existed there in large quantity. In 1868 he became interested in 
farming land in the vicinity of Belmont, in this county, and moved there, 
where he engaged in farming, and, later, in the drug-and-grocery business. 
He retained a large part of the land near Bradford which he had cleared of 
timber, and, as later prospecting for oil by others in this vicinity had met 
with success, he removed thither and commenced operations to develop his 
holdings. He was very successful, every acre of the land he owned there 
proved to be valuable oil territory. He pursued his operations into the 
Allegany oil field, and, later, in 1886. he invested largely in oil territory in 
Washington county, Pa., and met with success. He continued in the oil 
business up to the time of his death, and. at one time, enjoyed the distinction 
of being the largest individual oil-producer in the world; his ])roduction 
amounting to over 5,000 barrels per day. In 1880 he removed to Belmont 
and made large investments in real estate in its vicinity, and at the time of 
his death he was the largest land owner in Allegany county. He died at the 
family residence in Belmont, May 20, 1892, in the 67th year of his age. His 
character can best be summed up in the words of a local paper which at the 
time of his death said: "He was an active, energetic man, exhibiting in a 
marked degree those traits of character that gave him influence and power 
over his fellowmen. He was impetuous and impulsive, quick to approve of 
what he thought was right and swift to condemn forcibly what he thought 
was wrong." Two children were born of his marriage: Elmore Abram and 
Henrietta, now the wife of Dr. Wilham K. Paul of Belmont. 

LEONARD FROST WILLETS. 

Leonard Frost WilJefs, oldest son of Abram and Henrietta (Frost) Willets, 
was born at Westbury, L. I., Oct. 24, 1823, and died at Belmont, N. Y., Jan. 
29, 1890. Coming from Long Island to Cayuga county when only six months 
old, he attained manhood under circumstances that made him familiar with 



Amity. 477 

pioneer life and fitted him to successfully cope with the peculiar conditions 
existing in a new country. He was a " birthright " member of the Society 
of Friends, but his marriage, Jan. 9, 1851, to Miss Helen M. Culver, an Epis- 
copalian, severed his connection with that sect, although its principles and 
belief were his guides throughout his life. In 1853 he came to Oramel in 
this county, and with his brother Isaac engaged in lumbering. From that 
time until his death he became pleasantly and familiarly known to a great 
number of people in the course of his extensive business operations, and it 
is perhaps safe to say that in all cases " where'er he met a stranger, there 
he left a friend." In 1856 the brothers moved their seat of operations to 
Transit Bridge, there associating Edward F. Willets* and Charles Youngs 
with them. Their operations grew in magnitude, and in 1861 another move- 
ment of their base of business was made to Belmont, which was Mr. Willets, 
home thereafter. For years a large lumbering business was conducted, not 
only in Allegany county but extensively in Pennsylvania, where a tract of 
their land later proved to be rich oil producing territory. In 1876 Mr. Wil- 
lets and Charles Youngs became partners to develop this territory. They 
drilled the first two wells in the Little Washington, Pa., field, one of them, the 
Cameron well, proving to be the largest "staying" producer ever drilled. 
From this time Mr. Willets conducted large operations in oil and oil territory 
and met with success commensurate to his efforts. Mrs. Willets died 
December 29, 1882. Their only child, Juha, is now Mrs. David T. Williams, 
of Belmont. t March 10, 1885, Mr. Willets married Gertrude S., daughter 
of Alexander Black, of Belmont. At the time of his death he was also car- 
rying on quite extensive farming operations. This is a mere synopsis of the 
more important events of a busy and a useful life. It gives no hint of his 
character, of the rare qualities that won and kept as his friends all who came 
to know the manly and generous nature worn so unostentatiously by him. 
His fund of pleasant and humorous conversation was exhaustless, and his 
quaint comments and wise sayings have become part and parcel of the 
speech of many of the people. Always bright and cheery, he was never 
more happy than when conferring pleasure on others. It has been said of 
him: "His associates felt him to be a living, personal, present factor; yet in 
his heart he was as kind as a child. When he knew himself to be right he 
was as unyielding as the hills which stand unshaken about the town he loved 
and the beautiful home where he lived. And yet, when the right he cher- 
ished had prevailed, he turned to those who had been wrong, and gilded all 
over with sunshine their disappointments and made the vanquished feel 
themselves to be the victors. He was a man, a splendid man, a manly man, 
and the religion of his life ' Do unto others as ye would have them do unto 
you.' He wore no mask. A mask would never have fitted such a frank 
nature. He was the friend of the friendless. I never heard ///y*/ speak of 

* Later a prominent business man of Hornellsville and mayor of that city. 
tThe children of Mr. and Mrs. Williams are Leonard W., and L. Lloyd. 



478 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

what he had done for the poor, but I have heard them speak of what he had 
done for the poor. In his presence the swollen tongue of slander was 
silenced. Because of this rare trait of character no one could be persuaded 
that he would asperse or vilify any one, though one should rise from the 
dead and swear that he did. His word was his bond and his life was back of 
it to make it good. He was a brother to every man that honestly earned his 
bread by the sweat of his brow. No biography of Leonard F. Willets would 
be correct were it not written in the language of eulogy. He lived his life 
well and the world was the better for it." 

HON. WOLCOTT HATCH. 

Hon. Walcott Hatch was born in Norwich, Vt., April 3, 1811. He came 
to Allegany county and settled at Cuba in 1834, engaging in the practice of 
law and filling the office of justice of the peace for a protracted period, as 
Hon. A. N. Cole remarked in an obituary notice, "a quarter of a century, 
holding evenly the scales of justice as the village squire. His neighbors, 
those who had known him an ordinary lifetime, made him judge and surro- 
gate, nor will Allegany ever look upon a nobler and better. Long and honor- 
ably did he serve the people, nor has leTt behind memories other than those 
of duty well and nobly done." He was elected judge of Allegany county in 
1859, and re-elected each subsequent term until 1871. He was married first 
at Hartford, Vt., in 1836, to Mary Gillette, who died young, after a wedded 
life of six years, leaving a daughter. The second marriage was to Maria T. 
Bartlett, who survived him. They had four children. Judge Hatch lived a 
useful and honored life and died at his residence in Belmont, Oct. 6, 1878, 
He was of that quiet class of men who keep the straightforward tenor of their 
way without any attempt at glittering pyrotechnics and yet are the solid 
substratum of our national existence. It is the crowning characteristic of 
our American life, that among ' ' the plain people ' ' are ever found those who 
rise to the height of every emergency confronting them, and demonstrate 
the fitness of the American system to cope successfully with the represent- 
atives of hereditary monarchical governments. Perhaps no citizen of this 
county ever exhibited these qualities in a more marked degree than did 
Judge Hatch. It is to be hoped that the young men of this county now at- 
taining the responsible years of life's activity may as truly live honest lives 
and be as ready to fill with modesty such situations of trust and resx)onsi- 
bility as come to them. 



Amity. 478a 

ARCHIBALD MORRIS, M. D. 

The name Morris is of great antiquity and variously spelled, Morys, 
Moris, Morriss, Morres, Morice, Morrice and Maurice being some of the 
forms. It is composed of the Welsh words Mawr-rwyce, in English. "War- 
like, powerful in war," This knightly family has been a most notable one in 
both hemispheres, and the New York family, to which Dr. Morris belongs, 
is readily traced to Elystan Glodrydd, a powerful British chieftain, founder 
of the IV Royal Tribe of Wales, born in 933, who derived his name Elystan, 
or Athelstane. from his god-father, the Saxon king Athelstane. Caroeloc, 
lord of Hereford, Knight of King Arthur's Round Table, existing about 700 
A. D., was the ancestor 8 generations back, of Elystan Glodrydd. The arms 
are described in Burke's Peerage as ''Arms. Quarterly: 1st and 4th qu., 
a lion, rampant, regardant, or; 2d and 3d, ar. 3 boars' heads, couped, sa. Crest 
—a lion, rampant, regardant, or." There are several mottoes, the leading 
one is Mar te et ma rifaventibus. Roger Morris, born in England, when but 
17 was, with George Washington and Roger Orme, one of the three aides-de- 
camj) of Gen. Braddock at the bloody retreat where the general was killed. 
He was distinguished in war and in peace, married in New York Mary 
Philipse (for whom George Washington had a violent but unreturned passion. 
See National Encyclopedia of American Biography Vol. IV. page 43.) and, ac- 
cording to Burke, through her acquired title to the landed estate of her father 
Frederick (whose father, also Frederick Philipse, came from Holland to New 
Amsterdam with Peter Stuyvesant in 1658). Thepresent valueof this is incal- 
culable, as it included most of Westchester county as a portion, and nearly the 
whole of New York City is built on one corner of it. In the original preface to 
the " Water Witch, " Cooper speaks of the familyas the " Bohemian Felipses, " 
and in that of a later edition, of its being regranted the manor of Philipsbourg. 
Roger Morris before the Revolution was one of the Executive Council of the 
Province of New York and was colonel in the British Army when the Revo- 
lution commenced, and from his position was forced to adhere to the Crown. 
In consequence thereof the immense estates were confiscated and Mrs. Mor- 
ris was attainted and rendered incapable of inheriting. * The name Morris 
has been borne by many Englishmen, men of distinction eminent in science, 
in literature, and in public honors. Other branches of the family, as well as 
near kinsfolks of the children of Roger and Mary Morris, have been resi- 
dent in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania to this day. Some dis- 
tinguished ones were Lewis Morris, signer of the Declaration of Independ- 
ence, son of Lewis, chief justice of New York and New Jersey and governor 
of New Jersey. The father of Gov. Lewis was Richard, an officer of Crom- 
well's army, who settled on a farm of 3,000 acres at Morrisania and gave it 
its name. Of his distinguished sons were Gouverneur Morris, so eminent 
in public hfe, and Robert Hunter Morris, chief justice of New Jersey, for 26 
years member of the Executive Council and also lieutenant governor of 

* For fuller account see Burke's Landed Gentry and page of Encyclopedia cited above. 



478b History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Pennsylvania. Robert Morris, the Revolutionary financier, is called 
"cousin" of the above. His son Thomas was long a resident of New York 
City. Both Robert Treat Paine and Thomas Paine, the celebrated author of 
"The Age of Reason," and of patriotic papers favoring the Revolution, ap- 
pear to be kinsmen of the Morrises. The family has been quite prolific, 
and its representatives along the Hudson and in New York City have been 
numerous from the time of the Revolution. One of the family, Archibald 
Morris, in the last century won the affections of a daughter of an aristocratic 
family named Reynolds. They disregarded the commands of her parents, 
who forbade their union, and after an elopement and marriage, left the val- 
ley of the Hudson and made their home in the new town of Scipio in Cayuga 
Co., then just formed from Ontario Co., which stretched for miles along the 
shores of Owasco and Cayuga lakes. Here they reared a family and lived 
until about 1830 when they removed to Western New York. Their children 
were Hezekiah, George, William, Edward, Archibald, Martha, Ann, (Mrs. 
Dr. Fay), Phebe (1st Mrs. Dr. Westover, 2d Mrs. Dr. Hewitt), Eliza (Mrs. 
Dr. Hewitt) and Melvina. Their fifth son and child. Dr. Archibald Morris, 
was born in Scipio, May 7, 1819. He remained with his parents until he was 
of age, when, in obedience to proclivities formed in early life, he began the 
study of medicine with Dr. Abijah B. Case in Howard, Steuben Co., at that 
time a flourishing center of business and education. His studious habits 
and excellent natural endowments rendered him an apt scholar and he made 
rapid progress in the realms of materia medica. In the spring of 1843 he 
began medical x^ractice at Burns as a partner of the eminent Dr. Charles D. 
Robinson, whose wife, Miranda (Welch) Robinson, was also a native of Scipio. 
In the fall of 1843, however, Dr. Morris located at Philipsville (Belmont) 
where he acquired an extensive practice. He attended medical lectures reg- 
ularly at able medical schools and was graduated atCastleton, Vt., Medical 
College in 1846. September 24, 1846, he married Frances Evelyn, daughter 
of Al van E. Parker, Esq., of Belmont. (See page 473.) For twenty years, 
thereafter he was the untiring and highly-beloved physician of a large extent 
of country, until his death, Jan. 24, 1866. He was well equipped for profes- 
sional success. He had great natural powers of diagnosis, was possessed of 
the latest learning of the schools, had a calm, cautious and deliberate judg- 
ment, met his professional calls with promptness, carried to the bedside of 
the suffering an atmosphere of cheer and hope which inspired the confidence 
that he was a vigilant friend who would reheve their ills, and became one of 
the most honored and successful physicians of Western New York. His 
social life was eminently pleasant. His long and active practice won for him 
hosts of friends who loved him for his blameless and most useful life. As a 
Christian he was quiet and unostentatious, possessing however in an emi- 
nent degree a sublime faith that caused him to view life from the elevation 
of an exalted Christian character and to submit with cheerfulness to all dis- 
pensations of Providence. At the time of his death he was a vestryman of 
St. Philips (Episcopal) church. In all the relations of life he was a courteous. 




- P~snc?V-SS ari &/ t 



6. 



y^. ^ 



Amity. 478c 

kindly Christian gentleman, who as a citizen acted promptly and wisely in 
the discharge of all obligations and responsibilities. He was a true represent- 
ative of the knightly house of Morris. Mrs. Morris survives her husband 
in her pleasant home in Belmont. Their children are Henrietta F. (Mrs. 
Frederick A. Hyland) who has a daughter, Evelyn, and Clara Agnes (Mrs. 
Emile Gustave Steinburg). The latter died March 5, 1891, leaving one child, 
Victor Morris Steinburg, who died Aug. 27, 1891. 

GEORGE A. GREEN. 

George A. Green, Allegany's popular county clerk, comes of good, old, 
sturdy New England stock. His paternal grandsire, Luther Green, one of 
the pioneers of Allegany county, was born in Rhode Island in 1796, and 
came to Independence, this county, from Madison county in 1820, where he 
settled and lived on the same farm that he first occupied, for the remarkably 
long period of seventy-two years, dying there at the age of ninety-six in 
1892. Mr. Green's maternal grandsire, John C. Bassett, was a native of 
Vermont, who emigrated to Independence in this county, about 1826, where 
he resided until his death in 1859. Elisha B. Green, eldest son of Luther 
Green and father of George A. Green, was born in Madison county in 1818 
and came to Allegany county w^ith his parents two years later, where he re- 
sided until his death in 1887. In 1841 he married Miss Maria C. Bassett, 
who died in 1861. Mr. Green was a militia captain in Col. Wilson's regiment, 
supervisor of his town, justice of the peace for twenty- four consecutive years 
and justice of sessions for two terms, one of nature's noblemen, respected 
and esteemed by all who knew him. George A. Green, eldest child of the 
above, was born in Independence, N. Y., May 21, 1843. He received a com- 
mon school education and four terms at Alfred University. In 1861 he en- 
hsted in Co. C, 85th Regt. N. Y. V., participated in several skirmishes and 
in battle of Fair Oaks, Va., May 30, 1862, and was honorably discharged on 
account of sickness, from Douglas Hospital, Washington, D. C, in the sum- 
mer following. He remained at home till spring of 1863, then re-entered 
the government service as clerk in office of Gen. Geo. Crook's chief quarter- 
master. Captain John R. Craig, then stationed at Cumberland, Md., in which 
position he remained about a year, returning home in the spring of 1864_ 
He engaged in business in the village of Andover, N. Y., in the fall of 1865, 
of which place he was postmaster from 1869 to 1885, sixteen years. Mr. 
Green stands high in Masonic circles, having been an active member of the 
mystic order for more than a quarter of a century, four times W. M. of 
Andover Lodge, No. 558, F. & A. M., twice D. D. G. M. of the 23d Masonic 
District of the state of New York., comprising the counties of Allegany and 
Steuben, a member and Past H. P. of Wellsville Chapter No. 143, R. A. M. 
and member of DeMolay Commandery No. 22, Knights Templar, Hornells- 
'ville, N. Y. He is also a prominent member of the G. A. R., having been 
four times commander of Seaman Post No. 481, Andover, and for three 
terms, aid-de-camp on the staff of the department commander of the state 



478d History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

of New York. Mr. Green was for four consecutive terms supervisor of 
the town of Andover, and was chairman of the board of supervisors in 1887. 
In pohtics Mr. Green has always been a Repubhcan, casting his first vote 
for Abraham Lincoln. He was nominated by the Republican party and 
elected county clerk of Allegany county in 1888, again in 1891 and nomi- 
nated by acclamation, for the third time, in 1894 and elected by a very com- 
plimentary vote. November 29, 1866, he was united in marriage to Miss 
Nora Livermore of Independence. This union has been blessed by four 
children, two of whom are now living, Mrs. E. A. Sweet of Wellsville and 
Miss Mary E. Green, residing with her parents at Belmont, N. Y. The 
simple record of Mr. Green's life impresses this fact, that he is a man of 
sterling and popular qualities, inherited from his sturdy, honorable and 
capable ancestors. In public life he has always been courteous, faithful, and 
competent in every trust. In private life he is a most genial companion, of 
optimistic disposition, always looking on the bright side of life, with ever 
an attentive ear and a warm heart for the unfortunate and generous to a 
fault. His domestic life has ever been of the pleasantest and one to be 
envied, and it is the universal wish of his host of friends, uncircumscribed 
by creeds or parties, that both himself and his estimable wife, may be spared 
to a ripe old age. 



Francis N. Whitcomb, son of Jeriah, was born March 13, 1831, in Granville, N. Y. When 
19 years old he commenced dealing in real estate, which business he still follows. He has also 
been a large dealer in lumber and in oil and oil lands, and is an oil producer in addition. He 
and D. Rawson invented and patented several improvements in sawmill machinery. He is also 
a farmer and breeder of a fine strain of trotting horses. In 1864 he was elected highway com- 
missioner, and is a Freemason. His first wife, Elizabeth Home, married Sept. 10, 1830, died 
April 10, 1880. By his second wife, Mary McMannus, married Jan. 25, 1883, he has two chil- 
dren, Philip F,, Margaret E. 

Russell A. Whitcomb, son of Jeriah Whitcomb, was born July 25, 1845, o" the old home- 
stead farm, where he has always resided and which he owns. He is an agriculturist, deals in 
real estate, live stock, etc. He married Ann E., daughter of Caleb Cornwell, and has four chil- 
dren, Hattie, Maggie, Jessie and Fred. 

Charles Youngs was born in Ogdensburg, June 7, 1822. When he was 18 months old his 
mother died, and he went to Lysander to live with his grandfather, John P. Schuyler. In 185 1, 
Mr. Youngs married Caroline Tator, and went to Oramel and was employed by J. H. Bissell in 
the lumber business for several years. In 1857, in company with Willetts Brothers, he bought 
a large tract of timber, which they cut into lumber. In 1859, Mr. Youngs went to McKean 
county, Pa., and was engaged in lumbering about 1 5 years, when he came to Belmont, where 
he owns an extensive farm of 780 acres, and has the two largest barns In the county, each 150 
by 128 feet. His three children are James H., Fred J., a merchant in Bradford, Pa., and Charles, 
Jr. He is a member of Bradford Lodge, F. & A. M. 

James H. Youngs, D.V. S., son of Charles Youngs, Sr., was born March 27, 1856, in Caneadea, 
N. Y. In 1890 he attended the Ontario Veterinary College at Toronto, Canada; and in 1891 
and 1892 attended the Ohio Veterinary College at Cincinnati, Ohio, where he was graduated 
with honors, winning a prize medal for being at the head of his class in surgery. He settled at 
Belvidere, N. Y., where he now is in practice. He is also a farmer. He married Daisy M., 
daughter of Frank Bement. He is a 32d degree Freemason. 



Scio. 479 



seio.* 

CHAPTER XLII. 

THIS town was early the southern half of Angelica, from which it was 
taken Jan. 31, 1823, the name it is said coming from the island of Scio, 
in the Mediterranean Sea. Public attention had been drawn to this island 
by an eloquent speech made by Daniel Webster on a recent massacre of 
Christians there, and his admirers here commemorated his masterly effort 
in naming- the new town Scio. It retained its regular form until Wilhng was 
taken off Nov. 19, 1851, and, after portions had been made into and added to 
Wellsville and Amity, in 1868 it presented its present very irregular out- 
hne. It hes entirely in the Genesee valley, Genesee river running in a 
northwest direction across its territory, two of its tributaries, Vandermark 
Creek from the northeast and Knight's Creek from the southwest, emptying 
into the river m this town. The towns of Amity and Ward he on the north, 
Wellsville on the east. Alma on the south and Wirt on the west. Scio has 
22,289 acres of land and in 1894 had an "equalized" value of real estate of |579, •• 
898, personal property assessed at $28,950 and "assessed to corporations " 
$46,825. Population 1830, 602; 1840, 1,150; 1850, 1,922; 1855, 8,184; 1860. 
1,631; 1870, 1,652; 1880, 1,555; 1890, 1,391. 

Pioneers were early attracted here. The valleys were filled with a 
massive growth of pine furnishing enormous prospective wealth, while the 
hiUs of gentle slope gave promise of easily cleared land and productive 
homesteads. Joseph Knight, a thrifty New Englander, brought his family 
and located in 1805 upon the place where his granddaughter, Mrs. Celestia 
Whitcomb, now resides, and gave his name to the stream in whose valley he 
settled. He died in 1829, but great changes were wrought in the forest wil- 
derness during the quarter of a century he had his home here. " Mr. Knight 
was obliged to cut his way into the town, and the passage he opened from 
Belmont was the first road within its boundaries; and for some time after- 
wards there were no roads but sled roads." There was for several years 
no gristmill nearer than Caneadea, no postoffice nearer than Angelica, where 
the postrider brought a scanty packet of letters once in two weeks, or, per- 
haps, once in each week, and advancing civilization on the east could be 
reached at Dike's settlement at Elm Valley by a winding, uncertain trail 
through the mighty forests. The productive capabilities of the new soil is 
shown by the crop of 300 bushels of corn planted in 1807 on land from which the 
trees had just beenfeUedandamong stumps sothick that no plow could be used. 
The Knights were ever good citizens, steady industrious workers. They have 
filled an honorable place in the local annals. Bradley Knight now lives on 
the homestead of his father, Samuel Knight, and Mrs. Whitcomb is the only 

* Largely furnished by S. A. Earley, Esq. 



480 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

child remaining of Col. William Knight of militia honors. Joseph Knight, 
brother of Col. William and Samuel, developed a line farm at the mouth of 
Knight creek. His family has disappeared, and Walter Madden now occu- 
pies his homestead. 

The Knights apparently had no neighbors until 1808, when Barnabas 
York and his son Alvah G. came. Alvah York, son of Alvah G., is the only 
member of this family now in Scio. In 1809 Silas Bellamy and Silas Palmer 
brought their families to Scio village. Mr. Bellamy has now two descend- 
ants here, Mrs. Catherine Chadwick on the homestead, and Sally, widow of 
John Simons. William Mckerson now owns the Silas Palmer farm (know^n 
as the Aaron Hale place). Prom 1809 settlers came straggling along. 
Among the early ones w^ere John Benjamin, John Burrell. John Cook, Nehe- 
miah Clark, Allen Foster, Peter Gordon (on place now occupied by the Harms 
Bros.), Benjamin Millard, Stephen Palmer, Charles Smith, George Sortore, 
and others. Joseph Clark came in 1815. The advantages and possibilities 
of Scio had become known to the eastern people, and settlement w^as now 
rapid. Levi Dean in 1819 took up the farm now known as the Malachi Davis 
place, and a considerable settlement began on " Middaugh Hill," the other 
pioneers of 1819 being John Middaugh, John Magee and Elisha Sortore. 
The John Middaugh place w^as owned later by James Weaver and now by 
Mrs. John E. Middaugh. They w^ere joined in March, 1820, by Alvin and his 
twin brother, William Middaugh. (Alvin died in 1886.) The snow was then 
three feet deep and they wintered their stock on the twigs and " browse " 
of trees which eked out the half ton of hay they brought. 

Polly Middaugh, widow of Alvin Middaugh, and daughter of Malachi 
Davis, now 84 years old, is well-preserved, with a keen memory of the 
pioneer days, and lives on the place that her husband "cleared" from a 
forest, and where five children were born. Her reminiscenses are interest- 
ing and tell the tale of the trials and sufferings of many others as well as 
those of her family. She lives on the old " home place," and is the only one 
of the old settlers left between the villages of Scio and Friendship. She 
says that the next year after they arrived all the sheep and lambs of the 
settlement except six were killed by wolves and wildcats, and the forests 
were full of wild beasts. She frequently saw wolves and panthers, and the 
howls of the former were almost a daily concert at some seasons of the year. 
Once w^hile walking with her mother they passed a wolf that was devouring 
something but a few rods from their path and took no notice of them. Her 
father and uncles in one of the early years took some cloth to a cloth dress- 
er's, and before it was dressed the mill and contents were burned. Then 
the three-legged wolf killed all of their sheep and left the w^ool scattered 
through the woods. They carefully gathered this w'ool, made it into cloth 
and carried it to another dressing mill. This mill also burned with their 
cloth, and for that wdnter they were forced to wear home-made linen cloth- 
ing. This three-legged w^olf was an enormous and ferocious black wolf that 
had probably lost one leg in some hunter's trap. It was the terror of a large 



Scio. 481 

extent of country for years, as is clearly shown by this resolution passed at 
the annual town meeting of Scio in 1841. " Resolved, that we raise a 
(special) bounty of )i^20 on the three-legged wolf if caught in this town." As 
this was in addition to the state bounty of f^lO and the regular town bounty, 
which was in 1840 and 1841 |10 for full-grown and $5 for '• whelp " wolves, 
we easily see that he was considered a dangerous enemy. " Before Ben- 
jamin Palmer built his mill in 1823 the neighbors would make up a load of 
grain and hire some one owning a team to carry it to mill at Caneadea or 
Pike and the trip would occupy from three to live days' time." Benjamin 
Stout who lived on the Grove Gillett place brought the first fanning mill to 
town, exchanging a pair of three-year old steers for it. 

William E., son of Elisha Middaugh, Jerome, son of Alvin Middaugh on 
the Maiachi Davis place, and Mrs. Fred Shepard, daughter of William Mid- 
daugh, on the Abram Middaugh place, are now residents of Scio. The Mid- 
daugh settlement prospered, other settlers came in, a schoolhouse was built 
in 1825 and John Middaugh's ashery converted the ashes of the clearings 
into black salts and potash, which furnished, with the peltry obtained in the 
hunts in the woods, the only source of procuring ready cash. The road was 
a long and tedious one to Ithaca, the nearest market for the potash, and only 
light loads could be taken over the swampy ways and "corduroy" high- 
ways. But the people were contented. A simple frugal fare and plenty of 
exercise in the open air made robust folk who did the advance Vv^ork of civili- 
zation most thoroughly. The first native of the town, Polly Knight, born in 
1806, did not live long enough to realize these benefits. After a short twelve 
months she died, the first death of a white person in present Scio. 

The early records are very defective, It is impossible to find the names 
of the town officers in all instances and the action of the town is poorly re- 
corded, so that we cannot trace the coming of the early residents. However we 
can give some of them. Joseph Flint located in 1820 just below Scio village. 
He became prominent as a lumber manufacturer at the mouth of the Vander- 
mark and as a useful citizen. Part of his original 200 acres is occupied by 
his grandson William, and the cemetery occupies a portion of it. Thomas 
Fitz Simmons settled about 1820 on the James Culbert farm in the west part 
of the town. Here his sons, Batman. Jei-ome, John. Lewis and Robert and 
their numerous sisters were "' raised." Minerva, one of the girls, married 
Myron S. Davis. Benjamin Palmer came in 1821, locating on the Gillett 
farm where members of that family now live. He built the town's first saw- 
mill in 1822 and its first gristmill in 1H23, about 1827 removed to the Brown- 
ing neighborhood. He was a merchant for many years, was the first post- 
master of Scio, keeping the ofiice at first in his house. 

Others came in 1821, among them one family most prominently con- 
nected with the events of the town from its first residence here. It is that 
of William Farley who was born near Cookstown, County Tyrone, Ireland, 
in 1772. He was an active and ardent mason, joining the Royal Arch Masons, 



482 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

in 1796 ; he also became a member of Lodge No. 610, Knight Templar and 
Knights of Malta same year, and was the lirst Knight Templar in Allegany 
county. In 1801, after a stormy voyage of two months, he came to Philadel- 
phia and was naturalized there in 1806. In 1809 he married Lorana Sortore, 
and came to Ovid, N. Y., in 1812. Here they lived until 1821 when he bought 
wild land of Judge Philip Church about 2i miles w^est of Scio village near 
Middaugh's settlement, and built a rude log house, occupying it in Febru- 
ary, 1822, with his wife and four children. The struggle for the necessaries 
of life was incessant. The father and older boys engaged in clearing the 
land. In haying and harvesting they would work for Judge Church on his 
farm near Belvidere, applying a portion of their wages as payment on the 
farm. Mr. and Mrs. Earley would frequently attend the Episcopal church 
at Angelica. The Methodists soon held services in the old log schoolhouse 
in Middaugh settlement near the sulphur spring, where a stone schoolhouse 
was afterwards built. As Mr. and Mrs. Earley and Sampson Raymer and 
wife were returning from an evening meeting, Mr. Earley carried, as was 
usual, a hickory-bark torch to light the dark, muddy road through the 
woods. Mrs. Raymer was in advance and stepping in the mud, pulled off 
one of her shoes and stooped to put it on, when Mr. Earley mistook her for a 
black stump. Wishing to improve the light of the torch by removing the 
coals, he struck the supposed stump a hearty blow with the torch, but in- 
stead of a stump, Mrs. Raymer received a severe blow across her back. 
She was badly frightened and ran, swiftly followed by Mr. Earley, who ex- 
tinguished the flames which had caught in her dress. In October, 1832, 
about 9 o'clock in the morning, three bears came into Mr. Earley's yard a 
few rods from the house and killed a number of sheep, wounding others. 
They caught one of the bears in a trap the next night. Mr. Earley went to 
the sugar bush about 4 o'clock one morning to start the fire under the sap 
kettles. He was soon surrounded by wolves which kept him there until 
daylight. He protected himself with the " poking- sticks " used for fixing 
the fire by swinging their blazing ends in the faces of the snarling and howl- 
ing wolves until daylight when they left him. In 1835 a sister died in 
Philadelphia leaving him a large sugar plantation on the island of Tobago 
in the West Indiesf but his attorney neglected to have the claim properly 
presented and recorded and the property was irretrievably lost. WiUiam 
Earley possessed one rare trait of character, that of speaking well of his 
neighbors. He could find something to commend in any person he heard re- 
viled. On one occasion a morose neighbor spoke ill of a number of the neigh- 
bors after which Mr. Earley remarked: "If I should call Benjamin Stout 
dishonest, Jacob Lumbert a rogue, Abram Middaugh a knave, and Malachi 
Davis a deceiver, whom would you say was the rascal, all of these men or 
William Earley ? " His family consisted of 9 boys. James, the eldest, was 
a physician in Ohio near Mansfield. He died in 1864. Jonathan, the second 
son, resided in Scio, and died in 1890 aged 75 years. Stout died at Scio, Feb. 
8, 1876. He left 4 boys. Three reside at AUentown; Cray ton L. is an attor- 



Scio. 483 

ney at Andover. John Robert and Z. B. are farmers in the vicinity of Scio. 
Z. B. is father-in-law of C. F. Vincent, a practicing- attorney of Wellsville, and 
also a member of the hardware firm of Vincent & Hoyt, Wellsville. Charles 
R., now in his 73d year, studied medicine with Dr. Reed, of Philipsville (Bel- 
mont), and in 1844 commenced practice at Friendship and removed to Ridge- 
way, Pa., in 1846. He spent much time in the Jeffersonian Medical College, 
of Philadelphia, was county superintendent of schools 12 years, represented 
his district eight terms in the legislature, three times represented the Med- 
ical Congress of the United States at the International Medical Congress in 
Paris, London and Berlin. In 1893, while attending a meeting of the Medi- 
cal Society of the United States in Washington, D. C, he was thrown from 
an electric car receiving injuries of the head and spine from which he is now 
suffering. Henry W., the third son, was highw^ay commissioner and super- 
visor of Scio several terms. He was an extensive manufacturer and dealer 
in lumber, square timber and spars. He became a prominent lumberman 
in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, was a pronounced Democrat, mayor of Chip- 
pewa Falls, Wis., and three times candidate of his party for member of con- 
gress. He died in Chippewa Falls, March 24, 1893, aged 75. Samuel A., 
another son, resides in Wellsville. 

Malachi Davis in 1823 purchased the Jerome Middaugh place where one 
Wiltsie had built a rude cabin, which, after Mr. Davis had erected a more 
comfortable one, he used as a shop where he made chairs and spinning 
wheels until he moved to Amity in 1833. His children have been re^iresen- 
tative citizens. About this time or earlier William Wright located in Knight's 
Creek valley where his grandson Walter lives. In 1826 Ehsha Middaugh 
joined the Scio contingent of settlers and a few years later his father Abra- 
ham came and also made Scio his home. 

The Brownings have been here since 1825, when Davis Browning came 
from New London county in Connecticut as a teacher. He married in 1828 
Elizabeth M., daughter of Benjamin Palmer, and located on the river where 
his son, William Q., resides, in 1832, and held all leading town offices, was 
postmaster, etc. He died in 1871. His widow, now 84 years old, resides 
with Wm. Q. The other sons are Lewis D., lives on the adjacent Lewis 
farm, John H. of Canisteo and Ohn D. of Wellsville. Welcome H. Browning, 
brother of Davis, came in 1834 to Scio. He was prominent in business and 
" affairs," and died in 1889 aged 79. His wife died in 1891 aged 77. Their 
son, H. M., owns the homestead, his sister, Mrs. M. E. Davis, hves in 
Belmont. 

William L. Norton came in the spring of 1834 and made his home near 
the south line of the town in Knight's Creek valley. Here he and his sons 
have developed one of the handsomest farming sections of the county. He 
was a quiet, unostentatious man, and a leading member of the Methodist 
church. He and his wife both died in March, 1895. 

Thomas Coyle located in 1836 on Knight's Creek. Hugh Coyle now oc- 
cupies the land. Among his sons w^ere Thomas, Bartholomew, Peter (lives 



484 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



on the Fitz Simmons place), John (on the Samuel Hurd place), Bernard and 
James. Peter Coyle (was he a brother of Thomas?) came from Belmont to 
Scio m 1845. All of the Samuel Wilkins family have gone except James and 
his family, and Mr. Reddie occupies the original homestead. Other settlers 
were Henry Nickerson (1833) on the Clark farm south of the village; Gloudy 
Hamilton (1844) on the Vandermark succeeding one Taylor. He was a lum- 
berman, and had a sawmill. A grandson lives on the place. Aaron Hale and 
Alfred Johnston, who opened the first tavernin 1821, and many others have no 
descendants here. George Blackman came in 1849. Oliver Norton occu- 
pies the Dr. E. E. Hyde place, first ovv^ned by Cyrus Elster. We give the 
deaths of other early settlers. Hiram Cheney in 1868, Sheldon Brewster in 
1867, William Hurley in 1864 aged 92, his wife Lorana in 1863, Col. RosweU 
Adams in 1872 aged 79, leaving $80,000, Joseph Duke in 1884, leaving §100,- 
000, C. S. Clark in 1880 aged 75, leaving nearly |800,000, Norman Morse in 
1865 aged 92, Isaac Miles in 1892 aged 86, leaving a personal estate of 
$100,000. 

Some of the early town meetings and elections were held at private 
houses, then at Benjamin Palmer's and later the Cottage Hotel had its share, 
while the old VanBuren House and the American House at Wellsville fre- 
quently was the scene of conflict. Conflicting interests had much to do with 
locating the place of holding early town meetings. Sometimes the voters 
met at Stannards Corners, sometimes at the Norton settlement, and some- 
times " over on the Honeoye." And curious sometimes was the action taken. 
In 1837 the town voted a bounty of five dollars for a " full grown " and half 
that amount for a "whelp" wolf; also "that the funds remaining in the 
hands of the supervisor ' if enough ' be applied in purchase of a standard 
half -bushel and peck for the town." In 1838 the wolf bounty was doubled. 
In 1840 in addition to continuing the same bounties for wolves, a bounty of 
one dollar each was voted for foxes. These bounties continue matters of 
yearly action for several years after 1840. The old records reveal, like a 
succession of instantaneous photographs, the different and changing con- 
ditions of the people from the time when the axe and gun were the daily 
companion of each man up to the period when iron bridges began to be 
placed across the streams. To show the business life of the jDeople in early 
days we copy some of the timeworn and mouldy documents that have been 
preserved. 

Samuel Van Campen, Bought of Jas. Lyon, 

Skin Tea, 4s.. $0.50 

2 lbs. Tobacco, @ 2s. 6d, 0.63 

12 flints, .25 

2 lbs. Hyson Tea, 14s., 3.50 

3 " Skin Tea, 7s., 2.63 
I lb. Spice, 3s. 6d. ; Canister Powder, 8s., 1.44 
1 Cotton Shawl, los. ; 5 yards Calico, 2s. 6d., 2.81 
I lb. Tobacco, 2s. 6d., 31 

Received payment by Note, $12.07 

Canandaigua, Jan. 20, 1820. 



Scio. 485 

Received two Dollars from Samuel Van Campen, Being in full for the Damages supposed 
to be Done by his pigs in the year of 1820 in the Month of October, received by me this 
twenty seckond Day of March, 1821. L. Stanhope. 

Scio, January 8, 1825. 
For Value received. I promise to pay Benj. Palmer One Bushel and One peck of Corn to 
be Delivered at the Mills after it Comes Slaying. Sam'l Van Campen. 

In an old and brown receipted account issued to " Samuel Van Campen, 
Dr.," we find Bradley & Sherman, under date of Oct. 24, 1827, charging him 
with ''Ballance on Tea Pot," 1 comb, codfish, rum, powder, snuff, tea, 1 
whip stock, rum. "whiskey at bar." These were the necessities of the 
pioneer period. Will our purchases look as strange to the people of seventy 
years hence? We close our exhibits of former life with this unique legal 
paper: 
Mr. Van Campen, Esq. 

Sir Please to Enter a Judgement against me for the amount of a Note he Mr. Cartwright 
holds against me and you Will Much oblige Yours etc. S. McLafferty. 

Nov. 28, 1825. 

Samuel Van Campen for a long time kept the " Genesee Valley " post- 
olfice on the river between Scio and Belmont. He had much dealing with 
the early settlers of quite an extensive range of country. See Amity. 

Mills. — Scio was at the zenith of her commercial activity from 1853 to 
1863. A sawmill was found on every little stream. Eight were located on 
Knight's Creek, viz., Church & Brewster "s-gang mill near Allentown, Norton 
& Middaugh's mill, William Duke's on the old Duke homestead, Woodward's 
mill, Hildreth's mill. Potter & Wright's, Howard & Sheldon's and Luther's 
mill near the mouth of the creek. On Brimmer Brook were two owned by 
Budd & Insley and Charles Yager. On the Vandermark Creek was one 
mill owned by' Gloudy Hamilton and another by Black. There were three 
on Gordon Creek respectively owned by H. W. Earley, J. & S. Dayton and 
Peter Gordon. Four were located on the Genesee River, Philip Church's 
gang mill (the first in the county), built 1852. Davis Browning's, Clark & 
Babcock's. also one owned by Wm. Duke, the last two named were in the vil- 
lage. There are only two now in town, K. S. Black and L. Norton's. At this 
timethere were besides theseeight shingle mills, one stavemilland one shook 
mill and two flouring mills. A number of gangs of men were engaged in 
cutting, hewing and drawing squaref timber and spars. All these made 
Scio the first business town in the county. About 1863 a change came over 
the spirit of her dreams. Fire did its work of destruction and some active 
business men left the town for new fields of labor, for the valuable pine 
forests were nearly exhausted. Finally the increased business in Wellsville 
caused by the building of the large tanneries drew largely from the business 
of Scio. and in 1895 we find only two sawmills and one flouring mill. 

The first steam mill in Allegany county was built at Petrolia in Scio on 
Brimmer Brook, more than fifty years ago, by one Ditto, who brought the 
boiler, engine, etc. from Nunda over the hilly roads on wagons. The first 
circular sawmill was operated in the town of Genesee about the same time. 



486 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

In September, 1856, occurred the great forest fire which burned large tracts 
of valuable pine and hemlock timber in the towns of Bolivar, Alma, Scio, 
Wellsville and Willing. In this fire were burned the large Church & Brews- 
ter gang mill on Knight's Creek together with all the lumber, houses, and 
barns. The flames came with such velocity that one man was burned and 
others had only time to escape with their families leaving everything else 
behind. More than a million feet of lumber in the log was then " skidded " 
in the woods on Wolf Run to supply the mill. The logs were drawn to Scio 
on sleighs the following winter. William L. Norton built a sawmill on 
Knights Creek in the Norton settlement in 1840. This was burned and re- 
built in 1863 as a steam mill. It cuts from 100,000 to 200,000 feet yearly. 

Black's sawmill was built as a watermill by K. S. Black in 1865. Three 
years later he put up his steam mill which cuts from one to two million feet 
annually and has a planing mill attached. 

The center of business was early at Benjamin Palmer's mill and house. 
Here " shows " were entertained, travelers furnished food and lodging and 
elections and town meetings held until about 1840. Hiram Cheney, a lum- 
berman and farmer, who came here about 1825, gave his name to the bridge 
spanning the Genesee close by his residence, and, at the east end of 
the Cheney bridge, in 1840 John L. Russell and Charles M. Marvin built the 
little building now standing there for a store which they conducted until 
1843 when they removed to Richburg. L. S. Russell about the same time 
bought the property of the Cottage Tavern which was built in 1832. This 
was on the east side of the river and river road directly opp'osite the Russell 
& Marvin store. This location became a center of business, and the tavern 
a great resort for pleasure seekers, and its dances, parties, elections and 
other gatherings yet linger pleasantly in the memories of the " old-timers." 
The first landlord was one Wickham, followed in succession by Mrs. Wilcox, 
Aaron Hale and Elisha Loomis. The Cottage ceased to do business in 1853, 
and the building long since disappeared. 

Scio Village. — There was no road or bridge crossing the Genesee or run- 
ning west from this i^lace until 1850. All travel from the west side crossed 
the Cheney bridge. A popular hotel on the site of the present one, kept for 
years by Francis L. Blood, a man of worth and ability, had given the locality 
the name of " Blood's " Corners. The first settler, Silas Bellamy, came in 
1809 and located 100 acres, soon selling to Barnabas York nearly 50 acres. 
York was the predecessor of Blood as a tavern keeper. In 1838 John L. 
Russell built a store on the corner so long known as the M. S. Davis corner, 
and in 1841 sold to Horace Riddell, a contractor on the Erie railroad, who 
made Scio his headquarters for extensive operations in constructing the 
road in this section. Myron S. Davis, Joseph N. Sheldon (postmaster from 
1869 to 1885 and 1889 to 1891), Benjamin Palmer, Benjamin Palmer, Jr., and 
others conducted merchandising here for years. From the opening of the 
road across the river the village grew rapidly. The railroad located a sta- 
tion here, and it was a great shipping point for vast quantities of lumber. 



Scio. 4-87 

In 1855 there were 496 inhabitants. At one time there were fully two miles 
of railroad switches liere and it was all needed. With the growth of Wells- 
ville and from other causes this prosperity waned, and now it is but a quiet 
little villag-e with a union school with two departments and 100 scholars, 
the following business houses, some handsome residences, Seventh-day 
Baptist, Methodist Episcopal and Catholic churches, Hakes Post, No. 261, 
O. A. R., a tent of Maccabees and a lodge of Good Templars, and W. C. T. U., 
and stables, shops, etc. Elias Harris, an old lumber operator in the fifties, 
later a successful oil operator, purchased the banking institution of Judson 
H. Clark in 1886 and has since conducted private banking ; King S. Black, 
an extensive lumber operator, farmer, etc.; M. C. Smith, dealer in dry 
goods, etc., since 1876 (12 years in present location "on the corner "); Bab- 
cock & Sons, dry goods, etc.; J. J. Crandall, hardware and groceries at the 
old Benjamin Palmer stand; Benj. Palmer, Jr., also hardware and gro- 
ceries; J. B. Sherrett and R. C. Major, druggists; Charles E. Hull, grocer. 
These, wdth other industries, and a shook manufactory employing 5 or 6 
men, make up the business life. The business transacted at the Erie sta- 
tion for the year ending Sept. 30, 1893. was $13,019.91; 1894, $11,365.03; 1895, 
$8,079.59. 

Scio Cheese Factory, No. 1., at Scio village, was built in 1884 by Duke 
and Applebee. Gilbert Bliven, who has carried it on since 1893, has pro- 
duced over 100.000 pounds of cheese in a year, using the milk of between 
SOO and 400 cows. 

Petrolia Cheese Factory, built by Willard A. Dodge in 1895, uses the 
milk of 250 cows. Petrolia is in the southeast corner of the town and marks 
the site where, under the impetus of O. P. Taylor's famous oil well. Triangle 
No. 3., a mushroom city was started, a postoftice located, and a church edi- 
fice constructed. Nothing now remains but a few dwellings, the church and 
the postotfice. The only industry of prominence is this cheese factory. 

Methodist Episcopal Gliurvh* — As near as I can learn the original class 
was formed by Rev. Azel Fillmore about 1825. Alfred Lathrop, Levi and 
Nathan Wright, and Miletus York were among its members. Services were 
held at private houses occasionally by itinerants. About 1845 the Metho- 
dists worshiped in the Union church at Scio village, being a joint charge 
with Wellsville where the pastor resided. This relation continued until 
about 1870 when Scio charge was set off as an independent body. In 1860 
the present church was built. The trustees then were John Simons, Wel- 
come H. Browning and Thomas Wilber. It was erected at the northern end 
of Main St. near the cemetery, but in 1891 a more central and eligible site in 
the village w^as purchased and the building moved thither. In 1892 a jjar- 
sonage and a barn were built on the same lot. The value of the property is 
$4,500. There are three classes connected with this church: Scio, R. V. 
Gillett, leader; Knight's Creek, Nancy Wright and T. P. Call, leaders; Wads- 
worth Hill. Aaron Black, leader. Knight's Creek has a nice little church; 

* By \V. Q. Browning. 



488 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

at Wadsworth Hill services are conducted in a schoolhouse. There are 
about 45 members at Scio, 35 at Knight's Creek, 20 at the Hill. Scio Sun- 
day school has seven officers and 50 pupils, A. S. Benjamin, superintendent; 
that at Knight's Creek six officers and 50 pupils, Nancy Wright, superin- 
tendent; that on the Hill four officers and 30 pupils, Sherman Hurd, super- 
intendent. The trustees are: Scio, I. M. Miles, A. S. Benjamin, R. V. Gil- 
lett, M. S. Davis and Albert Babcock; Knight's Creek, W. H. Norton, Oscar 
Tibbs and Robert Wright. 

Seventh-day Baptist Church. — This has existed since May 15, 1834, when 
24 persons of this faith were organized into a church by a council convened 
for this purpose at the Davis schoolhouse, two miles north of the later vil- 
lage of Scio. This was called "The Amity Church" and the constituent 
members were Jesse B., John C. and Rachel Cartwright, Davis. Daniel B., 
Nancy and Sarah Stillman, Theodoty, Theodoty, Jr., and Silas G. Bliven, 
James and Susan Weed, John and Ruth Maxson, Jesse, Ethan and Hannah 
Rogers, Philemon and Lydia Green, William Millard, Buell Oviatt, Judith 
Lester and Hannah Burdick. In accordance with a vote of the society 
passed in 1837 a meetinghouse 24x30 feet in size was erected two miles 
down the river from the location of Scio, and so far completed that meetings 
were held in it, but it was never finished, for with the growth of the village 
that became a center for religious meetings as well as of business opera- 
tions. In 1859 the name of the organization was changed to " Scio " church, 
to correspond with the name of the town. A union meetinghouse was built 
about 1850 at Scio village by a stock company and was occupied by all de- 
nominations for about ten years, when it was neglected and the attention of 
this society was drawn towards its purchase. In fact the initial move in 
this direction was made in 1857. Mr. S. A. Earley, acting for this body, 
gradually bought the shares of the union house, and after the trustees 
were empowered in 1871 to purchase the building, he turned the shares 
over to them. It was then refitted and occupied as the society's house of 
worship, being rededicated April 11, 1877, Removals and deaths in time so 
weakened both the Amity and Scio churches that self-preservation caused 
their consolidation into the present organization. The first regular pastor 
appears to have been Elder Rouse Babcock, serving from 1848 to 1851. 
Rev. Jesse Rowley was pastor from 1854 to 1872. He was succeeded in turn 
by J. L. Huffman, Charles Rowley, U. M. Babcock, J. L. Bennett. The 
present pastor is Rev. H. L. Jones, who has officiated for 14 months. The 
present trustees are: L. L. Canfield, T. Sage, A. E. Rogers; deacon, A. E. 
Rogers; number of resident members, 27; non-resident members; 10; Sab- 
bath school superintendent, John Canfield; secretary, Lon Smith; number 
of scholars 45, Value of church property $1,700. 

The Church of Christ was organized by Rev. Wilson Collins April 10, 1861, 
with nine members, Isaac, Harriet, George, Harriet Ann and Miles Smith, 
Mrs. Charlotte Peterson, Henry Shepard, Elizabeth Fitz Simmons and Carrie 
Hurd. Isaac Smith was made elder, Henry Shepard deacon, George Smith 



Scio. 489 

clerk. There was at that time an organization of Christians at Knight's 
Creek schoolhouse of about the same size under the pastoral care of Rev. 
Mr. Strickland which after a time united with the Scio church of which 
union Mr. Strickland was made elder and preached once in two weeks at 
"the schoolhouse on the hill. " Mr. Collins also for a while came once in two 
weeks and preached. Meetings were faithfully kept up on Sunday, whether 
a preacher was there or not, on the hill and later " on the creek " until 1863 
when the church began to hold meetings in the union meetinghouse. In 1874 
the society built a church and organized a Sunday school which has since 
been kept up. The present superintendent is Mrs. Amanda Hinckley. The 
church has never been numerically strong, and it has not at all times had 
ministerial service. Some of the preachers have been Strickland, Collins, 
Ira Chase, I. C. Goodrich, Belden, Callahan. Bartlett, Hart. Manly, Slade, 
Ainsworth, Patterson, James, Davis, Gardiner and others. In November, 
1894, the church joined with the Wellsville church in hiring Elder A. R. Mil- 
ler, the present pastor, under whose efficient labors it has taken on new life 
and activity. One of the leading members is King S. Black, who has been 
elder for the past 25 years, and holds services in absence of the pastor. 

Hakes Post, No. 261, G. A.R., was organized May 4, 1882, with these 27 members: Capt- 
J. E. Middaugh, commander ; M. J. Peterson, senior vice commander ; O. P. Fowler, junior vice 
commander; H. G. West, adjutant ; J. K. Morgan, quartermaster; J. S. Fuller, surgeon ; R. 
Canfield, chaplain; Geo. Wilbur, officer of the day ; B. A. Gault, officer of the guard ; M. A. 
Clark, sergeant major ; Abner Bissell, quartermaster sergeant ; and comrades J. S. Healey, R. 
N. Utter, Daniel Hull, A. B. York, W. W. Mapes, R. C. Roff, G. A. Saunders. J. W. Dailey, 
Geo. Fletcher, A. J. White, C. B. Jones, P. G. Barber, D. W. Billings, Gurdon Babcock, A. J. 
Reynolds, Edmund Sortore. The present officers are : William Ockerman, Com. ; M. J. Peter- 
son, S. V. C. ; John Smith, J. V. C; Uri Deck, Adjt. ; Sherman Perkins, Q. M. ; Warrenton 
Mapes, S. ; Edmund Sortore, Chap. ; Geo. Wilbur, O. D. ; Isaac Miles, S. M. ; Wm. Metcalf, 
Q. S. The commanders have been : J. E. Middaugh, James Morgan, Uri Deck, Edmund Sor- 
tore, Wm. Ockerman. The Post meets at Smith's Hall, on the ist and 3d Saturdays of each 
month. 

In addition to those already given, the following enlisted from Scio : Geo. W. Burdge, H. 
A. Reynolds, John Burns, L. B. Young, Joseph Brewster, Hiram A. Peterson, Christopher 
Courtright, A. C. Hudsdall, J. M. Roberts, A. W. Collins, L. F. Mills, Christopher Miller, Geo. 
D, Maybee, Jam.es Vreeland, Hezekiah Howe, J. H. Black, Michael Ellsworth, G. N. Cline, 
Frank Angel, A. C. Clark, R. A. Cady, Henry J. Babbitt, Henry Peterson, Charles Thomas, 
Daniel W. Collins, George Hays, Capt. John C. Hughes, Marshall C. Middaugh, Wm. Gagan, 
John Young, Geo. Gordon, Adelbert Wilbur, Thomas Gagan, Daniel Knight. 

Enlisted men from Scio who died in the service or since their discharge : Capt. Erdley N. 
Canfield.t Gehial Ford,* Clarence Fuller,* Wesley L. Roff,* Phineas Haywood,* John Knapp,* 
Theron G. Day,* Steuben Holmer,* Orson Randolph,* Wm. N. Middaugh,* Henry Urter,t Isaiah 
Wood,* Charles Truman,t Samuel Haywood,* S. F. Bunnell.t Wm. P. Marden,t Louis Perry,* 
Sirenus Young (died at Andersonville), Geo. Miller,* Capt. Geo. Brewster,* Lieut. Clark Thom- 
as,t Jacob Ost,T Enmund C. Howe.t John C. Burns.f J. S. Healey.f yVlmond D. Burdick,* James 
M. Bosenbark,* Wm. D. Bosenbark,* A. Bentley,t Albert Rose.t Almeron D. Hazard, I" Thomas 
York,t Delos York,* Seymour Knight,* Daniel Sortore (died in Salisbury, N. C), L. D. Maybee,t 
N. L. Reynolds,! Geo. D. Henderson,! Isaac Sprague (died at Andersonville), Capt. Wm. Brad- 
* Died in service, t Died after being discharged. 



490 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

shaw,* James H. Peterson,* Calvin H. Peterson.f Willard Tibbs,* Levi Tibbs,* Bascom A. Gault.j 
Christopher Mlller.t Geo. D. Maybee.t Geo. M. Burdge.t Delos W, Billings.f Chas. B. Jones.t 
Wm. E. Babbitt,t Wm. H. Biaclt.t Abraham A. Bosenbark.f Samuel C. Corbit,* Henry Clair.f 
George W. Stout,* Charles Burns,* Thomas Gagan.* 

Capt. Eardley W. Canfield was for many years prior to the civil war the 
Scio station agent of the Erie railroad. He left this situation to raise Co. C, 
67th N. Y. (1st Long Island) Regt. He was a gallant officer and a strict dis- 
ciplinarian. His bravery was amply demonstrated at the Battle of Fair 
Oaks. He had resigned his commission and the war department's acceptance 
reached him the day before the battle. He however stayed and commanded 
the company through a most sanguinary engagement in which the regiment 
lost 182 men in 45 minutes, and every non-commissioned officer of his com- 
pany was eitlier killed or wounded. He escaped uninjured, only to lose his 
life years later while trying to save some goods from a burning store in 
Pennsylvania. 

Major Peter Keenan.J born at York, Livingston Co., N. Y., Nov. 9, 1834. Educated at Wellsville and 
Angelica. Killed at Chancellorsville, Va., May 2, 1863. Buried in Catholic cemetery, Scio, N. Y. 

In the Catholic cemetery in Scio rests all that is mortal of one of the bravest heroes of our 
civil war, one whose name stands side by side with Gushing, Winthrop, Lyon and the brilliant 
coterie of immortals whose deeds have made them deathless. Major Peter Keenan, a resident 
of this county from 1851 to 1858, educated at Wellsville, and Wilson Academy, Angelica, in 
1 861 was a business man in Philadelphia, and raised the 8th Penn. cavalry, the iirst regiment of 
volunteers to arrive at the scene of war. In all the bloody battles of the Army of the Potomac 
he bore conspicuous part, and rose from captain to major by his merit and gallantry. At the 
battle of Chancellorsville, at the sacrifice of his own life and the lives of most of his regiment, 
he checked the supposed invincible legions of Stonewall Jackson, and averted the stampede and 
destruction that threatened General Hooker's army. At twilight of May 2, 1863, Jackson's di- 
vision of the Confederate army fell upon the nth corps (Gen. O. O. HotVard's), the right wing 
of the Union army, and drove it back with such fury that cannon, caissons, cannoniers and in- 
fantry, in mingled confusion, covered a mile of the road to Chancellorsville. Gen. Hooker or- 
dered Gen. Pleasanton to do something to stay the conquering rebels, and Major Keenan was 
ordered to lead his regiment to support the flying corps. With unflinching courage he charged 
the Confederates and held them in check some minutes, long enough, before the regiment was 
annihilated, to allow the Union artillery to be placed in position and repulse the enemy. Major 
Keenan was shot while charging in advance of his troops. He fell upon the very bayonets of 
the enemy. In his death agony he tried to remount his horse but was quickly killed. His man- 
gled body was brought from inside the enemy's lines at night. One historian says : " In the 
pages of history there is not recorded a more gallant or heroic charge. It w^as a charge against 
fearful odds ; a charge of 400 against 40,000 ; a charge of a regiment against an army ; a 
charge made in the face of inevitable death, at the crucial moment of a great battle, to save the 
Union army from panic, disaster and destruction." Major Keenan is dead, but George Par- 
sons Lathrop's poem immortalizes his deed. Its last lines are : 

" Over him now — year following year — 
Over his grave the pine cones fall. 
And the whippoorwill chants his spectral call. 
But he stirs not again ; he raises no cheer ; 
He has ceased, But his glory shall never cease, 
Nor his light be quenched m the light of peace. 
The rush of his charge is resounding still. 
That saved the army at Chancellorsville." 

* Died in service, t Died after being discharged. 

X Prepared from sketch furnished by Rev. J, J. Dealy. 



Scio. 491 

Supervisors. — 1 831, John Middaugh ; 1832-33, Joseph Knig^ht ; 1834- 35, William Knight; 
1836, John Middaugh; 1837-38-39-40, Joseph Knight; 184 £-42-43-44, Ephraim A. Smith; 
1845, Handy Bellamy ; 1846-47, Davis Brownmg ; 1848, Nathan Smith; 1849-50-51, Samuel 
M. Mott ; 1852, James M. Mott; 1853, Hiram York ; 1854-55, Henry W. Earley ; 1856, Handy 
Bellamy ; 1857, James R. Weston ; 1858, Noah C. Pratt; 1859, James R. Weston ; i860, Am- 
brose Van Campen ; 1861, A. S. Van Campen ; 1862-63-64, Charles S. Clark ; 1865, Francis G. 
Babcock ; 1866, William Duke ; 1867, Francis G. Babcock ; 1868, Isaac Miles; 1869, Charles S. 
Clark; 1870-71, William Duke ; 1872-73, Philip Reddy ; 1874-75, Judson H.Clark; 1876-77, 
Miles C. Smith ; 1878, James A. Stephenson ; 1879, Miles Smith ; i"88o-8i, William Duke. Jr. ; 
1882-83-84, James K. Morgan; 1885, Thomas F. Major; 1886, Benjamin Palmer; 1887, My- 
ron S. Davis; 1888-89, Charles H. Almy ; 1890-91-92-93-94-95, Ebenezer J. Norton. 

Officers for 1895 : Supervisor. E. J. Norton ; clerk, A. J. JoUs; assessor, John A. Hurley; 
collector, Sumner B. Tuttle ; overseers of the poor. Henry Peterson, N. O. Johnson ; inspectors 
of election, W. Thomas, Wm. O. Browning, J. H. Thomas; excise commissioner. D. W.Clark; 
constables, S. B. Tuttle, A. P. Black, F. F. Margeson, Arvin Hall. J. R. Mann ; game constable, 
Wm. Sparks ; justices, W. Thomas, G. A. Gordon, C. E. Babcock. 

Some of Scio's People. — Erastus Babcock, son of Russell, was born in Scott, N. Y., 
about 1 81 9. His father was among the early settlers of Scio. Erastus married Doroleski 
Perkins, settled in Wirt, and had 5 children. Mr. Babcock was a farmer, was also engaged in 
lumbering. He died in 1863. His widow resides in Scio. Gurdon E. Babcock, son of Eras- 
tus, was born April 15, 1843, in Wirt. In 1861 he enlisted in Co. C, 85th Regt. N. Y. S. V. 
and was wounded at the battles of Fair Oaks, Malvern Hill, Raleigh and Little Washington, N. 
C. He was taken prisoner April 20, 1864, at Plymouth, N. C, and was kept a prisoner for 346 
days. He weighed when taken to prison 193 pounds, and, when he left, less than 90 pounds. 
He was honorably discharged June 6, 1865. He is a member of Hakes Post, No. 261. July 4, 
1865, he married Freelove E., daughter of John Wright. They have 3 children. 

Justice Blackman, of Rhode Island, married Betsey Usher, and located in Pharsalia, Chen- 
ango Co. They had children, George, Selden and Mary. The sons came to Scio and settled 
on Knight's Creek. George married Mariah M. Smith, who died April 23, 1893. Their chil- 
dren were Samantha E. (Mrs. William Duke), Daniel G., George H., Maria (Mrs. David C. 
Corwin), Julia (Mrs. Howard Eldridge). In 1890 he removed to Wellsville. Selden married 
Cornelia, daughter of Ebenezer Norton, and later removed to the West where he died. 

King Solomon Black, son of William D. and Julia (Harris) Black, was born in Alfred (now 
Ward) Jan. 8, 1840. William D. was son of John, the Scotch emigrant, who settled first in 
New Jersey and later in Lisle, Broome Co., N. Y., where William D. was born about 1800. 
The family came to Alfred in or near 1826, and William D. built a sawmill on Vandermark 
Creek and engaged in lumbering and farming. His wife died m 1842, and he Mar. 24, 1888. 
Their children were : William H., an Union soldier, died in service; Edward; Jane E. (Mrs. 
James Fluker) ; Adahne (Mrs. John H. Black) ; King S. The latter came to Scio in 1865 after 
being a successful dealer in live stock for some years, purchased a large tract of timber land 
and built a sawmill where he has cut a large amount of lumber taken from his lands that are 
now converted into fertile fields and of which he owns 1,000 acres. He married, April 20, 1862, 
Mary E., daughter of Gardner and M?rtha Tucker of Ward. Of their 8 children 5 survive: 
Amanda F. (Mrs. W. A. Dodge), Evangeline (Mrs. Philip Collins), Eugene T., Garfield and 
Grab A. Mr. Black is a leading citizen, an energetic business man, an active member of and 
for over 25 years an elder of the Scio Church of Christ and a Freemason. 

Peter Coyle, born in Westmeath, Ireland, Oct. 31, 1822, came to America in 1837. He 
married 1st, Jane Graham. They had 4 children. His 2d wife was Kate Kane, they had 4 
children. His 3d wife was Bridget Flannigan. Mr .Coyle was 1 ( days coming from New York 
City to this county, and when he arrived in Belmont he had but 25 cents. He soon obtained 
work with the " Churches," working the first year for $7 a month and labored for them about 
6 years. He came to Scio in 1845 and purchased a farm. 

John Coyle, a native of Ireland, came here about 1842 ; his father Hugh was a settler on 
Knight's creek. John Coyle married Ann McKinley and had 8 children, John L. Coyle, their 
son, married Ella Cornell, and has 2 children. He is a cheese manufacturer and is the owner 
of a cheese factory. 

Malachi Davis was born in Philadelphia Feb. 4, 1779. He married Catharine Krees and 
settled in Milo. He was a cabinet maker by trade. In 1823 he settled in Scio, and made the 
first clearing on the farm. There was a log house on the place built by a Mr. Wiltsie, which 



492 History op Allegany County, N. Y. 



Mr. Davis occupied until he built a better one, and used the other for a shop where he made 
chairs and spinning wheels. He was also one of Scio's first highway com missioners, locating 
and laying out most of the first highways of Scio as then constituted from about 1825 to 1835. 
He had a family of 11 children. In 1833 he bought a farm in Amity where he resided until his 
death Mar. 20, 1867. His wife died Nov. 22, 1856. 

Myron S. Davis, son of Malachi, was born in Scio, May 4, 1824, and has resided here since 
his birth. He attended the common schools and Alfred University. He taught 15 terms of 
school winters and worked on the farm summers. In 1851, he married Minerva J., a daughter 
of Batman Fitzsimmons. They had one son, Marshall T., who was born Aug. 23, 1856 and 
died Sept. 29, 1886. He married Addie Taylor and had 3 sons, Myron T., Mark W., and E. 
Marshall. Myron S. Davis has held the'office of justice of the peace for 30 consecutive years, and 
supervisor 3 terms. In 1852 he located in Scio villas^e and the next year opened a general store 
which he conducted until April 20, 1889, when the store and goods were burned. He has 
been notary public since 1880. Mr. Davis has large farming interests, owning 1,000 acres in 
this county and about 2.000 acres in North Dakota. 

Willard A. Dodge, of Petrolia, son of Washington and Grace (Apsey) Dodge, was born in 
Ward, in 1859. His father was a shipbuilder and a native of England where he married. Com- 
ing to America in 1847, they were six weeks on the ocean. They made their home in Ward 
until 1870 when they removed to Virginia. Mrs. Dodge died Nov. 28, 1887. Their children 
were Washington T., Mary J., George E.. and Willard A., and Walter A. (twins). Willard A. 
Dodge married Amanda F., daughter of King S. Black, Their surviving children are Grace, 
Mollie B. and Christina E. Mr. Dodge engaged in the manufacture of cheese and in 1895 built 
a cheese factory at Petrolia which uses the milk of 250 cows. 

Christian E. Harms, son of Christian, was born in Hanover, Germany, in 1857. In 1869, 
the family came to this country and settled in Amity. Christian E. married Sarah, daughter of 
Charles Lapp, an early settler of Hume. He has resided in Scio since 1889, has been highway 
commissioner several terms, and has 5 children. Christian's children were August, who resides 
in Amity, is a farmer ; Henry, a bootmaker in Allegany ; Dora (Mrs. C. H. Gallman of Wells- 
ville) ; Lena (dec.) ; and Christian E, Christian Harms and wife reside in Wellsville. 

Thomas Fitz Simmons, a native of Yates Co., settled in the west part of this town about 
1820 on the farm owned by James Culbert. He married Susanna Miller and they had 11 chil- 
dren. Batman Fitz Simmons, their son, born in Yates Co. in 1803, married Sophia Sortore and 
had 12 children. He settled in Amity, where he was supervisor for several years. He was also 
a justice of the peace in Amity some 25 years, also one of our first common school teachers as 
well as a music teacher. He was a shoemaker and a farmer. He died in Michigan. 

Elias Harris, son of Benjamin and Polly (Bennett) Harris, was born in Fulton, N. Y., Feb. 
16, 1 83 1. When he was a small boy his father removed to Broome Co. Elias commenced his 
business career by making shooks at Addison. In 1856 he came to Scio where he established 
shook manufacturing and conducted it for 20 years, sometimes employing 50 men. He has also 
been in trade in Michigan, has been engaged in merehandising and as an oil operator and pro- 
ducer. In 1856 he married Ada, daughter of John Mead, of Binghamton, and has 2 children, 
Frederick F. and Edwin A. Mrs. Harris died in 1874. The E. Harris banking place was es- 
tablished at Scio village in 1888 by Elias Harris, who purchased the business of J. H. Clark. 
President, E. Harris ; cashier, F. F. Harris. 

Charles M. Marvin, a native of Connecticut, came with his father to Scio and settled there 
when but a lad. Here he married Ann Knight. They had 2 children. His second wife was 
Frances Cottrell, who had 3 children. He formed a partnership with John Russell and they 
had a store and a sawmill and owned a large amount of timber land. C. M. Marvin went to 
Wisconsin to look after their timber, and he established a State Bank at Sun Prairie. When 
the war broke out he moved to Peekskill, and after the war he located in Alfred and had a 
private bank for some years, and later was in the banking business in Belmont. In 1882 he 
moved to Wellsville where he died in 1886. 

William Middaugh, son of Abram, was born in Dryden, Dec, 19, 181 1, and came to Scio in 
1819. When a bov he used to boil sap in large kettles, and he fell into one of them full of 
boiling sap and was badly burned. He worked for $8 per month and paid for a farm. He 
married Abigail Norton, they had 7 children. Mr. Middaugh was interested in the Pennsylva- 
•nia oil field. He married for his second wife Jane D. Clark. She had 4 children. He died 
Aug. 22, 1 88 1. William C. Middaugh, son of William, was born Feb. 24, 1867. He married 
Teresa O Connor and resides on the old farm. He is a farmer and oil producer, 

Isaac Miles, a native of Connecticut, when a boy removed to Rathbone, Steuben county, 
and subequently lived in Belfast foj several years. In 1868 he moved to Scio. He was super- 
visor and justice of the peace in Belfast. He was engaged in lumbering and in the oil business 
and amassed a large fortune. His wife was Julia A. Cable. Mr. Miles died Nov. 22, 1892. 



Scio. 493 

Harry Nickerson. a native of Brainbridge, came to Scio about 1830. His avocation was that 
of a raftsman. He married Phebe Pettis. They had 4 children. He died in January. 1848. 
William H. Nickerson, son of Harry and Phebe (Pettis) Nickerson, was born Sept. 21. 1821. 
He was but a lad when his father came to Scio and located on a farm south of the village. He 
occupied this farm for a few years after his father's death, then purchased the old Palmer place. 
He married Sarah A. Wilber, their son Charles lives in Olean. 

William L. Norton, son of Ebenezer, was born April 15, 1809, m Hartford, N. Y. He was 
educated in the common schools. In 1832 he married Esther E. Dvvinell and had 6 children. 
In 1833 he came to Allegany county and after passing a year in Belmont and Friendship 
engaged in farming and lumbering, he came to Scio April 14, 1834, and settled on the farm 
where he resided until his death in March, 1895. He cut the first tree on his place and built his 
log house, then cleared his farm, and added to his ownership in land until he had a fine farm of 
about 400 acres. Mr. Norton held the office of highway commissioner one term. He was 
much interested in the progress of the M. E. Church and aided largely in building the first one 
in town. He and his family gave $1,250 toward the Knight's Creek M.E. church. Mr. Norton 
was extensively engaged in lumbering in early life. Mrs. Norton was a hearty co-operator in 
all of her husband's church work. She died in March, 1895. Ebenezer J, Norton, son of Wil- 
liam L. and Esther E. (Dvvinell) Norton, was born on the old homestead in Scio, Jan. 17, i8}.o. 
His common school education was supplemented by a course of civil engineering at Alfred 
University and with farming, this has been his business. He has been justice of the peace 20 
years, supervisor many years and has served as chairman of the board. In 1875 he married 
Mary, daughter of John Holton, and has 2 children, William L. and Marion G. Lucius E. 
Norton, son of Wm. L., was born Aug. 16, 1844, married Emmer Duke, and has 3 children. 
He is a farmer and has always resided on the old homestead. 

William Ockerman, son of William, was born in Nichols, Jan. 8, 1843. In 1858 he came 
to Scio and worked on a farm. In 1861 he enlisted in Co. G, 64th Regt. N. Y. S. V. and served 
one year when he was di-charged on account of sickness. Mr. Ockerman was commander of 
Hakes Post, No. 261. February 24, 1868, he married Adaline, daughter of Calvin and Hannah 
(Allen) Hall. They have one daughter, Minnie. Calvin Hall, son of Jesse, was born July 17, 
181 7. The family moved to Alfred at an early day, and Calvin married Hannah Allen. 
Of their 3 children 2 are living, Emma, wife of Dwight Sparks, and Adaline, Mrs. William 
Ockerman. Mr. Hall moved to Scio in 1866, and died there Oct. 20, 1872. Mrs. Hall died 
Mar. 13, 1890. 

Mahlon J. Peterson, son of John, was born Mar. 28. 1834. In 1859 he married Harriet N.. 
daughter of Rev. William Austin. Their children are Elenie (Mrs. Miles Hardy), Gertrude and 
Marion A. In August, 1863, he enlisted in Co. F, Fifth N. Y. Cavalry and was discharged 
July 25, 1865. October 19, 1864, he was wounded four times at the battle at Fisher's Hill. At 
that time he captured a rebel flag, and for that meritorious service he received a 30 day's fur- 
lough, and a gold medal from Abraham Lincoln. After the war Mr. Peterson returned to Wirt 
and engaged in farming. In 1889 he located in Scio. Rev. William Austin, son of Luther, 
was a native of Belmont. He was a Wesleyan Methodist minister. H- married Sallie A. 
Ketchum. Of their 5 children only Harriet (Mrs. Peterson) is living. Mr. Austin died in 1876, 
his wife in 1881. 

James A. Reese, son of John and Betsey (Ellis) Reese was born in Dansville. In 1872 he 
married Sarah, daughter of Asa and Mary (Lewis) Hammond of Angelica, and settled in Scio 
They have a daughter, Ida May. In 1877 he was engaged in the oil business at Duke Center, 
and in 1881 went to Allentown and was also in the hardware business with B. Palmer. He, 
drilled one of the first wells in the town. Reese & Palmer continued there until 1886, when they 
sold out and went to Salamanca, where they were in trade 2 years. Mr. Reese returned to Scio 
and the fnrm where he now resides. In 1885 he represented his party, the Democratic, as a 
supervisor in Alma. In 1891 he was a candidate for supervisor of Scio on the Peoples' ticket 
and was beaten by 7 votes. In 1894 he was candidate for county clerk. 

Nelson Reynolds, son of Garner, was born in 1840. He married Mary J., daughter of 
Washington and Grace (Apsey) Dodge, settled in the tovvn of Ward, but subsequently located 
in Scio. He was a farmer and lumberman. He died in 1881. his wife in 1S80. They had 4 
children, Arthur, died young, Elba A. who is a cheesemaker, Grace V. and Ardell W. 

John Simons, son of John, was born in Dryden in 1816. When 9 years old his father 
moved to Amity and settled near Scio. He married Sarah Bellamy and had 2 children, John B. 
and Charles A. Mr. Simons died in 1863, his son, John B., in 1864. His widow resides in Scio. 
Charles A. Simons, V. S., was born in June, 1849, studied medicine with Dr. T. F. Major, kept 
a drug store in 1877-8 at Ceres. He then commenced practice as a veterinary surgeon, and 
after 3 years in Wheeling, W. Va.. and 3 years in Alliance, Ohio, he settled in 1887 in Scio 
where he is yet in practice. In 1870 he married Kate J. Hawley of Ceres. Silas Bellamy one 



494 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

of the early settlers, was a native of Connecticut, came here early, married Betsey Knight and 
died in 1836. 

Curtin Smith, a native of Delhi, married Aurelia Gillett, in 1820 went to Gainesville, in 
1822 he became a pioneer settler of Wirt. They had 11 children. In 1839 he returned to 
Gainesville where he died Sept. 13, 1867. His wife died Oct. 27, 1866 Isaac Smith, son of 
Curtin, was born in Delhi, Nov. 18, 1 818. In 1840 he married Harriet Collins, and located on 
the farm in Wirt. In 1841 he moved to Scio and settled on the farm now owned by him. He 
has been a farmer and lumberman. He moved to Scio village in 1867, has been assessor 3 
years, poormaster several years. His children are George W., Miles C. and Stephen E. of 
Huron, So. Dak. George W. Smith was born Aug. 25. 1841. He resided with his father until 
he was 25 and assisted in clearing the farm. In 1866 he married Elma, daughter of William 
and Mary (Huntley) Waterbury of Cuba, and settled on a farm in Scio. Their children are 
Eugene and William. He later learned the blacksmith trade and is now engaged in business in 
Scio village. Miles C. Smith was born in Gainesville, June 22, 1847. In 1867 his father 
went to Scio village and established him in trade, and he now has a general dry goods and 
grocery store. In 1877 he married Mary C, daughter of Isaac and Sarah (Whiting) Gillett. 
He has been supervisor of the town 3 years, town clerk for 5 years, and notary public for sev- 
eral years. 

Joseph Knight, the pioneer settler of Scio, a native of Worcester county, Mass., came from 
Oneida Co. in 1805, purchased his farm, cut the first timber and made his log house. He mar- 
ried Sarah Stewart. They had 4 sons and 4 daughters. Mr. Knight died in 1829. 1-lis son, 
Samuel, who was about 14 years old when he came with his father to Scio, experienced all the 
labors and privations of the pioneer. He married Sallie Millard and had 8 children. He died 
in 1852, and his wife in 1875. Bradley Knight, son of Samuel and Sallie (Millard) Knight, was 
born July 18, 1829. He married Minerva Brown, and has two children, Ella (Mrs. John Can- 
field), and Gertrude. Mr. Knight resides on the farm that his father purchased. 

William Wright was born in Yorkshire, England, May 16, 1788. He emigrated to America 
when a young man, passed a few years in the Mohawk Valley, and there married Elizabeth 
Reynolds. About 1820 he came to Belvidere, and was an overseer for Philip Church, with his 
residence in the White House. In 1827 he purchased a farm in Scio, settled on Knight's 
Creek, and was also engaged in lumbering. He had a family of 11 children. He died in 1854, 
his wife in 1873. Robert Wright, second son of William and Elizabeth (Reynolds) Wright, 
was born in the White House at Belvidere, May 10, 1823, and came to Scio when a child. He 
married Catharine Welch, they had 6 children, of whom only 2 survive, George R. and Alice 
E. (Mrs. F. H. Langworihy). Mrs. Wright died in 1870, and Mr. Wright married Nancy 
Middaugh. Their children are : Arthur S. (dec), Edmund E„ J. Stanley, Wilton M. and Edith. 
He has been engaged in lumbering and farming, assessor 6 years and highway commissioner 
for 3 years, and resides 3 miles from Scio on the farm on Knight's Creek which he has occupied 
since 1847. The family are members of the M. E. Church. William Wright, son of William, 
was born in Scio in 1834. He married Martha L., daughter of Thomas Lewis. He had 2 
children, Walter B. and Cora M. He was a farmer and lived on the old homestead where his 
children now live. He died Feb. 22, 1890, and his wife died March 2, 1894. John Wright, 
oldest son of William, Sr., was born May 10, 1819, in Montgomery Co., and came to this 
county with his parents. He married Clarissa Welch and had 5 children, 2 are living, Freelove 
(Mrs. G. E. Babcock), and Josephine (Mrs. Albert Babcock). Mrs. John Wright died in March, 
1884, Mr. John Wright has been a farmer and lumberman, assessor 6 years, and justice of the 
peace 4 years. The brothers John and Robert are now the oldest residents on Knight's Creek. 

John S. Wright, son of McCarty Wright, was born in Thurston, Steuben county, April 10, 
1853. In 1875 he married Belle, daughter of Isaac M. Saunders of Rathbone. Their children 
are Isaac M., Charles E. and Mabel S. In 1877 he removed to Scio, where he has since resided. 
In 1886 he engaged in the oil producing business with Isaac Miles. In 1894 he sold out his 
interest in the oil business. Mr. Wright was road commissioner in 1886-7-8, and was elected 
assessor in 1893. 




p 



t U'^'L 2/'-^<^^.^.^ 




Scio. 495 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

BENJAMIN M. VINCENT. 

The Vincent family is among* the ancient ones of the Christian era, dat- 
ing back at least as far as the third century, for just at its close, in 304, is 
fixed the date of the martyrdom of St. Vincentius, the Latin form of the 
name. From that time devotion to religious principle appears inherent in 
the family. Paul de Vincent, a Catholic saint of the sixteenth and seven- 
teenth centuries, was a zealous propagandist, founder of the Brotherhood of 
Lazarites, and also of the world renowned organization of " Sisters of Char- 
ity." The name also apjjears in the south of Prance among the Huguenots 
who by persecution were driven from their country for their adherence to 
their rehgion. Prom that early day every generation seems to have its rep- 
resentatives in law, literature or religion, and prominent among the religious 
leaders of the present day is found Chancellor John H. Vincent, the distin- 
guished bishop of the Methodist Episcopal church, whose name is insepara- 
bly linked with the development of the farfamed Chautauqua movement and 
University. The earliest members of the Vincent family in America were 
Adrian Vincent, a passenger from London in 1634 in the Mary and John; 
Humphrey, of Cambridge in 1634, of Ipswich in 1638; John, of Lynn, who re- 
moved to Sandwich at its early settlement, representative "in 1639 and six 
years after;" John, of New Haven, in 1639; Nicholas, of Manchester, in 1679; 
Philip, "a gentleman of ancient family in the south of Yorkshire " came to 
New England, and probably saw actual service in the Pequot war, as, after 
its termination, he published in London in 1638 "The true Relation of the 
late Battle Fought in N. E. between the English and the Pequot salvages; " 
William, who in 1651 had a grant of land at New London, which he did not 
improve, but was at Providence in May, 1666. This last is perhaps the an- 
cestor of the Rhode Island and Connecticut families, members of whom 
were early settlers along the Hudson. The first of this family in Allegany 
was Joshua Vincent, who, in 1808, brought his family from Petersburg in 
Rensselaer Co., and, as an early settler, made a permanent home in Almond 
and Alfred among the " Seventh Day " people, in whose religious faith he 
joined. He had a taste for mechanics and operated a carding mill a short 
distance below " Baker's Bridge." He had two sons, David and Joshua, of 
whom David came when but a child from Petersburg to Almond alone on 
horseback. Prom thenceforth he lived in Almond, was for years a confiden- 
tial employee of Hon. Clark Crandall, and died, when 68, on the farm his 
labor had developed from the wild land that he located. His wife survived 
him only from November to February. He married Freegift, daughter of 
Christopher and Lois (Coon) Saunders. Their children were Christopher, 
Amelia (Mrs. Russell Burdick), David, Lois, Abigail (Mrs. Tunis Van Ant- 
werp), Orrin, Eli (died from wounds received in the battle of Gettysburg), 
Benjamin Morrill, Albert, JohnC, Joseph, Eleanor (Mrs. Philetus Andrews), 



496 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Nathan, Jane (Mrs. Alonzo Rogers), Mary (Mrs. Henry Stillman), Susan 
(Mrs. John Cottrell). 

Benjamin Morrill Vincent was born on the family homestead in Almond, 
Dec. 16, 1831. Until he came of age his life was passed in farm labor and in 
attendance at the common schools. After he became a voter he worked one 
year "by the month," then, March 30, 1854, married Sarah, daughter of 
Jesse and Angelina (Sims) Ferrin, whose father was a native of Grafton Co., 
New^ Hampshire. Mr. and Mrs. Vincent resided in Almond until in the fall 
of 1857, he purchased the sixty-five acres on lot 1 in Scio, which has since 
been their permanent home. Removing thither Jan. 7, 1858, they here made 
the nucleus of the present holdings. The small acreage first purchased 
here by diligence, industry, thrift and business acumen was increased to 
225 acres in the home lot, while Mr. Vincent, at his death, February 13, 1896, 
owned 2,765 acres in this state, Michigan and Kansas, 200 acres of which 
are in the Allegany oil field. Mr. Vincent's diligence, thrift and practical 
common sense were active factors in transforming the forest wilds into well 
tilled fields. He enjoyed the quiet, rural pioneer life, and it is to be noted 
that his love of home and its surroundings was a large element in his gener- 
ous nature, he finding his keenest enjoyment in the home atmosphere, sur- 
rounded by his little family, and in the entertainment of his many friends. 
In 1883 oil was found on his land, and from the royalty derived from the 
numerous wells drilled on his property he acquired bountiful wealth. But 
its acquisition never changed the unpretentious nature of the man, nor 
chilled his sympathy with all forms of distress or suftering. He remained 
through life the same loyal friend, devoted husband, loving father and ex- 
emplary citizen. He was a Republican from 1856 and an adherent to the re- 
ligion of his fathers. He was not desirous of nor called to prominent official 
places, but in the positions of trust and influence held in the town where he 
lived and died he earned the good opinion of all. Such a life, simple and un 
eventful as it may appear to be, has a value not easily measured. Two 
children claim this honored couple as • parents. Charles F. (See Courts 
and La^vyers), and James Albert, who married Myrtie, daughter of Oliver 
Norton, has one child, resides in Allentow^n and is an oil operator. 

CAPT. JOHN EMORY MmDAUGH. 

It is nearly four score years since the Middaugh family has had foothold 
on the soil of "Grand Old Allegany." In 1819, so saith the historian, a set- 
tlement was made on what has since been known as Middaugh Hill by John 
Middaugh, others of the family soon following. The Middaughs are of Dutch 
ancestry, some of the family emigrated to New Jersey and New York from 
Amsterdam, Holland, before the Revolution. In the early part of this cen- 
tury we find them in Dryden, Tompkins Co., and there Elijah, a son of Abra- 
ham, was born. He came to Scio in 1826 and located on the farm now owned 
by his son, John Emory Middaugh. The Middaughs cut the first road from 
the Genesee river to their land, and made the first clearings on their farms. 





/^ ^^/'^i^^i^^/ fU 





Scio. 497 

The father of Ehjah came a few years later and passed the remainder of his 
life on the farm with his son. Mr. Middaugh married Louisa Noble, and 6 
sons and 2 davighters were born to them. Henry C, who resides at Claren- 
don Hills, 111., is the owner of a farm of 400 acres; William N. who enlisted in 
Co. C, 67th Regt. N. Y. V., and was mortally v/ounded at Spottsylvania, Va., 
and died at Fredericksburg. Va., May 20, 1864; John E.; Fletcher D., who 
was killed by a stroke of lightning. May 30, 1859; Lester F., who resides in 
Elk Co., Pa.; one who died in infancy; Marion B. (Mrs. L. D. Stowell of 
Black Creek); and Susan P. (Mrs. Horace Noble of Erie. Pa.). Elijah Mid- 
daugh died Oct. 17, 1872 and his wife Jan. 24, 1889. 

Capt, John Emory Middaugh, third son of Elijah and Louisa (Noble) 
Middaugh, was born Jan. 20, 1838, in Scio. He was educated at Friendship 
Academy and Alfred University, and had the novel experience of teaching 
school in the Indian Territory with Creeks and Cherokees for his pupils. 
The black clouds of the threatening war had hardly obscured the sky of our 
peace when Mr. Middaugh offered his services in his country's defense, and 
April 25. 1861, enlisted in Co. C, 67th Regt. N. Y. V. and was elected second 
sergeant. He was wounded at the battle of Fair Oaks, Va. , and by order of 
Gen. Abercrombie was promoted to second lieutenant. In January. 1863, 
he was promoted to a first lieutenantcy and transferred to Co. K, and placed 
in command. May 6, 1864. he was wounded at the battle of the wilderness, 
and at the battle at Fredericksburg he led his company and made a success- 
ful charge. Mr. Middaugh participated in 23 engagements, was a loyal and 
brave soldier and received his honorable discharge from service July 4, 
1864, with rank of first lieutenant. He was appointed captain in Hancock's 
Veteran Reserve Corps, Jan. 5, 1865. 

" Not in his battles won, 

Tho' long the well-fought fields may keep their name, 
But in the wide world's sense of duty done, 
The gallant soldier finds the meed of fame." 

Mr. Middaugh returned to his home in Scio, and Jan. 5, 1868, married 
Elizabeth S., a daughter of John Gorton. She was graduated from Alfred 
University in 1862. They have three children, John E. . Jr., and Henry G., 
both lawyers, located in Buffalo, and Annie, a graduate of the Geneseo Nor- 
mal School in class of 1895. Mr. Middaugh was one of the organizers of Hakes 
Post, No. 261, G. A. R., of Scio, and was its first commander, holding that 
office 5 years. He has held the elective offices of justice of the peace and 
assessor. He is a member of Allegany Lodge F. & A. M., of Friendship. 
He was an oil operator for some years, and now conducts his fine farm, 
Maplehurst, of 430 acres, where he has a most enjoyable home. He is now 
vice i^resident of The Allegany County Farmers' Co-operative Fire Insur- 
ance Company and one of its dii-ectors. 



498 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



ALLE/N. 

CHAPTER XLIII. 

BY JOHN S. MINARD. 

THE town of Allen, named in honor of the hero of Ticonderoga, was formed 
from Angelica, Jan. 31, 1823. Its population in 1860 was 991; in 1870, 
794; in 1880, 818; in 1890, 717; in 1892, 728. As created Allen comprised all 
of township five, range two, of Morris Reserve, the west half of township 
five, range one, of same tract, and in addition, the six northeast lots of the 
last mentioned township (present Birdsall). By act of May 4, 1829, the 
Birdsall part was set oif and since that time the town has remained as now 
defined, being township five, range two, and has an area of 22,764 acres. It 
was embraced in the 100,000 acre Church Tract, and settlement was begun 
before the subdivision of the town was made, which was done in the fall of 
1810 or spring of 1811 by Major Moses Van Campen. Its surface is gener- 
ally hilly upland, broken into ridges by Baker's, Wigwam, Plum and Rush 
creeks. The hills in some cases reaching an altitude of 600 or 700 feet 
above the lowest valleys. The soil is in most part clayey, underlaid with 
hardpan, while gravelly loam is shown in some of the valleys. Beech, 
maple, basswood, elm, pine, hemlock, oak and cherry were the leading kinds 
of timber found by the first white visitors. 

Local historians without exception have ascribed to James Wilson, who 
emigrated from Ireland in 1804, the honor of making the first settlement in 
this town in 1806. While this may be true as to the fact of actual settlement, 
it is quite possible that Robert Barr preceded him in his advent into this 
wilderness, as Major Van Campen, in his notes of lot 61, begins at "a cherry 
post standing in a lot of land surveyed for Robert Barr the 12th day of 
August, 1805," which post stood on the south line of the township. This 
was, in all probability, the first jjiece of land surveyed for anybody in the 
town of Allen, whether first to be occupied or not. Mr. Wilson had stopped 
for a short time at Geneva and Angehca, but in 1806 " took up " the farm on 
Baker's creek, which he cleared up and upon which he spent the remainder 
of his life. His son, the late Col. Wilham Wilson, so well and favorably 
known by our county people, achieved an enviable position in town and 
county, becoming a member of the legislature, where he demonstrated his 
fitness for the position and served his constituents faithfully. It is said he 
was the first white child born in Allen, making his appearance Jan. 10, 1810. 
Josejih G. Wilson, another son of James, is still living on the state road, and 
is postmaster at the State Road postoffice. This postoffice was established 
in March, 1881, with Jesse L. Whiteman, postmaster. He was succeeded 



Allen. 499 

by Mr. Wilson Dec. 10. 1883. Shortly after Mr. V/ilson's appearance in the 
woods of Allen, came Robert Barr.* who also located on Baker's creek, and 
only a little later Archibald Taylor located in the southeastern part on lot 
54. He was also a native of Ireland, living for a short time in New York.f 

Robert McBride was one of the earlier settlers in the eastern part of the 
town, taking up land on lot 39, in the neighborhood of the "Tracy Place" 
(later). His purchase is mentioned by Van Campen in his notes. It was 
this Robert McBride who once set a trap for a bear, which he suspected of 
prowling about the neighborhood. Upon visiting the place where the trap 
was set it was gone; abundant evidence was left however of his bear ship 
having been caught, and of the struggle which followed in pulling the trap 
away from its fastening. For a wonder it so happened that no gun was at 
hand; so, providing himself with a heavy hoe-handle, and, taking a sack of 
cakes, he started in quest of bruin, followed by some of his and his neighbor 
Wilson's children, who were greatly excited and wanted to see the sport. 
They found no trouble in tracking the bear, and came up with him still 
lugging the trap. McBride and the bear met and a light ensued. It was 
" short, sharp and decisive," and the bear quickly succumbed, "For," said 
McBride, " I give him about a dozen right over the head, I did! I did! " 

Super^'isors from 1823 to 1895. — James Wilson, 1823-24-25-26-27-30-31 ; Silas F. Little- 
john, 1828-29; John W. Stuart, 1832 33-35-36-37-44-46-49-54; Ege Pierson, 1834; James 
Wilson, Jr., 1838-39-40; Erastus Walker, 1841 ; Wm. Wilson, 1842-43-63-64-65 ; James 
Wilson, Jr., 1845; James Armstrong, 1847-48; E. B. Winans, 1850-51 ; Reuben W. Botts- 
ford, 1852; Wm. Franklin, 1853: Luzon VanNostrand, 1855-56-71-72; H. B. Burt, 1857-58- 
69-70-73-77-86-90; A. P.Smith, 1859-60; Eber Seely, 1861-62; Robt. R. Seely, 1866-67; 
J. H. Rutherford, 1868-74-75-76; V. Q. Smith, 1878-80; I. L. Fisk, 1879; James C. Burr, 
1881-82: Tunis Cole, 1883-84; E. W. Botsford. 1885-87; N. C. Fisk, 1888-89; John A. 
Jones, 1891-92; H. J. Achilles, 1893-94-95. 

The present town officers are : Henry J. Achilles, supervisor ; Geo. W. Davis, town clerk ; 
John Gans, William Scholes, Burt Pitt, assessors ; William Vincent, overseer of poor ; John 
Yager, highway commissioner ; John A. Jones, Melvin Webster, Ernest Herke, justices; 
Eugene Crandall, collector ; William Svvyer, Eugene Crandall, constables ; William Gallman, 
Ira Merritt, William Laurie, Michael Lenahen, inspectors of election. 

Religion. — The tirst religious services in Allen w^ere conducted by Rev. 
Robert Hubbard in 1821, and it was mainly through his efforts that a Pres- 
byterian church was organized in 1826, Rev. James H. Hotchkin author of 
" Hotchkin's History of Western New York," assisting. There were only 
ten original members, and it was received into the Presbytery of Bath 
October 4th of that year, and, on the organization of the Presbytery of Angel- 
ica, it was transferred to that body. In 1829 40 members were reported; in 
1836 there were 100 members, and in 1846 only 50. Rev. Samuel Sessions 
was installed pastor Feb. 26, 1840, and dismissed in July, 1841, the only 
instance in which the church had a regularly installed pastor. Rev. Moses 

* Robert Barr was a Scotchman who came in about 1805. 

t Other authorities s>ay that Archibald Taylor came to Allen soon after 1804, being the second settler in 
the town ; he died there. — EuiTOR, 



500 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Hunter, Rev. Silas Hubbard, Rev. Loring Brewster, Rev. John M. Biar, and 
Rev. Mr. Andrews at different times served as supplies. It is stated by- 
some that the once quite renowned evangelist, Augustus Littlejohn, had 
considerable to do with this church. It is certain that he at one time held a 
revival there. The erection of a house of worship was some years subse- 
quent to the organization of the church, and during its early years meetings 
were held in the primitive schoolhouse or in private houses, as that was the 
custom which prevailed in those days. The public houses were often opened 
for worship, services being held in the ballroom, where such a room existed. 
This church entirely disbanded previous to 1851 when it was re-organized as 
a Congregational society, with a membership of 64. A German Lutheran 
Society having been organized, the building was sold to it in 1868. A few 
years later it was sold to the town, and is now used for town-meetings, 
elections, caucuses, etc. 

About 1844 a Methodist class of fifteen members was formed, and, in 
1849, a church edifice was built which cost about $1,500 and was capable of 
seating 300 persons. The class was connected with the Methodist church 
at Angelica. A class was formed on the Peavey road about 1848, and in 1862 
a church edifice was erected costing about |700, seating 200 persons. The 
pulpit was supplied by the Angelica pastor. 

There is a Baptist church on the Peavey road, the society being organ- 
ized in 1847, the edifice being erected in 1858. For a number of years the 
pulpit was supplied by a resident pastor. Afterwards the pastor of the 
Baptist church at Belfast supplied the pulpit. At present there is only 
occasional preaching service; no Sabbath school being sustained. 

The Methodist Episcopal church in West Allen has no services, and now 
forms a part of the Angelica charge. In the eastern part of the town and 
at Aristotle occasional services are held in the schoolhouses. Some attend 
church at S]:iort Tract, while others go to Angelica. 

The only organized church society in Allen at present is the German 
Lutheran at Allen Centre. Rev. Mr. Buch of Wellsville is the pastor, preach- 
ing once in three weeks. 

John Muilender, one of the first, if not indeed the very first county 
treasurer, is also mentioned in Van Campen's notes as having commenced 
operations on lots 30 and 35, on territory included in the farm of the late 
Henry Burt. It is doubtful however as to his ever being an actual resident 
of the town, as he was an early resident of Angelica village. About 1815 
came the Peaveys, a whole " lot " of them: Joshua, Nehemiah, Joseph, Isaac, 
Ichabod and John, every one with a scripture name, and settled in the south 
west part of the town giving the name to the "Peavey Road," upon which 
they settled. To-day not a man of the name of Peavey is to be found in the 
town. The Tellers and McCoons were settlers at an early day. Teller, the 
father of Senator H. M. Teller, of Colorado, soon after took up his residence 
in the adjoining town of Granger. In 1817 Erastus Walker from Vermont 
came driving a team all the way loaded with household effects and articles 



Allen. 501 

necessary for use in the pioneer life to which he had resolved to apply him- 
self. Chester Roach, one Otto and a Lefever began at the Center in 1817, 
and a widow Armstrong about the same time settled in the southern part, 
Mrs. Armstrong- in 1827 opened the first hotel kept in town. This was near 
the south line of the town. In 1820 George Glover settled in the southwest 
part of the town, and Daniel Baldwin bought Otto out in 1820 or 1821. In 
1822 Joseph Jennings from Massachusetts took up a farm on Baker's Creek, 
in the south-central part, still or quite lately occupied by his descendants. 
The Walkers, Joseph, Jonathan and Robert, also from Massachusetts, set- 
tled in the east part the same year. Asher Miner from Norfolk, Conn., set- 
tled in the southwest part in 1824, building the first sawmill on Wigwam 
Creek the next year (the first one in towm, however, was built by Moses 
Treat on Baker's Creek in 1820). and his brother Martin settled a little east 
of the Center about the same time. 

In 1826 the Willison brothers, James and Samuel, and Mrs. Burthwick, 
with sons George, James, Robert, John and William, and three daughters, 
came from Cayuga county and made a settlement in the western part. At 
the time there was scarcely a road in the western part of the town. Joshua 
Smith, also a Cayuga man, settled about the same time in the western part. 
Andrew Clark from Sullivan county, settled a little north of the Center in 
1827. John and Ruel Hooker from Angelica, also came the same year, set- 
tling west of the Center, and Abram Post from Angelica, took up a farm in 
the extreme southwest corner of the town, and resided there the rest of his 
life. Thomas Cole and Robert M. King from Steuben county settled in the 
"west part in 1828, and Henry Light and Austin Manley from Cayuga county 
came to the same part the same year. Henry Burt from Springfield, Mass. 
also came in 1828, locating in the central part. This same year brought 
Jared Atwater, Uriah Cook and Solomon Woodworth from Cato, Cayuga 
county, and so Cayuga county did a large part in settling the town of Allen. 
In 1829 Conrad Benjamin from Berkshire county, Massachusetts, settled 
just east of the Center, but remained there but a short time, removing to the 
northeast part of the town, where he purchased a farm upon which he ever 
after resided. En 1832 James Crandall from Trumansburg settled at the 
center of the town. When D. C. Grummond from Hume, bought a large 
farm of Judge Church in 1851 and moved to it, he found on lot 41 a clearing 
of about 100 acres, which had been abandoned, and grown up to bushes. 
This clearing was made by an early settler by the name of Cole or Cowles or 
a successor, or both of them, the successor having become discouraged 
allowed the place to " go back to the olfice. " Ege Pierson settled north of 
the Center a little ways, about 1 827, on the Short Tract road. W. E. Pierson 
of Fillmore is his son. 

In the spring of 1834 Seth Post from Steuben county, it is believed, 
erected a sawmill in the extreme northw^est part of the town. No road had 
been opened down the creek to the river, and the mill-irons and fixtures 
were hauled in by following the creek as best they could, for some part of 



502 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



the way the conveyors thereof taking their way up the bed of the stream. 
The mill was one of the old regulation " flutter-wheel " variety and the crank 
was of wrought iron. Mr. Post was an enterprising man and induced a 
man by the name of Slusser to put in a carding and fulling mill just below 
the sawmill, taking the water with a flume from the same dam. This build- 
ing was three stories high. It was afterward devoted to the manufacture 
of wooden half-bushel and other measures and dinner boxes, by R. W. Botts- 
ford. A man from Pike by the name of Adams once made pumps there. In 
the third story of that building was taught the first school in the district by 
Ruth Jacobs from Granger, she receiving the enormous sum of seventy-five 
cents per week for her services! She afterward became the wife of Mr. E. 
C. Bottsford, who furnishes these items. Charles Felt once manufactured 
bedsteads at the "Hollow." Mr. Post ran the sawmill but a short time, 
when he sold out to Joseph Piatt, an enterprising merchant and lumberman 
of Short Tract, who soon after sold it to R. W. Bottsford, who for years 
drove quite a business in lumbering at this place. On the occasion of a big 
flood a few years after the sawmill, carding mill, and bridge were all swept 
away. A new sawmill was soon put up the bed pieces being securely bolted 
to the rock, and to-day, although the mill has been for years abandoned and 
the dam has entirely disappeared, those timbers keep their places. It may 
be stated here that the first bridge, spanning the creek where the present 
iron one by the old mill is located, was built by Mr. E. C. Bottsford for $50 
and he made $2 per day on the job. The first school inithetown was taught, 
teacher's name not known, near the south line in 1820. 

John Franklin came from Brookfield, Madison county, and settled in 
Allen about 1844. Sons of his are Wm. M. of Angelica, and Julius E. of 
Fillmore. Wm. M. Rutherford, from Steuben county, settled about 1845 on 
the State Road, from which place he soon after removed to the Short Tract 
road a little south of the " Center." He was a successful farmer and good 
business man. Jos. H. Rutherford of Angelica is a son. Wm. Manning 
settled on lot 21 in 1842. Edward Manning, his son, occupies the old place, 
and is an enterprising, wide-awake thrifty farmer. It is said that in the 
early days a pottery was carried on here. The business was abandoned and 
the building gone to ruin as early as 1825. The names of those who con- 
ducted the enterprise have been lost. Tinware being extremely high-priced 
and scarce at that time, the coarse earthen-ware pans here made were 
doubtless used by many farmers as milkpans. 

The people of Allen are devoted to farming and the dairy interests, the 
town being essentially an agricultural community. In the days when wool 
brought good prices AUen was one of the leading towns in the county in 
sheep husbandry, it being peculiarly adapted to that industry. Since the 
decline in wool and the introduction of the cheese factory system of dairy- 
ing, sheep have almost entirely disappeared and cows have taken their place. 
At present the principal revenue of the town is received from the sale of 
cheese, veal calves and hay. 



Allen. 503 

Cheese Fat-toriefi.* — The first cheese factory in town was known as the 
Ehner factory, taking is name from the well-known Rushford cheese manu- 
facturer, C. J. Elmer, the original promoter of the enterprise. It was con- 
structed by a stock company, and was located on the Henry Burt farm in 
West Allen, and was afterwards known as the Burt factory. It was de- 
stroyed by fire in 1891. The second factory built was the Fisk cheese fac- 
tory in 1874, owned for several years by I. L. Fisk. It was destroyed by 
fire in 1880. re-built, and is now owned by A. Perry of Belfast. Mr. Hoag is 
part owner, manager and cheese maker. This is in the southwest part of 
the town. The third was the Keystone, near the south line of the town, at 
the junction of Short Tract and State Roads. This was built by J. P. Worden, 
owned for some years and greatly improved by M. H. Crofoot, now owaied 
and conducted by John R. LaMonte. The fourth one built was the West 
Hill factory, put up by a stock company, but now ow^ned by James McMurtry. 
It is situated near the west line of the town. The fifth in order of erection 
was the Empire factory on the State Road near the State Road P. O. It is 
owned by Fred R. Piatt and H. E. Osgood. The sixth and last one built was 
the Piatt factory at the foot of Basswood hill. When the Burt factory was 
burned in 1891 (which has never been re-built), Fred R. and Lyman A. Piatt 
immediately set themselves at the work of erecting this factory, and in 25 
days the establishment was ready for business. It is still owned and 
managed by the Piatt Bros., and is doing a good business, which is conducted 
by them in such a manner as to equal in point of excellence of product and 
advantageous sales any factory in the county. There are now in operation in 
the town five factories. They are all Avell managed and are the source of 
considerable income to their patrons. The milk from about 2,000 cows is 
received daily at these factories, and the fair estimated returns x^er cow can- 
not be much less than iJ^45 per season or ^90.000 in the aggregate. 

Of late years the '• veal-calf " business has been quite an important in- 
dustry; a good "veal"' four weeks old bringing from $4.50 to $8.50. In 
1894 there were about 800 "veals" sent from this town to New York City 
and other markets. The dairy industry at present is to Allen what sheep 
husbandry was from 1860 to 1870. 

AUen has four post offices; Allen and State Road on the State Road. West 
Allen and Aristotle in the south part of the town. In former days there 
were a number of public houses. The stage road from Angelica to Dans- 
ville ran through the southeast part and the State and Short Tract roads were 
largely travelled, and strangers could find entertainment "for man and 
beast " at quite frequent intervals along those roads. But since railroads 
have been constructed and stage lines abandoned there was no need for the 
wayside inn. The demand ceased and the inn keejier's occupation was gone. 
To-day Allen has not a public house. Neither are there any stores. There 

* The writer is greatly indebted to Mr. Fred R. Piatt for information concerning cheese factories, also for 
intelligent co-operation generally. 



504 HiSTOiiY OF Allegany County, N. Y. 

is no lawyer, nor has there ever been one in the town and doctors seem to be 
averse to locating there. It is in fact a remarkably " healthy " town. 

April 1, 1823 was held the first town meeting. It elected for officers: 
James Wilson, supervisor; Jeremiah Fuller, clerk; Henry Cummings, Nathan 
Overton, John Mahan, assessors; Chester Roach, collector; Calvin Cole, Ches- 
ter Roach, F. Scott, Jacob Biass, constables; Jona. Walker and Damon Bry- 
ant, overseers of the poor; Chester Roach, Calvin Cole, Rial Thompson, com- 
missioners of highways; Manasseh French, Sylvester Rounds, John P. Van 
Allen, commissioners of common schools; Levi S. Littlejohn, Silas Little- 
john, inspectors of common schools; Levi Littlejohn, Jeremiah Fuller, jus- 
tices of the peace. 

At this first town meeting, it was " resolved that any inhabitant of this 
town who shall permit a Canada thistle to go to seed on his farm, shall be 
liable to pay a fine of five dollars, to be prosecuted in the name of the super- 
visor, one half to the person complaining, the other moity to the town." So 
the pioneers of Allen started in the crusade against the Canada thistle in 
pretty good shape. But it was quite an undertaking, in fact an unequal con- 
test. The resolution was probably never enforced to any extent, and Allen 
is at this time infested with as many Canada thistles; per acre as any of her 
neighbors. From the book devoted to the record of ear marks it is found 
that the practice of marking sheep by slitting, cutting and cropping their 
ears in a variety of ways (and in some cases otherwise marking them), began 
in 1823 and continued until 1856, the last record in the book being: "This 
is to certify that I have transferred my mark for marking sheep, which is a 
figure on the left side, to Spencer White, of Allen, Allegany Co., N. Y. Also 
a half -penny under the left ear. Allen, May 30, 1856. R. P. St. John, T. C. " 
In the record for 1826 is introduced an ingenious, unique and novel idea. In 
the margin opposite each record is drawn the figure of a sheep's head with 
especially prominent ears, upon which are shown the marks therein recorded. 
The town clerk was Abraham Baldwin. It shows him to have had consid- 
erable skill as an artist. 



About Some of the People. — Henry J. Achilles is son of Christopher Achilles, born in 
Hanover, Germany, in i8og, where he married Dora Behrens. Children; Henry J., born in 
1847, Elizabeth, Louise, Dora. Carrie and Minnie. Christopher came in 1852 with several 
other German families, and paid $4 per acre for 50 of the 208 acres his son Henry now owns. 
He was a local preacher in the M. E. church in Caneadea and one of its founders. He died in 
1877. Henry J. married Dora Walters, also from Hanover. Children : Rose, Minnie and 
Vinnie (twins), and Carl. He was elected supervisor in 1893 and re-elected in 1894. He has 
been justice of the peace many years and always a Republican. 

Frank Aylor is grandson of Henry Aylor, who came from Germany and was an early set- 
tler in Grove, where his son George, one of a family of eight children, was born, and married 
Susan, daughter of Michael Isaman, of Granger ; children: Frank, born in 1852; Ellen (Mrs. 
Charles Isaman), Emma, and Norman G., now on ttie old homestead with his mother. Frank 
Aylor came to Allen in 1878 and bought his present farm of 82 acres for $1,600. He built his 
barn in 1886 and his house in 1894. He married Louisa, daughter of John Gruber, an old set- 
tler in Grove ; children : Minnie, Lawrence, Florence and Ellen. 

Frank Bennett is the son of Charles Bennett, one of the seven sons of Henry Bennett, o 
Dorsetshire, England, who came to Granger about 1831. Charles married Eunice, daughter of 
Isaac Hatch ; children : Emily, Elisha, Eda, Marcia, Frank, Asa, Allie, Mary J., and Thomas J ^ 



Allen. 505 



Frank was born in 1854, lived on his father's farm in Granger till 1874. when he went to Illinois. 
He married Emma Houghtaylen in 1877, passed the next 9 years in Dakota and Nebraska, re- 
turned in 1889, and bought the Wilcox steam sawmill in Granger and moved it to his present 
farm of 176 acres in Allen. He now has under one roof a lumber, shingle, heading, planing, 
and custom feed mill for grinding coarse grain. The children of Frank and Emma, who was 
the daughter of Sherill, son of Peter Houghtaylen, of I3utchess Co., N. Y., are : Frank V. (died 
and was buried in Dakota), LeRov S., Charles A., and Nora E. The first three born in Dakota. 

Lyman E. Chaffee 's son of Lyman and Mary (Whipple) Chaffee, who lived in (2ueens- 
bury, Vt. Their children were Ambrose, now in Illinois, Sarah A., died in Michigan, Mandana, 
died in Iowa, Mary, dec, and Lyman K., horn in Angelica in 1845, where his father settled be- 
fore 1820 and was a deacon of the Baptist church over 40 years. He came to Allen in 1870, 
and died in 1882. Lyman E. Chaffee married. 1868, Ann Seeley. Children : Nettie and Kate. 
The latter, Mrs. William Freeborn, is now of Akron, Ohio. Mrs. Chaffee died in 1870, and his 
second wife was Livonia, daughter of Joel Winship, of Angelica. They have one child, Bruce. 
Mr. Chaffee bought his farm of 228 acres m 1870 for $30 per acre. He is also a dealer in live 
stock, which he ships to New York and Philadelphia. He is a Republican and has acceptably 
filled the offices of highway commissioner and justice of the peace. 

Jacob C. Closser was son of Rev. Frederick Closser, of the Evangelical church, who was 
born in Seneca county, married Lydia Meyer in Northumberland Co., Pa., and settled in Grove. 
Children: John, Michael, Jacob C, Jeremiah, Solomon, Lydia (Mrs. Harrison Phillips), and 
Catharine (Mrs. Frank Ricketts). Mr. Closser died in Grove in 1865, and Mrs. Closser in 1889. 
Jacob C. Closser was born in 1831. He married in 1857 Celestia, daughter of Daniel Bixby 
(son of John Bixby of Vermont), in Hornby, Steuben Co. Children : Ella M. (Mrs. Daniel 
Gelser), Hellen D. (Mrs. John Sylor, of Granger; children : Alma and Grace), Fred D. (lives in 
Ohio, married E. Gertrude Dye. one child, Ross), Grace, Frank (married Lottie Dye, children : 
Lawrence and Fern), and Emma, and George, now in Ohio with Fred D. Jacob C. and Celes- 
tia M. Closser lived in Grove three years and then bought the farm of 245 acres in Allen on 
which Mrs. Closser still lives. Mr. Closser died in 1892, 61 years old. 

George N. Cole, son of Thomas and Catharine (Dumont) Cole, and grandson of Tunis 
Cole, all of New Jersey, was born in Allen in 1829. Tunis and Thomas first came to Pulteney, 
Steuben Co., from whence Thomas brought his family to Allen in 1828, and settled on lot 33, 
and paid $3 per acre. His children were : Jane, Tunis, Mary A., Dumont, George N., Thomas 
J. George N. Cole bought in 1849 the first 100 of his present 193 acres for $5 per acre. No 
trees had been cut except the best pines, all of which had been stolen. He is a carpenter, and 
besides clearing his farm, has put up about fifty buildings. He married, Oct. 20, 1855, Mabel 
J., daughter of Warner Bottsford. They have one child Ruth B., now Mrs. William H. Swartz, 
who also has one child, Mabel M. Fall Brook Dairy Farm, owned by Cole and Swartz, is one 
of the best equipped dairy farms in the town, located in the northwest part, and containing 300 
acres on which they keep 25 cows. 

Cyrus Jennmgs was born in 181 3, in Rehoboth, Mass., where lived his father, Joseph, and 
his grandfather, Nathan Jennings. Joseph, one of three children, married Mrs. Betsey (Round) 
Shaw. Children : David, Jonathan, Israel, Cyrus. Joseph came to Allen in 1822. Cyrus 
bought in 1834, the first 50 of his 200 acres of land, paying $2.50 per acre. He married in 
1838, Polly A., daughter of Samuel Franklin. Children ; Charles (married Mary Selover. Chil- 
dren : Belle, Lyman and Lydia, twins; Clark, Mary E., (married first, Henry Stilson. Children : 
Willie, Mary and Charlie. .Second Ansel Holbrook, one child Belle), Henry, (married Huldah 
Stanton. Children : Fred. Charles and Eddie). Mr. Jennings' wife died and his second mar- 
riage was in 1855 with Vienna, daughter of Esau Whitney of P)Urns, whose father, PZzra, came 
to Burns from Bellows F'alls, Vt., in 18 18, and had to go to Avon, Liv. Co., to mill. They have 
one child, Martha (Mrs. Andrew Cochran). Mr. Jennings is a Republican in politics, and is a 
member of the First Baptist church, AngeUca. 

Granville Lincoln is grandson of Amaziah Lincoln, of Taunton, Mass. He was of English 
descent. Howard, one of his 13 children came to Allen in 1837, bought land and moved to 
Angelica in 1877. He was married in 1839 to Emeline, daughter of Seth Hart born in 1778, 
son of James born in 1729. The children of Howard and Emeline were Jason, Granville, Elvira, 
Lysander. CiraUville was born in Allen in 1S42 and brought up a farmer, and in 1869 married 
Clara, daughter of Harlow and Mary (Hatch) Holliday, of Granger. Isaac Hatch, father of 
Mrs. Holliday, was born in 1726, son of Jonathan Hatch, of Conntcticut, son of Joseph, and 
grandson of Joseph of English origin, married in 1741. Granville and Clara Lincoln's children 
are Grace, a school teacher, and Hart. The same year of his marriage, Mr. Lincoln bought 50 
acres of his present farm, building his house in 1880. He has been elected on the Republican 
ticket to the offices of collector, assessor and highway commissioner. 



506 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Edwin Manning, grandson of William, and son of William and Ann (Padbury) Manning, 
was born in Oxfordshire, Eng., in 1838. His sister Jane, born in 1835, married in 1857 Levi 
Rice of Angelica. Lydia A., the youngest of the three children, was born in Palmyra, N. Y., in 
1842, to which place her father had brought his family from England in 1840. She married 
John W. Scholes, of Angelica. William Manning came to Allen in 1842 and bought 55 acres 
of lot No. 26 at $6 per acre, on which he passed the remainder of his life. Edwin Manning at- 
tended the common schools and became a farmer. He married in 1869, Eliza, daughter of 
Andrew Scholes of Angelica, whose father, John Scholes came from Ireland. They have one 
child, Edith. Mr. Manning has a farm of 275 acres on which he used to keep sheep but now 
has a dairy of 18 cows. He has been highway commissioner of Allen four years, and assessor 
three years. 

Varius Qumtilius Smith is son of John Smith, one of six children born m Rhode Island, 
whence their father, John Smith, brought his family to Allen about 1820. John Smith, Jr., mar- 
ried Susan Upham of Otsego Co., children : Myron, William, Nancy, (Mrs. James Bennett), 
Largius F., Claudius, Sardius, Servius, Clarinda, (Mrs. James Cox), and Varius Q., who was 
born in 1837. After the common school he attended Friendship Academy for two years and 
Nunda Literary Institute. In 1871 he married Mary, daughter of John D. Redmond, of Allen, 
and settled his present farm on 132 acres. Their two children were Bertha S., (Mrs. E. L. 
Lyon, of Black Creek ; has one child Gertrude I.), and Eda L., (Mrs. Robert Jerman). Mr. 
Smith's second marriage was in 1884 to Miss Mary A. Whitbeck. He has been town clerk of 
Allen three years, justice of the peace twenty years, and supervisor two years. He has always 
been a Republican. 

Marshal E. Walker is a grandson of Erastus Walker who settled on lot 62 in 181 7, driving 
a span of horses from Vermont. The children of Erastus and Betsy (Porte) Walker, were Ade- 
line, George L., Sarah A., Oscar H. and Dexter. George L. born in Allen, married Martha, 
daughter of Benjamin Franklin; children. Marshal E. born in 1843, and Frank. Marshal E. 
married in 1864 Hattie Pitt, and bought his present farm of 250 acres in 1870 at $14 per acre. 
Their children are : Dexter (married Fannie I3ullock), Minnie, Matie, Clyde. Erastus Walker 
used to carry two bushels of grain on his back to Mt. Morris to mill, the round trip taking two 
days. He was supervisor of Allen in 1841. John Pitt, Mrs. Walker's father, born in Dorset- 
shire, Eng., married the first white child born in Granger, Olive, daughter of Elias Smith. 
Children, Ralph, John, William and Fred, Elizabeth, Emily, Martha, Hattie and Anna. Samuel 
Pitt, brother to John Pitt, was a noted Methodist preacher here, and later in Iowa. Mrs. Walker's 
sister Elizabeth (Mrs. John Wilcox) established the first prayer meeting and Sabbath school in 
the county of her residence in Nebraska. 

James Wilson came from Ireland to Angelica in 1804 and settled on a farm where the 
Fair Grounds are now located. The next year he moved to Allen and was thr first settler in 
the town locating on what is now the Winship farm, where he died in 185 1. H s wife, a sister 
of Robert Ramsey, died Dec. 31, 1855. Their children were Margaret, fane, Robert, James, 
William, John, Mary, Joseph G. and George. The last 2 are the only survivors. George lives 
in Cambridge, Ohio. Joseph G. Wilson was born Aug. 10, 1816. He married first, July 18, 
1846, Delilah Sanborn, who died in September, 1870, and second Mrs. Roxy A. Taylor, April 
28, 1872. Mr. Wilson has served as justice of the peace and has been postmaster of State 
Road since 1883. James Wilson was the first supervisor of Allen, was justice of the peace 
and commissioner of highways. He was also supervisor of Angelica. 

William Wilson was born in Allen, Jan. 30, 18 10. He was the first white child born in the 
town, and the first person baptized in the parish of St. Paul's. He was extensively engaged in 
agriculture, and he made the rearing of fine blooded stock a specialty. He represented his town 
on the board of supervisors, and during the session of 1866 he was a member of the assembly, 
where he served with intelligence and integrity. In 1868 he was stricken with paralysis, from 
which he never recovered. During the latter part of his life he passed a portion of each year 
in Florida, where he was largely engaged in orange culture. He accumulated an ample fortune. 
By his will, after providing liberally for his widow, and making some other bequests, he directed 
that the balance of his estate be placed in the hands of trustees to found a school in the village 
of Angelica, where his residence had been during the latter portion of his life. The language of 
the will was : " I hereby direct that the said institution be and remain in all respects unsecta- 
rian, and that it shall not be controlled by any church, religious society or denomination what- 
ever. It is my desire, but not obligatory, that the electors of the corporation of the said village 
of Angelica designate a suitable name for said institution, and that the name so designated be 
borne by said institution forever." This bequest was $30,000. In accordance with his request 
the electors of the village voted that the institution should be called The Wilson Academy. 
He died March 8, 1879. 



BiRDSALL. 507 

B l-RBSALL. 

CHAPTER XLIV. 

BV JOSEPH K. WEAVER. 

THIS TOWN, composed of 36 sections, one mile square each, was formed 
from territory which belonged to the towns of Allen and Almond. It was 
organized May 4, 1829, andnamedinhonor of Hon. John Birdsall at that time 
a circuit judge. The lirst settlement was made by Josiah Whitman on lot 
24, in 1816. Not long after Wm. P. Schaack from New^ Jersey and J. Van 
Wormer, from Cayuga Co., settled on lot 11. In 1818 James Matthews from 
New Jersey settled on lot 21. In 1822, Wm. Dey and wife, two sons and two 
daughters settled on lot 5. John I. Dey and wife and two sons, James I., 
Lawrence J., and Catherine, an only daughter, John Messeral and family, 
all from Middlesex Co., N. J., settled on 5, in 1823. John Marlatt in 1820 on 

4. Also John J. Davison and his brother William made the beginning on a 
new farm on lot 5. In 1824 Thomas Randolph and Job Southard made a be- 
ginning on lot 6. There were but few that came into the town until after 
this time, but, in the next seven years there ^were enough settlers to make 
over 500 in xwpulation. The names of some of the settlers, and parts of the 
town chosen for settlement by them were: Jonathan Jackson on lot 6. C. 
Steteker, G. C. Little, H. B. Camp. J. B. Welch, A. J. Havens, A. C. Hull on 
lots 20 and 21, at what is now known as Knightsville postoffice, D. Bennett, 

5. Hodgeman, R. Thompson,Thomas Parker, John Riggs, on lots 14 and 15. 
When these sturdy pioneers came into the town it was principally with ox 
sleds bringing their families and a few of the most necessary articles of 
housekeeping, and the only roads were those they made with their axes. 
Some had been here before for a short time to erect a small log cabin, but 
most of them had to erect their habitations, as well as clear a spot in the for- 
est for them to stand upon. The surface of the ground is rough and hilly 
and the soil is mostly adapted to agriculture. Since the first settlers made 
their home here in the woods, there has been great improvement. From 
the home of the writer (on the south side of the town) north to near the cen- 
ter of the town what was once an unbroken forest, wherein wolves ranged in 
large numbers, is now a successicm of well- tilled farms; and where the little 
log cabins once stood, the place is now occupied by substantial farm houses, 
surrounded by orchards of the hardy kinds of fruit. The streams that were 
forded by the early settlers are now spanned by substantial bridges. 

The town cannot boast of many improvements in the shape of manufac- 
tories, but the manufacture of potash has given place to what is called the 
Allegany Chemical Works, situated at Hiltonville, near the town's southeast 
corner on lot 7, in 1875. The products of these works are, acid (acetate of 



508 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

lime), alcohol and charcoal. For the maimfacture of these articles about 
2,000 cords of wood is used annually. 

The Central & Southwestern railroad crosses the town north and south, 
but for a few years it was not of much benefit to our people, it being in con- 
trol of men who had no sympathy for the farmer, and Avas almost sure to 
stop running when most wanted; but for the past two years it has been con- 
trolled by a company that keeps it going and it is a good medium for the 
people to convey their produce to markets, and will be better still when the 
southern portion is completed, giving us an outlet both ways. 

Elias Hull kept the first hotel at what is now Knights ville, and Joseph 
B. Welch kept the first store in town at the same place. The first sawmill 
was erected by William Lord on Black Creek in 1824. Other sawmills have 
been built in town as building material and lumber interests have called for 
them, and were removed to other parts, as the forests disappeared, until 
there are but two that now do business. One of them is owned by Albert 
Doolittle situated on lot 22, and the Keeney mill on lot 35. 

The first school was taught by Hannah Scott in 1822 and there are now 
seven school districts with well built schoolhouses, and education is on a 
par with other more favored towns. 

The first religious worship was held in the house of Wm. Dey in 1823 
and the first church was organized by Rev. E. Dewey in 1825. There are 
now three churches, one at the village of Birdsall, the Crittenden M. E. 
church erected in 1871 (first pastor Rev. Alfred J. Blanchard; present pas- 
tor Rev. J. Davis); another in the southwest corner of town called the Bird- 
sall M. E. church, erected in 1872; the third, St. Joseph's Catholic church, 
is in the eastern part of the town. 

There is but one small village, Birdsall, with 160 inhabitants. It con- 
tains one church, one schoolhouse. two stores, a postoftice, two blacksmith- 
shops and one hotel. 

The first birth was James E. Matthews, son of James Matthews, Mar. 
7, 1820. The first marriage was that of Samuel Van Wickle and Harriet 
Freeman in 1821. The first death was that of Leah Riggs, daughter of 
Samuel Riggs in 1824. 

The town of Birdsall was formed Mar. 2, 1830, at the house of James 
Matthews, pursuant to an act passed by the legislature May 4, 1829. The 
meeting was under these justices: James Matthews, Elias Hull, John P. 
Van Allen. Andrew Hull was chosen supervisor; Horace B. Camp, clerk; 
Thomas Parker, Riall Thompson, James Matthews, assessors; Samuel 
Hodgmen, Thomas HavensTDavid Bennett, commissioners; David Bennett, 
Abram Havens, Daniel Schenk, school commissioners: Joseph B. Welch, 
Horace Camp, John P. Van Allen, inspectors of election; Josiah Whitman, 
Gilbert C. Little, overseers of poor; C. Sleteker, T. Van Wormer, J. Jack- 
son, constables; Josiah Whitman, Lawrence Dey. justices; Aaron Hale, 
sealer. The successive supervisors have been Andrew C. Hull, John P. 
Van Allen, Isaiah Whitman, James Matthews, J. G. Freeman, W. C. Mat- 



BiRDSALL. 509 

thews, Daniel Schenk, Isaac B. Stedman, L. E. Dungan, Jesse D. Carpenter, 
Jacob Young-, Naaman Case, Henry Newton, Patrick Haire, Asa Helm, Henry 
Carpenter, Amos Southard, Peter M. Young, S. P. Stiles, Wilson Stiles, 
Albert Doolittle and James Haire, the present incumbent. Some served 
one year and others more. 

Hay is the leading product. Large quantities are shipped every year. 
Wheat, oats, rye, barley, corn and buckwheat are the cereals raised. The 
potato crop is fast becoming the leading one. Apples, pears and plums 
are the kinds of fruit we raise. Apples were a large crop until within the 
last three or four years. Before that time there were from 2,000 to 3,000 
barrels of apples shipped from this town alone. Stock is not raised in 
quantities equal to other places, but beef, mutton and wool can be produced 
here of as good quality as in other parts of the county. 

The population is composed of diffierent nationalities, of which the Irish 
are a large part. In 1830 there were 534 inhabitants, in 1835 573, in 1840 
there were but 328. This decrease was caused by many families removing 
to the western states, but for the next five years the number had increased 
to 475. The population is 878 in 1892, assessed valuation of real estate 
$217,228. 

Many of the first settlers have not left any records or papers by which 
their native place, their age and residence at time of death can be deter- 
mined. The first of those that can be ascertained is Lawrence I. Dey, set- 
tled in the town May 5, 1822, and resided there until March 4, 1869, when he 
removed to Angelica where he died April 24, 1876. John Marlat came from 
New Jersey about the same time as the Dey families and located on lot 4. 
There are none of the old settlers now living. John J. Davison, born March 
10, 1785, in New Jersey, married Elizabeth Dillentay, came to Birdsall in 
1825 and carried on farming and carpentering. He had 8 children. His 
death occurred in 1867. Peter Young, now resides at the village of Birdsall, 
was born in Livingston county in September, 1827, and married Sarah Bat- 
terson May, 1849. Jacob Young also born in Livingston county in October, 
1829, came to Birdsall when his brother did and married Harriett C. Dey in 
September, 1860. He died in October, 1890. Henry R. Newton, resident 
farmer born in September, 1835, served as supervisor. He married Olive 
Morley in September, 1863. Amos Southard born in September, 1830, mar- 
ried Jane Bardeen July, 1869, served as supervisor. Farmer. William 
Selover, now the oldest resident in town, lives in the village of Birdsall. 
Some of the oldest residents are A. Gillies. T. Gilhes, M. Clancy. M. Feath- 
erstone, Dickson Bros., J. B. and J. K. Riley, E. J. Merz, farmers. H. J. 
Baxter, S. Buzzell, merchants. E. M. Halbert, carpenter. 

Patrick Haire was born in County Claj-e, Ireland, March, 1817. In 1847 he 
came to America and settled in Wheatland, N. Y. In 1851 he came to Birds- 
all, and purchased a farm. He married Nancy Harrison who had 3 children. 
His second wife was Joanna Prendergast. They had 4 children. He has 
been twice elected supervisor of his town, several times town clerk and 



510 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

assessor, and was railroad commissioner. James Halre, son of Patrick, 
was born Feb. 24, 1862, has held the offices of collector and highway com- 
missioner and in 1894 was elected supervisor. 

Soldiers. — David Abbey, born March, 1841, moved to this town '55, served in ist N. Y. 
Dragoons. Wounded at Cold Harbor. He married Amanda Bacon in '65. Resides in Allen- 
Jehiel Abbey born January, 1838, come to this town '55, enlisted in ist N. Y. Dragoons, was 
wounded at Cedar Creek, and was ten months in hospital. He married Lizzie Willis in '75, 
now resides in Angelica. Henry Carpenter born in West Almond in March, 1841, served in the 
188th N. Y. He married Axa Hall in December, '69, and has been supervisor. Loren G. 
Jennings, born in Angelica in August, '31, married in November, '62. Eliza Walker. He en- 
listed in '65. James McWaver born in Almond in February, '28, came to Birdsall in '48, mar- 
ried Amanda Stedman August, '53, enlisted October, '64, and was wounded at the battle of 
Gravelly Run. Arunah Willis was born in Angelica in February, '39, enlisted in ist N. Y. 
Dragoons, and participated in a number of engagements. He married Julia Clark in October, 
'61, and now resides in Angelica. Edwin Ackley, now resident of town, enlisted from Almond 
in 104th N. Y., and was wounded at Anlietam. He married Janet Halbert. John Deming, en- 
listed in 1st N. Y. Dragoons, is a Birdsall farmer. Lyman Deming, enlisted in ist N. Y. Dra- 
goons, resides at Belmont. Gideon Stockwell member of ist N. Y. Dragoons, is a mechanic 
and resides in Birdsall. George Helm served ist N. Y. Dragoons. He married Mary Stock- 
well, and died soon after being discharged. Albert Doolittle, ist N. Y. Dragoons, discharged 
with regiment, married Miss Gibson, engaged in lumbering and farming and has been supervis- 
or. Theodore Ostrander enlisted in ist N. Y. Dragoons and resides in Minnesota. Nelson 
Ostrander served in Co. I, i88th N. Y. He married Mary E. Young. Occupation, blacksmith. 
Asa Helm enlisted in i88th N. Y., was in several engagements and discharged with regiment, 
now resides at Canaseraga. He married Addie Young. Amasa Aber born in Birdsall, enlisted 
in the i88th N. Y. Vol., was killed March 31, '65, at battle of Gravelly Run. John Selover 
married Elizabeth Young, enlisted in i88th Regt., was killed at battle of Hatcher's Run Feb. 5> 
'65. John Holleran was in the army and now resides in Olean. George Mapes, a blacksmith, 
enlisted under last call but was not sent to the front. Leonard Waver, son of James McWaver, 
enlisted under last call, was taken sick at Elmira and discharged, at close of war returned home 
and died in about two weeks. Wm. F. Young, a musician in 85th N. Y,, was wounded in hip 
in '62. He resides in Angelica. David Terwilliger 85th N. Y., was taken prisoner and died in 
Andersonvile. Beniah Terwilliger 85th N. Y., was discharged for disability and died soon after 
reaching home. Joseph K. Weaver, the writer of these sketches, was born in West Almond in 
January, '39, married Lucy J. Harman in March, '66, and settled in Birdsall in '70. He was a 
member of Co. D, 86th N. Y., enlisting in November, '61. He is a farmer and surveyor. Leroy 
Odell, 104th N. Y., now resident of Birdsall, married Miss Berry. Simpson Travis of Co. D, 
86th N. Y., was wounded in hand. He married Miss Phippen. Charles Riley, Co. D, 86th N. 
Y. Vol., discharged at expiration of service, married Miss Page and removed to Pennsylvania 
where he died. Will Riley, 86th N. Y., was wounded in right elbow. The joint was shattered, 
the bone was removed and the arm healed. He resides in Idaho. John Morley of ist N. Y. 
Dragoons, was killed in battle in 1863. 



West Almond. 511 



WEST ALMOMD. 

CHAPTER XLV. 

KV GEO. A. MORTON. 

GENERAL DESCRIPTION. ^West Almond was formed from Angelica, 
Almond and Alfred April 15, 1833, and is a broken, hilly, upland town 
lyino- a little northeast of the center of the county, and contains 22,109 acres. 
Its population has never exceeded 1,000, being 935 in 1860, 799 in 1870, 
803 in 1880, 649 in 1890 and 642 in 1892.* The greater part of the soil is 
muck or loam with a subsoil of stony clay or hardpan. The drainage of the 
north x^art flows to Black Creek, and that of the south flows off in the Angel- 
ica, Philips and Karr Valley creeks, all three of which rise in the town. 
Thus the water from the east part reaches the Atlantic through Chesapeake 
Bay by way of Karr Valley creek while that of the west flnds an outlet 
through the river St. Lawrence. The town is chiefly inhabited by farmers 
engaged in dairying, to which the soil is best adapted. 

The Central New York & Western railroad crosses the northwest corner 
of the town in the valley of Black Creek, and has a stopping place there 
called Bennets. 

West Almond (P. O.) is a scattering hamlet situated on Angelica creek, 
southeast of the center of the town and contains two churches, two stores, 
two blacksmith shops, a schoolhouse, a cheese factory, and about twenty 
dwelling houses. 

Early Settlers. — The pioneer settler of West Almond was Daniel Ather- 
ton, who settled at the center in 1816 and kept the first tavern in 1817. 
Jason Bixby, Isaac Ray and Daniel Hooker settled on the " turnpike " before 
1818. About the same time John Alfred from New Jersey settled near the 
north line, and other settlers coming soon after from the same state, the 
fact has given to that part the name of "Jersey Hill." Seth Marvin, Ches- 
ter Bennett, John Patterson, Jasper White of Vermont, Richard Carpenter 
with his sons, Samuel and Smith, David H. and Ellison Carpenter and Abial 
Weaver were among the first settlers. Elijah Stevens settled in 1820, 
Daniel Dean in 1822, Joseph, John and Matthias Engle in 1823 and Alvin 
Stewart in 1825. Wm. and Sether Dean, Joshua and Ira Baker. Sidney 
Marble, Philip McHenry, Joseph Hodges, Henry Lewis, John Lockhart and 
Carey Baker came soon after. 

The first town meeting was held Mar. 1, 1836, at the house of Elijah 
Horton when were elected: supervisor, David Brown; town clerk, William 
Dean; collector, Ira Baker; justices of the peace, Caleb Knight, John Engle, 
and Sidney Marble; assessors, Philip McHenry, Joseph Hodges and Henry 

* The turnpike from Bath to Olean, one of the main routes toward the great west, passed through the 
town, bringing many settlers, and population increased rapidly, reaching the maximum in 1850. 



5l2 History op Allegany County, N. Y. 

Lewis; constables, Nicholas Trimmer, Ira Baker and Norman Randall; 
school commissioners, Joseph W. Engle, John Lockhart and Abijah Brown; 
inspectors of common schools, Sether Dean, George B. Engle and Orange 
Sabin; road commissioners, Newell Ives, George W. McHenry and Isaac 
Blinn; overseer of the poor, Richard Norton; sealer of weights and meas- 
ures, Dennis Pickett. 

Enoch Hanks built the first sawmill in 1833 on Angelica Creek. Five 
others followed but all are gone now. Dr. Orange Sabin practiced medicine 
in the town over 50 years, having come about 1835. There is no physician 
m the town at present. There are eight common district schools in the town. 
The business interests, other than farming, are one blacksmith shop, one 
general store, and three cheese factories. 

The Baker cheese factory in the southwest part of the town, was built 
by Abel Baker, about 1870, and has been owned by the family since. The 
present proprietor is James A. Baker. It uses the milk of 200 cows and 
in 1894, 60,000 pounds of cheese were made. 

In 1895 a "limburger cheese " factory was built which uses the milk of 
100 cows. 

Tlie M. E. Church of West Almond was organized in 1861 with 30 members. 
The first pastor was Rev. Woodruff Post, the present pastor is Rev. Wm. 
Wilson. The house of worship was built in 1861 at a cost of $2,000 and there 
is also a parsonage and barn. Total value of church property $3,000. Pres- 
ent membership 23. The trustees are Edward Wyse, D. L. Baker, Lewis 
Hills; stewards, Edward Wyse, Abashaba Sawyer, Fannie Margeson. The 
first Sunday school was organized in 1862 with Cornelius Lord as superin- 
tendent. The present officers are Edward Wyse superintendent, Wm. 
Wilson assistant superintendent, Grace Welch secretary and treasurer. 
There are 5 teachers, and 40 pupils. 

Baptist Church. — Dec. 3, 1831, at the house of Daniel H. Pierce in the 
southeast part of what is now West Almond (then Alfred), Job Pickett, Moses 
Johnson, Joel Carrington, Peter Burrus, Daniel H. Pierce, JesseB. Boroughs, 
Daniel Pickett, Alonzo Burrus, Arvis Burrus, Hannah Pickett, Annah 
Boroughs, Nancy Carrington, Phcebe Boroughs, Octava Burrus, Lovina 
Pierce, Rene Mathews and Electa Carrington met and formed themselves 
into a church, called the Alfred Baptist Church and afterwards united with 
the school district (now Dist. No. 4) in building a log house which was used 
as a place of worship and for school purposes. Rev. J. P. Evans was the 
first pastor. (Burrows is probably the proper spelhng.) 

Oct. 9, 1824, Jonathan Post, Thomas Stutson, Aaron B. Jones, Robert 
Miller, Susan B. Stutson, Aurelia Stutson, Amanda Barnaby, Marylia Jones 
and John Stutson, met at the house of Thomas Stutson, (on the farm now 
owned by G. A. Morton then in Angelica) and joined in covenant, forming the 
Angelica Baptist Church (that in Angelica village being called the Angelica 
ViUage Church) using the schoolhouse near Mr. Stutson's for a place of 
worship. The first pastor was Rev. Jonathan Post, ordained at the court 



West Almond. 513 



house in Angelica March 2, 1825. In 1835 the church membership was 
57. when it united with the 31 members of the Alfred Baptist church to 
form the Baptist church of West Almond. This was organized Oct. 22, 1835, 
with 88 members. The first pastor was Rev. J. P. Evans. The first house 
of worship built in 1842 and used until 1861, was a plain old-fashioned church, 
substantially built, and without paint or steeple. It had a pulpit at one end. 
with a gallery for singers over the entrance hall at the other end. The 
present house of worship, built in 1861 at a cost of $2,000, is a tasty edifice, 
well built and well kept. It will seat 275 persons. The present member- 
ship is 45. The church is now without a pastor. The deacons are, Geo. W. 
Watson, Vinton Wardner and Heman Margeson. The officers of the Sunday 
school are George W. Watson superintendent, Vinton Wardner assistant 
superintendent, Mrs. Edward Ives, secretary, John Watson treasurer. 
There are 35 pupils and 4 teachers. 

Supervisors: — 1836, David Brown; 1837, Elijah Horton; 1838, David 
Brown; 1839, 1840, 1844, 1854-56, Jesse B. Gibbs; 1841, 1845, 1860, 1868, 1869, 
1872, 1873, 1875, Orange Sabin; 1842, 1843, Allen Norton; 1846, 1848, Samuel 
M. Eddy; 1847, 1850, Luman B. Elliot; 1849, Henry McGibeny; 1851, 1852, 
Thomas Richardson; 1853, Philip McHenry; 1857, Jonas G. Prentiss; 1858, 
1859, Hiram Karr; 1861, 1866, 1867, Andrus Post; 1862, 1863, George Morton; 
1864, Edwin Baker; 1865, Fernando C. Lord; 1870, 1871, Jeremiah Halsey; 
1874 and latter part of 1894 (to fill vacancy caused by resignation of Walter 
Waver), Sherman G. Hurd; 1876, 1877, 1891 and part of 1892 (resigned in 
November), Wesley B. Welch; 1878, 1885, John A. Ives; 1879, 1880, Darius 
White; 1881, 1882, H. H. Watson; 1883, 1884, A. J. Bennett; 1886, George E. 
Shaw; 1887, 1888, Owen Baker; 1889, 1890, George A. Morton; latter part of 
1892 (to fill vacancy caused by resignation of Wesley C. Welch) and 1893, 
George W. Watson; first part of 1894 (resigned), Walter Waver; 1895, Avilah 
Cartwright. 

The present, 1895, town officers are : Avilah Cartwright, supervisor; 
Alfred Fletcher, town clerk; George W. Watson, Avilah Cartwright, George 
A. Morton and Lewis Waldorft", justices of the peace; Llewellyn Hadsell, road 
commissioner; Michael Coot, overseer of the poor; Fred Halsey, Charles 
Morton, Frank D. Welch and Smith Dean, inspectors of election; W. W. 
Wyse collector; John Costello, James Stewart, John Baker, and W. W. 
Wyse, constables: S. Adams, J. O. Faller and A. J. Bennett excise commis- 
sioners. 



Later Settlers. — Joshua Baker, son of Gideon, was born in 1778 in Lisbon, N. H. He 
married first Margaret Houston, second Elizabeth Parker. He came from Broome county to 
West Almond in 1832, and took up and cleared the land now owned by J. T. Green. He died 
on this farm in 1842, his wife in 1858. The only survivor of their 13 children is Dewitt C. 
Baker, born Aug. 26, 1824. He married Mary L. Parker in 1856 and settled where he now 
resides and conducts his large farm. His five children are Clara E., Charles F., John, Mary and 
Stephen P. 



514 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Abel Baker, born in 1822, married Sarah C. Green, and settled where his son William A. 
now lives. He was a farmer and cheesemaker, and justice of the peace several years. His 
other son James A. married Adda L. McGibeny and has two children, Sarah G. and Wil- 
liam W. 

Andrew J. Bennett, son of Dr. William and Orrilla (Rawson) Bennett, was born in 1836 in 
Bradford, Pa. He married Josephine Palmer of Fremont. In 1866 he came to West Almond 
and located at Bennett's Station. He is a farmer and breeder of and dealer m fine stock. He 
has been supervisor of the town for several years, assessor 18 vears and is postmaster. He 
has always been a Democrat. His children are, Victoria (Mrs. Henry Mead), Frederick and 
Flora. 

William A. Cartwright, a native of Rhode Island, came to Amity among the early settlers. 
He was a farmer. He married a Davis and had 3 sons and 4 daughters. John C, his son, 
was born in 1812, married ]-Iannah, daughter of Spaulding Burdick, and located in Bolivar, 
from there removed to Belmont where he died in 1862. His second wife was Mary Ballou; of 
their 4 children 2 are living. Avilah Cartwright, son of John C. and Hannah B. Cartwright, born 
March 27, 1836, married Mrs. Dyantha (Aldrich) Irish in i860. In 1864 he enlisted in Co. I, 
85th Regt. N. Y. Vols., which being previously captured at Plymouth, N. C, he served in de- 
tachment to the 80th N. Y. V. V. I. He was discharged July 15, 1865, when he returned to 
Belmont where he lived until 1879 when he settled in West Almond. He is a farmer, has been 
justice of the peace 10 years, is now (1895) supervisor. His first wife died Dec. 24, 1876. He 
married, second, Emma A., daughter of John and Ruth (Gillett) Renwick of West Almond. 

Daniel Dean came at an early day from New Jersey to West Almond. He was an agent 
for Judge Church and was well known in town. He was a member of the Presbyterian church. 
He married first, Nancy Sampson, second, Mary Jewell. Oliver Dean, his son, married Mrs. 
Eliza (Stevens) Bostwick. (See Almond). 

Erastus Gleason, a native of Lowell, Mass., came to this town about 1833, he was a shoe- 
maker by trade. 

Patrick Griffin, born in Ireland, came to America about 1850 and settled in West Almond, 
where he has since resided, in 1851. He married Jane Holleran and had 8 children — two dying 
in infancy in Ireland, and 4 sons and 2 daughters born in America. They are Rev. James, John, 
a lawyer of Hornellsville, Michael, a lawyer of Grand Rapids, Mich., Thomas, an insurance agent 
of Grand Rapids, Maria (Mrs. W. F. McNamara) of Corning, Jennie (Mrs. George McMahon) 
died at Elmira in 1893. 

Harry, son of Zachariah Hard, was born in Sandgate, Vt., in 1805. He married Jemima 
Hamilton, and came here in 1836. 

Jeremiah Halsey, son of Lewis and grandson of Stephen, born in Tompkins Co., married 
Mary A. Burdick, He was a farmer, supervisor and justice of the peace. His 2 children 
were John (dec), and Mary L. (Mrs. John Marvin). George Watson from Washington Co., 
settled in the southwest part of the town with his son Elijah H., who married Ada Spencer. He 
and his wife were members of the Baptist church. He died in 1874, his wife in 1887. His son 
George who married Martha O. Hanks, has been justice of the peace 20 years. 

Justin Hills, born in Hebron, Washington Co., N. Y., of English ancestry, came early in the 
thirties to West Almond and located on the land now the pleasant farm of George E. Shaw. 
He married Sarah Burrows, a member of the numerous family of that name which was so prom- 
inent in the early history of the town and the organization of the Baptist churches. He did his 
full share of clearing off the forest, and developed a good farm. Of his 1 1 children only 4 are 
living : Levi, Eliza (Mrs. Seely Bo.stwick), Laura (Mrs. A. Hellen), and John. Burrows Hills, 
son of Justin and Sarah (Burrows) Hills passed his life on the old homestead, marrying Mary 
Nichols, a descendant of the Herkimer county family of that name, of whom many came to this 
county in the early days. He died in 1862, Mrs. Hills in 1870. George E. Shaw, son of Moses 
and Sarah (Herald) Shaw, was born in Conneaut, Crawford Co., Pa., Feb. 16, 1859. He was 
educated at the common schools and Northeast Seminary, and in 1879 married Emma E., 
daughter of Burrows and Mary (Nichols) Hills, and in 1880 they made their home in West 
Almond on the ancestral acres of Mrs. Shaw's father and grandfather. Their children are Leroy 
E., Frank H., and Glenn. Mr. Shaw was formerly a school teacher and is now a farmer. He 
is a Prohibitionist in politics, has held the office of justice of the peace since 1882 and was 
supervisor of West Almond in 1886, one of the first two Prohibition supervisors elected in 
Allegany county. 

Josiah, son of Newell Ives, was born in New Jersey. His father settled in Tompkins Co., 
and came to West Almond about 1820. He was a farmer and hotel- keeper. 

James Lord, son of Henry and Anna (Van Dyke) Lord, was born at Great Bend, Pa., in 
1800. When he was 9 years old his father moved to Starkey, Yates county. James Lord 



West Almond. 515 



married Sarah, daughter of Daniel and Ternptraucc Wa^hbum. In 1839 he sealed in West 
Almond, and has been a farmer and wagon maker. 

Walter Major, son of Stephen, settled in Hornellsville where he was a farmer. His son, 
Stephen Major, married Ellen, daughter of William and Susan (Clark) Rude of Almond, and 
settled in West Almond. He was a man whose word was as good as his bond, and was much 
esteemed by his townsmen. He was assessor for 15 years. Mr. Major enlisted in 1864 in 
Co. E, i88th Regt. N. Y. Vols., was discharged in July. 1865. He died March 23, 1894. His 
children were Frank (died aged 2 years), Eva (Mrs. J. M. Hadden of Hornellsville), Fred W. 
of Elmira. Mrs. Ellen R. Major occupies the old homestead at West Almond. 

John McGibeny came from Ireland about 1787 and settled in Hebron, N. Y. His sons 
Samuel, John and George were soldiers of the War of 181 2. In 1839 Samuel with his family 
came to West Almond. He was a blacksmith and worked at that trade during life. He was 
married three times, to Nancy Qua, Jane Kelley and Hope Dewers, and had "nine children, 3 
sons and i daughter now living. James B. McGibeny, son of Samuel, born Feb. 7, 1835, came 
with his father in 1839 to West Almond, was graduated from Alfred University in i860, married 
Hannah Sterritt of Philadelphia, Pa., in 1862, and, in 1864, went to Minneapolis, Minn., as 
superintendent of music in the city schools. He was engaged there four years, at Winona two 
years, and at Portland, Oregon, four years. In 1875 he commenced giving concerts, and, as the 
celebrated McGibeny family, his family has won high praise in all parts of America. 

David McGibeny born in Hebron, N. Y., married Lavinia Cooper. Mr. McGibeny located 
in West Almond in 1835 and attended the first town meeting. He bought 100 acres of land 
which he cleared. Of his 7 children, 3 sons died in the Civil War, the others, 2 daughters and 
2 sons, are residents of the county. 

Soldiers. — Many of our citizens who served in the Civil War are credited 
to other towns and we can find no record of the names of those who went 
from West Almond. These few names secured from the best attainable 
sources are inaccurate, inadequate and incomplete. 86th N. Y., Alamanzoand 
Alexander L. Litchard; 1st N. Y. Dragoons, Co. A, Lyman R. Hanks; Co. C, 
Hector A. Arnold; Co. H, Wilbur F. McGibeny, George Dean, Henry P. 
Green, Henry H. McGibeny, Henry Sawyer, Clayton L. Hurd, Theodore 
Ostrander; 136th N. Y., Co. E, William H. Safford ; 189th N. Y., Co. C, William 
J. Renitf; 188th N. Y., Joel R. Green, fifer. Let it be known however that 
West Almond showed as patriotic and self-denying a spirit in the terrible 
days of war as any of her sister towns. 



516 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

CHAPTER XLVI. 

BY JOHN S. MINARD. 

GRANGER is the central northern town of the county. It contains 20,450 
acres and was originally a part of the Morris Reserve, it formed a part 
of the town of Leicester, then of Angelica, from Feb. 25, 1805 to March 11, 
1808, then until March 8, 1827, it formed a part of Nunda. From 1827 to April 18, 
1838, it was a part of Grove, was then set off from Grove, as West Grove, re- 
taining that name until March 6, 1839, then changed to Granger. A meet- 
ing was held at Short Tract at which a change of name was considered, and 
Perth Amboy and Pine Grove were spoken of but at the suggestion of Wm. 
Van Nostrand, it was named for Francis Granger, of Canandaigua, then post- 
master general. Its territory is made up of the southeast part of the Cot- 
tringer Tract, lots 236 to 279 inclusive, and such part of the Church Tract, 
as was called T 6, excepting that part of lot 1, which lies west of the Genesee 
river. Its population was greatest in 1860 when it had 1,257, in 1870, it was 
1,050; in 1880, 1,086; in 1890, 954, in 1892, 909. It is bounded on the north 
by the town of Portage, Li v. Co., east by Grove, south by Allen, and west by 
Hume, the Genesee river forming more than half of its western boundary. 
Its waters are all tributary to the Genesee, mostly finding their way to the 
river through Rush creek, the only stream in the town which has a name. 
The Indians called it Shonnety-ye, a name of no apparent particular local 
significance nor can I find it, in what purports to be a list of " Indian names 
in New York." Who gave the name of Rush creek is not known. Elisha 
Johnson calls it so in his field notes in 1807, as does Van Campen in 1810. The 
name probably came from the luxuriant growth of rushes in the stream. In 
times of heavy rainfall its waters come rushing down the valley brooking no 
delay. It is then pre-eminently Rush creek. 

" Short Tract," the name applied to a large part of the town, particularly 
to the territory through which the main central road runs from north to 
south, comes from Wm. Short the mortgagee and later owner of a part of 
the Church Tract. This is also the name of the postofitice on the Short Tract 
road, in the south part of the town. Granger postoffi.ce is on the same road 
in the north part of the town, while East Granger is on the State Road in the 
east part of the town. 

The surface of Granger is generally a hilly upland, thrown into ridges 
conforming to the course of Rush creek, which has its source in the north- 
east part of the town, and pursues a southwest course to a point about a mile 
and a half east of the southwest corner, where it enters Allen. Returning 
in a northwest direction it cuts off a small part of the southwest lot, and 
enters Hume. These ridges are transversely, though quite irregularly cut 



Granger. 517 

up by the tributaries of Rush creek and the river, which have worn deep 
gorges or ravines, making a marked topographical feature of tlie town. 
Scarce any flats exist along the river which is bordered by abrupt hills 
which rise to heights in some places of from 400 to 600 feet. 

The part of the town embraced in the Cottringer Tract was surveyed 
into lots in 1807 by Elisha Johnson, afterward mayor of Rochester, and the 
land of the Church Tract was subdivided in 1810 by Van Campen. Neither 
make mention of finding squatters or Indian huts or villages in the territory. 
Most of Granger was originally covered with a good quality of pine, while 
hemlock in large quantities was found in some parts. Oak, chestnut, beech, 
and maple were the other prevailing timbers. It is pre-eminently an inland 
town, no other road than the highway ever having been constructed within 
its limits. Its soil upon the hills is a clayey loam, and in the valley it is quite 
gravelly. It is better adapted to grazing than to crops, and the prevailing 
industry is dairying. It is especially adapted to sheep husbandry, and when 
the price of wool warrants it, large numbers of sheep are kept. No saloon or 
hotel has existence in town nor has had for some years past. Its people as 
a rule are industrious, thrifty, happy and contented. 

The first settlement was made on the Short Tract in February, 1816, by 
Reuben Smith, his sons, Wilcox and Isaac, his sons-in-law, Rufus Trumbull 
and James McCoon, a Mr. Ellis from Vermont, and Elias Smith from Otsego 
county in the south part of the town, Elias Smith locating where O. A. Fuller 
now lives. The late Hiram Smith stated that his father, Darling Smith, also 
from Otsego county, came about 1816 took a contract for 50 acres in the 
northeast part, building his own house, and sleeping in it the first night after 
it was up. For a time his nearest neighbor on the north was three miles 
distant, and on the south seven. Ira Hopper from Steuben settled in the 
south part about 1816, and Wm. White from New England settled near the 
center in 1818. 

In March, 1817, Olive Smith, the first white child in town was born. As 
to the first death in town one account states that Olive Linee was the first 
one to die, in 1817. According to Willian Van Nostrand a negro named Jaques 
was the first to die, (in 1817). He was buried on lot 20. and two years later 
re-interred in a burial ground near by. The first marriage was in the spring 
of 1821, Isaac Hatch and Clarissa Pratt being the parties. 

About 1818 Solomon Rathbun of Saratoga county, made an exploration of 
Western New York and passed through the Church Tract. He was impressed 
with the magnificent growth of pine near the Short Tract Road. His de- 
scription of the country and its advantages encouraged Isaac Van Nostrand 
to visit the Church Tract in 1819. He purchased 290 acres of lot 20, and 
erected a log cabin, and lived alone until he could make a home for his fam- 
ily. During the summer he built the first sawmill in Granger, nearly a mile 
west of the Short Tract Road. He went seven miles to procure help to raise 
it, and some of the Caneadea Indians assisted. The timbers were heavy- 
and in raising one of the " bents," some faint-hearted ones came near releas. 



518 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



in^ their hold to the peril of all their lives. VanNostrand seized a handspike 
and threatened direst vengeance on any one that did not do his utmost. Giv- 
ing thundering command, "He-o-heave," all lifted with a will and up went 
the bent into place. William Moore and Isaac Hatch were associated with 
Van Nostrand in building the mill which was soon running. Logs were cut 
and sawed into lumber out of which the next year Van Nostrand built the 
first framed house in the town, in which he installed his wife and five chil- 
dren, he returning to Milton to bring them. His son Luzon had come the 
May before. They left Milton in August and were a week on the road. 

Isaac Hatch and Mr. Van Nostrand, both good mechanics, were asso- 
ciarted in building many of the early framed houses. For some time Mr. 
Van Nostrand had the only time piece and it w^as arranged that he should 
blow upon a conch shell at four o'clock in the morning, at noon, and at nine 
o'clock P.M. It has been claimed that that conch shell has been heard 
seven miles. It is now the property of Luzon Van Nostrand. Isaac Van 
Nostrand w^as a leading spirit with great influence among the settlers. He 
was the town's first supervisor, had been supervisor of Grove before the 
erection of Granger, and was foremost in all public enterprises. 

Thomas Worden from Massachusetts, and Samuel Horton from Canan- 
daigua made a settlement in the central part about 1819-20, also Oliver 
Smith. Charles Abbott purchased land on lot 37. James Osman and Jona- 
than Allen on lot 28. John Wheeler from Vermont about 1819 settled on 
lot 247, on the river. He came to be prominent in town and county politics, 
served several terms as supervisor, was long justice of the peace and justice 
of sessions, was member of assembly, and thoroughly identified and conver- 
sant with public affairs. Curtis Coe and John Broughton from Cayuga 
county settled in the northeast part on the State Road. Joel Pratt and Ebe- 
nezer Balch came from White Hall, Washington county, and settled near 
Short Tract on lot 21 in 1819. 

The first school meeting was held May 21, 1819, when it was resolved to 
build a schoolhouse of logs, 22 feet long (how wide?) it to be ready for use by 
June 20, 1819. The first school was taught by Miss Arzivilla Williams the 
same season. Isaac Van Ostrand and Elias Smith were foremost in this 
work. Elias Smith kept the first inn at Short Tract in 1819. Also the first 
store at the same place the next year. This pioneer inn was a log structure. 
The venerable Luzon Van Ostrand of Allen is authority for many statements 
here recorded. Elias Smith bought many shingles at 50 cents per thousand 
and paid in whiskey. He would allow Coan, Horton only three shillings for 
one bunch. This so offended Horton that he took them out in the road, broke 
them open and burned them. Sometime in the twenties Mr. Patterson lost 
a little girl, who wandered too far into the woods. The new^s spread rapidly 
and everybody turned out to hunt for her. The understanding was that a 
gun should be fired or a horn blown when the child was found, and that no 
one should fire, not even at a deer. The hunt was prosecuted all night and 



Granger. 519 

next day she was found. Anxiety gave way to great rejoicing, guns were 
fired, horns blown and bells rung. 

Hunt had a store and ashery at Hunt's Hollow. Pete Holliday took a 
bag of ashes there on his back, and asked if they had any shilling pocket 
knives? He was answered "Yes." "How much do you ask for themV " 
says Pete. 

In an early year the people arranged for a Fourth of July celebration. 
Jehial Smith wanted to go with his " girl, " and cut four cords of '• four-foot '" 
wood for 50 cents, got the money and went and took his girl too! Think of 
that, young men of to-day, when you are repining and " taking on " over 
your hard lot! You haven't taken the first lesson in hard times. 

In 1820 Ephraim Bullock, a young cooper from Vermont, came and was 
the first one in town. He was long and favorably known. He married 
Electa White in 1821 (the second marriage of the town), and in 1822 bought 
quite a tract of land on lot 20, nearly all of which he cleared. He later traded 
lands with Isaac Van Ostrand. 

John Bellows, Philetus Reynolds and Charles Mills settled in the south- 
eastern part in 1820 as did Rufus Shepard and Darius Scoville, on the State 
Road in the eastern part. Before the close of 1820 Willard Moore from Sara- 
toga county settled on lot 20. Mr. Moore and Joel Pratt built the first framed 
barns. In 1822 Samuel Moses from Lima, N. Y., settled in the northeastern 
part. Abner Comstock came in January, 1823, and bought 40 acres of land, 
which he cleared, and put up a log house. He did his full share in the de- 
velopment of this section. He cut seven miles of the road to Nunda, and his 
name often appears in the town records. Enos Baldwin, who died in 1876, 
is well remembered by Granger people. He came from Mt. Morris in 1823 
and took up a farm at Short Tract, where he ever after resided. He was 
for some years a captain in the militia, was justice 32 years and held various 
offices. His son, G. W. Baldwin, is a well-known resident. Samuel C, son 
of John C. Jones, settled on the State Road at an early day. He was quite 
prominent in town affairs. During 1823 Ira Parker, from Scipio, Cayuga 
county, settled on the old state road, making an opening and erecting a log 
house. Manning Hardy located on lot 264 in January, 1823, and during the 
same year Solomon Crofoot, Peleg Sweet and Samuel Hurd settled on lot 13, 
and Stephen Spencer made a beginning in the southeast part of the town. 
This year also Daniel Moses settled on lot 263 on the old Church road, taking 
up 50 acres, erecting the regulation log cabin, to which he soon brought his 
family. He came from Lima, Livingston Co., and attained and retained un- 
til his death in 1867, considerable prominence in the town. His sons, Wash- 
ington and Aziza, have been quite conspicuous in town and county affairs. 

The first framed schoolhouse was put up in 1824 by Isaac Van Nostrand, 
Isaac Hatch, Elias Smith, and others. It occupied substantially the same 
site as the present very creditable structure on the Short Tract road. 
Enoch Holliday and his family (Harlow Holliday, his son, is still living in the 
town) made their advent into Granger in 1826, first buying of Norman Can- 



520 HiSTOKY OF Allegany County, N. Y. 

field 50 acres on Oak Hill. Marmaduke Aldrich, Horace Doane, Salmon 
Remington and Abraham Lampman settled here from 1826 to 1829. Among- 
the settlers of 1830 were James Wilcox, William L. Weaver, Wilham Ralph,^ 
John Bennett and William Pitt. 

Mr. Pitt came from England, purchased 140 acres, made a pleasant 
home, and became a leading citizen, at various times being assessor, town 
clerk and highway commissioner. His wife died in 1873. One of their ten 
children. Prof. Wm. H. Pitt, has attained fame as a scientist. Lieut. Geo. 
W. Pitt of the 85th N. Y., and John S. Pitt of the 104th N. Y., were their sons. 

Our prominent citizen, William Weaver, now living in Angelica, is a son 
of William L. Weaver above mentioned. 

Mr. Jesse Bennett, late of Hume, where he is now justice of the peace, 
is a son of John Bennett, the pioneer. 

Dr. Reuben H. Smith from New Jersey, settled in the north part of the 
town in 1828. In addition to his medical practice, he practiced surveying 
for several years. His son. Dr. Wm. M. Smith, became very prominent. 
(See page 219.) His grandson, Frank S. Smith, son of Dr. Wm. M., is now 
a reputable member of the New York City bar. (See page 285.) 

In 1831 William and Henry Bennett, from England, accompanied by 
their families, took up 240 acres, and worked about the neighborhood until 
they had paid for it. 

Montgomery Thorp was early a settler at the Short Tract. He reared a 
family of much more than ordinary ability and accomplishments. Simeon 
M. became state superintendent of public instruction of Kansas. He was a 
prominent "Free State " and Union man, and was shot dead in his own door 
yard in one of the famous Quantrell raids. He was then state senator. 
Capt. Alexander K., another son, an Union officer, was shot in the battle of 
Winchester. His remains were interred in the cemetery at Short Tract. 
Thomas J., another son, had just graduated from Union College when the 
war broke out. He helped organize the 85th New York and was commis- 
sioned captain of Co. E. He was wounded at Fair Oaks but gallantly en- 
dured the sufferings of the great Seven Days historic retreat. He was com- 
missioned lieutenant-colonel of the 130th N. Y. (1st N. Y. Dragoons) while 
on furlough. He achieved high distinction with that regiment, and was 
promoted colonel March 1, 1865. After the war he was prominent in educa- 
tional matters, and is now a resident of Oregon. 

Gen. Thorp erected an elegant "soldiers' monument" in Granger. 
This is a beautiful shaft of granite 25 feet high, on which is inscribed the 
honorable record of his family and immediate relatives, and also the names 
of Granger's other heroes of the Civil War. One side of the monument is 
dedicated to "The brave soldiers of Granger who fell for the Union." 
Their names are: G. H. Cole, F. M. Cook, Wm. Hall, C. P. Emery, Wm. Davis, 
Wm. Huson, E. S. Drury, N. J. Smith, M. W. Snider, G. T. Warden, G. W. 
Abbott, M. D. Luther, J. D. Weaver, I. R. Weaver, E. M. Parker, J. M.. 
Parker, Wm. Wallace, Wm. Whittle, John Parks, J. H. Bennett, Wm. Bentley^ 



Granger. 521 

Geo. Shepard, John Emmons, Geo. Sibbald, Jos. Bentley, Eber Bullock, 
Richard Grove, Daniel Chilson, Luther Moses, Pembroke Berry, Charles 
Williams, Darius Snider, Robert T. Lockwood, David Lockwood, Attorney 
Smith, I. N. Van Nostrand, Aaron VanNostrand. On the north side appears 

" Gen. Thos. J. Thorp, son of M. Thorp, born 1833, died . Mandana C. 

wife of T. J. Thorp, born 1843, . Simeon A. son, born 1867. Emma L. 

died 1870. Anna, daughter, born 1871." On the south side appears: "Lynes 
Thorp, a Patriot soldier of 1776. Montgomery Thorp, son of the Patriot, 
born at Bristol, Conn., 1796.* Wm. Jones a Patriot soldier of 1776. John 
C. Jones, son of the Patriot, born 1780, died 1827. Bethiah, wife of Mont- 
gomery Thorp, and daughter of JohnC. Jones, born 1807. Louisa Thorp, 
born 1833, died 1836. Ann Thorp, born 1842, died 1847." The only expense 
to the town or friends of the honored dead was that of carving the 
inscription. 

On wiiat is known as •• Snyder Hill," a widow by the name of Swan was 
the first settler early in the thirties. Ezra Bottsford, Benjamin and Rudolph 
Snyder, Storey Curtis and Azariah Townsend were early settlers, also 
Hiram Tuttle at a later period. After there was quite a settlement on the 
Short Tract, the territory west of it to the river in Hume was an unbroken 
wilderness. The names given to (and still retained by) the different sec- 
tions or settlements were State Road, Short Tract, Weaver Settlement, 
Horton Hill and Snyder Hill. 

In 1834 Luzon and Lewis Van Nostrand, William Morse and John White 
built a gristmill on lot 35. Two " run " of stone, 24 inches in .diameter, were 
put in. Afterward a " four-foot run " obtained at Auburn was added. A 
man was hired to run the mill, and Luzon learned of him and afterward ran 
it. This mill was put up before any roads were laid out in its immediate 
vicinity. Roads were soon opened, and the mill for some years was quite a 
central place, but it was abandoned some thirty years ago and nothing but 
ruins mark the spot where it stood. There is no gristmill in the town now^ 
Calvin B. Lawrence put in the first steam sawmill in town on either lot 257 
or 258 of the Cottringer Tract sometime in the forties. 

The settlement of Granger was made between 1816 and 1840, and since 
the latter date, but httle land has been cleared. The wooded lands should 
not be further encroached upon, but carefully preserved. The pressing 
need of the pioneer was cleared ground upon which to raise crops for the 
subsistence of his family and stock, and so clearing land was the principal 
business of the settlers. The ashes were sold or worked up into -'black 
salts," which found a ready market, and brought in about the only money 
that came into town for the first few years. 

Braiding palm-leaf hats was an industry which some of the wives and 
daughters of the settlers from 1830 to 1850 engaged in. Merchants would 
bring in a stock of palm leaves, and sell them to the hat braiders (and some 

*■ Died recently in Michigan. 



522 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



very good hats they made), they at the same time purchased groceries and 
such other articles as were needed in the plainly furnished houses. 

The first cheese factory was built by John Barnes. It was in the south 
part of the town on the cross road between the Short Tract and State Road. 
After a few years it was abandoned. At present there are two cheese 
factories in town, one on the Short Tract, owned by Young & Young of Fill- 
more, the other on the State Road in the northeast part of the town, owned 
by Charles and Ed. Newsbickle. There are five blacksmith shops run 
respectively by Lawrence Fletcher, Charles White, Fred Bennett, Alfred 
Bennett, and Lewis Wright, all strung along on the Short Tract road. 

Dr. Reuben H. Smith, the first physician, lived on Horton Hill. He was 
succeeded by his son Dr. Wm. M., followed by Drs. Fenno, Miller, Hunger- 
ford, A. W. Smith and C. G. Anderson. At present the physicians are Drs. 
Geo. P. St. John and C. A. Doolittle. Capt. Isaac Van Nostrand owned a 
"turnkey" and extracted teeth for the settlers even before there was a 
physician. 

Elias Smith, the first merchant, also kept an inn. It is svipposed that 
both inn and store were in the same building which was lately the residence 
of O. A. Fuller. Joseph Piatt, the second merchant, in connection with his 
store carried on an extensive lumber business. He afterward removed to 
Angelica. Geo. Ayrault, now of Silver Springs, Jesse Bennett, now at 
Rossburg, Lowell & Saxlon, A. Butler, Wm. Welstead, J. R. Collister. John 
Wilcox and Robt. Bennett have kept stores at the Short Tract. The only 
store ever kept on Horton Hill was owned by the Atwood brothers. Philip 
and Freeman. George and Fred Reynold have carried on the harness trade, 
while Mr. Parsons, Charles Aldrich. and Lowell & Augustine have dealt in 
flour and feed. 

Granger had the credit of having a prominent station on the famous 
"underground railroad " of the old anti-slavery days, when many fugitives 
bound for Canada made their way through this section. Rev. A. Richmond 
was said to be the agent. John Broughton and Dr. Reuben H. Smith were 
early surveyers, John Walbridge a later one. John Backus was the first 
postmaster at " Church Tract "' ofiice located on the State Road. Elias Smith 
was the first postmaster at Short Tract, about 1824. " Hickory Swale " 
was an early postoffice in the north part of the town. It was moved further 
south and changed to Granger. Previous to the establishment of these 
offices Nunda and Mt. Morris offices supplied the people. 

From the Town Becords. — At the first town meeting (March 5, 1839) these 
officers were elected : Isaac Van Nostrand, supervisor; Samuel C. Jones, 
town clerk; John L. Johnson, collector; Rufus Shepard, Wilham Pitt and 
Salmon Remington, assessors; Moses White and Hosea Haskins, overseers 
of the poor; Rudolph Snider, Orville Hitchings and William L. Weaver, com- 
missioners of highways; Thomas Kinne, Ephraim Bullock and Reuben H. 
Smith, commissioners of common schools ; P. B. Richmond, Luzon Van 
Nostrand and Silas Olney, inspectors of schools; John L. Johnson, Forbes 



Granger. 523 

H. Oliver and John Utter, constables. It was voted to raise ii^20 for high- 
ways, "to pay a bounty ot Jj^lO for old. and iB5 for young wolves,* 50 cents for 
old and 25 cents for young foxes, and 50 cents for wildcats killed by the in- 
habitants of the town." From this it seems that neither wolves nor wild- 
cats had disappeared as late as 1839. In 1841 no road money was appropri- 
ated. In 1843 a bounty of one shilling on crows was voted. In 1844 it was 
voted to raise no school money, but that all penalties and forfeitures and 
money in supervisor's hands should be devoted to schools. In 1846 bounty 
on foxes and crows was removed, and cattle and sheep made free common- 
ers. At this town meeting 92 voted for license and 103 for no license. 

When cattle and sheep were free commoners, stock was allowed to run 
at large, and sheep were marked by cutting and slitting their ears in vari- 
ous ways, and a record made in a book kept by the town clerk. The first 
ear mark recorded was that of Enos Baldwin. March 12, 1839. and the last 
Frederick Smith's, June 21, 1858. 

During the Civil War special town meetings became necessary. One 
was held March 19. 1864, when it was voted "to pay a bounty of $300 to 
those soldiers in the 85th and 104th regiments who re-enhst, and the same 
for. volunteers."' During the pendency of a draft in 1864 a special town 
meeting was held August 9th. and it was voted that " the town auditors be 
authorized to fill the quota on the best terms obtainable." Jan. 10, 1865, at 
another special town meeting it was voted to pay $600 for one year, $700 
for two years, and $800 for three years' men to fill the town quota. This 
was the last special town meeting called to consider war matters. The 
town of Granger did well her part in that sanguinary struggle. Many of 
her noble sons gave up their Hves that the government might survive, and 
no town in the county has a more honorable record or furnished better 
soldiers. 

Religion. — The first religious services were conducted at the house of 
Elias Smith by Rev. Mr. Hill. The Methodist Episcopal society was organ- 
ized in 1826 by the first pastor. Meetings were held in private houses and 
the schoolhouse. The first church edifice was erected in 1841. and in 1863, 
under the labors of Rev. Mr. Bush, it was refitted and enlarged to scat 300 
people. In 1877, under Rev. J. C. Stephens, it was again enlarged. The 
property is worth about $6,000. The ministers have been: Rev. Deway, 
William Gage, G. Gould, Asa Orcult, Henry Wisner, Asa Story, Mr. Brun- 
son, John Watson, Chandler Wheeler, Joseph Pearsall, Mr. Pickard, Mr. 
Ferguson, Mr. Anderson, A. Maker, William Haskell, Mr. Wright, Mr. Cor- 
nels, C. Gool. Milo Scott, Ralph Clapp, L. L. Rogers, Stephen Brown, E. 
Huntington, James Duncan, Mr. Bush, W. N. Shulp, P. M. Smith, P. D. 
Clark, V. Brownell, J. B. Peck, S. D. Pickett. A. H. Maryot, John Spinks, 
R. F. Kay, T. J. O. Wooden, J. C. Stephens, Isaac Harris, G. S. Watson, A. 
W. Staple, H. L. Newton, W. Magavern, Cornelius Dillenbeck, C. L. Fish, N. 

* Wm. Van Nostrand tells us that on one election day an Indian appeared before a magistrate to get a 
bounty certificate for the head of an old wolf and eight young whelps. 



524 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

J. Brown, E. L. Graves, A. F. Countryman, J. E. Munroe and E. E. Warner, 
The church membership is 140 and the Sunday school has 180 members. 

Rev. John Watson organized the First Wesleyan Church of Granger in 
1843. In 1844 a church building was erected at a cost of $500 capable of 
seating about 150 persons. It was valued in 1879 at $1,200. Some improve- 
ments have been made since. Kev. George W. Cooper is pastor. 

Maple Grove Lodge, No. 761, F. A. 31., was instituted March 5, 1875. The 
first ofilcers were: W. M., George S. Goldstone; S. W., DeWitt C. Albee; J. 
W., Jonas R. Collister; treas., Washington Moses; sec, Rev. A. H. Maryott; 
S. D., James Douglas; J. D., John Wilcox; tiler, Silas Brundage. The 
present W. M. is John A. Jones. The other masters of this lodge have been 
Jasper N. Parker and Samuel B. Luckey. 

A Lodge of the Junior Order of United American Workmen, the A. & I. 
Van Nostrand Post of the G. A. R., and the W. R. C. are other societies ex- 
isting here. 

Supervisors. — Isaac Van Nostrand, 1839, '42 ; Abner Bissell, 1840; Joseph Piatt, 1841 ; Wm. 
Van Nostrand, 1843, '44, '48, '49, '58, '65; S. C. Jones, 1845, '46. '47 ; John Wheeler, 1850, 
'51. '57- '59; I-ewis Van Nostrand, 1852, '53; Wm. R.Toby, 1854, '55 ; Wm. M. Smith, 1856; 
Asa N. White, i860; Washington Moses, 1861, '62, '67, '68, '69; O. Olney, 1863, '64; Geo. W. 
Pitt, 1866; Wm. Weaver, 1870, '71, ^-JT, '78; John N. Phinney, 1872, '73. '76. '83, '84; Gurdon 
H. White, 1880, '90 '91 ; Andrew W. Smith, 1885, '86 ; John Walbridge, 1887; Robert Bennett, 
1888, '89; John L. Dudley, 1892, '93; V. Q. Smith, 1894, '95. 

The 1895 officers are : supervisor, V. Q. Smith ; town clerk, Robert Bennett ; justices, S. B. 
Lucky, Frank Ricketts, V. Q. Smith, Clark Eldridge ; overseer of poor, David Wallace ; assessors, 
Ernest Cuddebee, O. A. Fuller, J. N. Parker; collector, Charles Snyder ; constables, D. F. Ben- 
nett. J. J. Gallon, Charles Snyder, Thomas Hall. Charles Bates ; inspectors of election, Frank K. 
Allen, John Hussong, Arthur J. Bennett, Joseph N.Guptil ; excise commissioners, L. D. Bennett, 
Arthur Main, John Sylor. 



Chronology of Some Citizens. — Alonzo Aldrich is grandson of Marmaduke Aldrich a 
soldier m the war of 181 2, who came to Lima, Livingston county, in 1820 from New Hampshire, 
to Grove in 1822, to Granger in 1827; children, Amasa, Gideon, Nelson, Benjamin, Sally and 
Mary. Amasa married Zeruah Parker, children Marilla, Linus P., Alonzo, Arvilla and Melissa. 
Alonzo was born in 1836, and has always been a farmer owning now 200 acres. He married 
Marinda Waite of Belfast, children, Amasa, a farmer in Granger, and Charles, who died at 
Short Tract in 1894 aged 24 years. Alonzo Aldrich enlisted in 1863 in Co. D, 4th N. Y. H. 
Art., which served as infantry. He was in the battles of the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Cold 
Harbor, Petersburg, South Side Railroad, Burkes Station, and was present at Lee's surrender 
at Appomattox. Mrs. Aldrich died in 1892. Mr. Aldrich, always an active Republican, has 
been highway commissioner of Granger, and for many years a dealer in live stock, 

Ira Bentley is son of Gideon Bentley, who lived in Onondaga county, and married Polly 
Harrington. Children, Rua, Weighty, Lucy, David, Callop, Stephen and Ira. Ira Bentley was 
born in 1813, and married in Yates county, Mary Hall. Children, Ira, Stephen, William, Floyd, 
Emma, Jeanette, Mary E. and Filena. Mr. Bentley came to Granger in 1826 and paid $6 per 
acre for his first 50 acres of land. To these he added till he owned 700 acres. His first wife 
died and his second wife was Emma Dunn. Children, Floyd and Arthur. His son, Ira, who 
lives on the old homestead, married a Miss Randall. They have two children, Fred and Emma. 

Robert Bennett merchant at Short Tract, was born in Granger in 1839, son of Joseph 
Bennett, born in England in 181 3, the son of Henry Bennett. Joseph Bennett came to Gran- 
ger in 1831 and bought what is now the John Bennett farm for $1.25 per acre. He married in 
1833 Eliza, daughter of Robert Jemmison of York, Livingston county. They had eight chil- 
dren, Betsey dying at the age of 3 months, Robert, merchant at Short Tract, Mary C. (Mrs. 



Granger. 525 

Washington Walbridge) living in Granger, Sarah J. (Mrs. Joseph Wilcox) who died in 1877, 
John J., living on the old farm, Hugh who died in 1878, Francis who died at the age of 2 years, 
Helen (Mrs. John Hussong) who lives at Short Tract. Joseph and Eliza Bennett both died in 
1884, on the 13th and 19th of April. In 1861 Robert became a partner in the firm of Wilcox & 
Bennett, grist, saw and shinglemill, which burned witli no insurance the same year. In 1862 
he enlisted in Co. H, 130th N. Y. This regiment was changed to cavalry and was called ist 
N. Y. Dragoons and served under Gen. Phil. Sheridan and was in 46 actions including the 
Wilderness, Winchester, Cold Harbor and Cedar Creek. After 35 months' service, Mr. Ben- 
nett came home and worked in gristmills at Whitesville and Canaseraga three years and on his 
farm on English Hill five years. In 1874 he began business as a trader at Short Tract. The 
firm was then CoUister & Bennett for three years, then Bennett & Eldredge two years, the firna 
adding drugs to the " general store " line of goods. Mr. Eldredge went to Livonia some years 
ago and since then Mr. Bennett has had no partner. In 1866 he married Jane McAllister of 
York. Children, Lida J , died at the age of 20 in 1889, Lena and Flora M., livmg at home, and 
Ethel, who died at the age of 10 months in 1888. Mr. Bennett is a staunch Republican and 
has been town clerk for 12 years and was supervisor of Granger in 1888-9. 

Mrs. Laura Covey, daughter of Samuel C, and Loretta (Woodworth) Jones was born in 
Granger in 1831;. Her father was born in 1801, in Vermont, the eldest of 12 children, and 
came to Granger about 1820, returning to Vermont in 1830, where he was married and brought 
his wife to Granger. He was a school teacher, and a man of affairs, holding the principal town 
offices, from the first clerk of the town, in 1830. then assessor, justice of the peace many years, 
and supervisor. Although not a lawyer he managed legal matters for others, appearing as 
counsel in justice courts. He was also a land agent for the Church family, and himself owned 
1,000 acres in Allegany. His children were, John C, Loretta and Louisa (Mrs. H. P. Kellogg 
of Brooksgrove). Loretta married, in 1852, Howden Covey. They settled in Granger m 1854, 
where Mr. Covey was a farmer and filled several town offices. In 1867 they removed to Mt. 
Morris, and now reside at Dalton, town of Nunda. Their children have been, Samuel J. and 
Selden C, and Edward E. 

Lucian A. Doolittle, is grandson of Alvan B. Doolittle who was a merchant in Boston and 
his son Alvan was born in Winchester, N. H., in 181 2. About 1833 Alvan came to Granger 
with a wagon load of boots and shoes which he traded for horses that he took to the Boston 
market. In 1836 he married Sarah Felch. Children, Thusa, Marshall, Lucian A. and Lucius 
B. (twins born 1841), William and Willard (twins), Henry C, Oregon, Frank, Sarah, Edward and 
Mary. All but Thusa and Marshall were born in Granger. Alvan Doolittle brought his family 
to Granger in 1839 or '40 where Mrs. Doolittle died in 1888. Mr. Doolittle now lives in Wash- 
ington county. Lucian A. in 1861 married Anna Hanford and settled on their present farm in 
1862 Children, Lucius, who married Agnes Bennett. Their children were Deforest, Hazel 
and Fred, Harmon married Claudie Morris, Flora (Mrs. Jones Dunn), her children are Leonard 
and Lora. Viola (Mrs. Geo. Gale, whose home is in Denver, Colo.), Grace is unmarried and 
lives in Denver, Albert is at home with his parents. Mr. Doolittle is a Democrat in politics, 
has been postmaster at Granger for the past 16 years. The office is kept in his farm-house. 

Isaac Dunn was born in Staffordshire, England, in 1822, where his father John, son of 
Benjamin Dunn, married Mary Mitchell Children, Louisa, Caroline, Martha. John, Harriett, 
Ann and Cassandria. John Dunn served 7 years apprenticeship with a man who wrote a 
veterinary work, and studied with him and obtained a knowledge from practice which led to his 
great success as a veterinary surgeon. He brought his family to Nunda in 1832, and to Gran- 
ger in 1836, and was widely known as a farrier. He died in Tuscarora in 1885. Isaac acquired 
his father's profession which he practiced for about 30 years in Allegany and every adjoining 
county. He married in 1851, Synthia Eldridge. Children, Anna (Mrs. Alonson Towner, her 
children are Lillie and Ruth), Lillie (Mrs. Cassius Tuttle, children, Anna, Efiie, Lottie, Willis 
and Synthia), Jones, married Flora Doolittle and has children, Leonard and Lora. Mr. Dunn 
bought his present home of 30 acres in Granger in 1874. 

Eli W. Drury is son of Samuel and Hannah (Burgers) Drury, and the grandson of William 
Drury of County Kent, England, where Samuel was born in 1799 and his wife in 1804. Their 
children were Samuel, Charlotte. Helen, Amelia, Edwin and Eli W., born in Geneseo in 1838. 
Samuel came to America in 1827, and to Granger in 1845, and bought 1 10 acres of land. He 
died here in 1868, and his wife in 1877. Eli W. Drury married, in 1869, Grace, daughter of 
William and Emily (Baldwin) Van Nostrand of Granger. Their children are William and Ray- 
mond V. Mr. Drury is a farmer on the old homestead. 

Omar W. Fuller, was born in Hamburgh, Erie Co., in 1829. His father, William H., and 
his grandfather, John Fuller, both lived in Sharon, Conn. William H.. a tanner and harness 
maker, came to Erie county in 1822, and married Mary W. Blackmer in 1826. Children Frank, 
Omar W., Oscar, Jennett. In 1838 he brought his family to Granger, and in 1844 bought 100 



526 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



acres of wild land, upon which he settled and lived till his wife's death in 1870, and his own in 
1871. Omar has always lived on the old farm, except from 1862 till the close of the war in 
1865, when he was a soldier in the 4th N. Y. H. A., which was stationed at Fort Ethan Allen 
till 1864 after which it fought as infantry. Mr. Fuller was in most of the heavy fighting in 
Virginia till peace was declared at the Wilderness, taking part in Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor, 
and many other noted battles. He married in 1852, Eliza G. Guptill, whose family lived in 
Maine, coming originally from the Isle of Man. They had one child Annetta (Mrs. Frank 
Spohn) whose two children are Josie P. and Theresa. 

Joseph N. Guptill is son of William Guptill, born in Waterboro, Maine, in 1776, whose 
grandfather came from the Isle of Man. William was a sailor till 28 years old. He married 
Ruth Fox and came to Granger about 1830. Children, Eliza, Matilda, Horace, Ellen, Joseph 
N., who was born in Granger in 1842. When the Civil War broke out he left Rushford Acad- 
emy, where he had been a student nearly three years, and enlisted in 4th N. Y. H. A., which 
was stationed at Fort Ethan Allen till 1864, then served as infantry. Mr. Guptill was in 14 
engagements including the Wilderness, Spottsylvania and Cold Harbor, and was at Appomattox 
at Lee's surrender. He was wounded in the arm in front of Petersburg, the bullet lodging in 
his canteen. He went " to the rear," leaving his gun on the field. The wound was not severe 
enough to send him to the hospital and the gun would be charged to him, so when night came 
he returned to the field, got a gun from a dead soldier, and joined his regiment again the next 
day. He was discharged in 1865, and married Melissa, daughter of Henry A. Smith. They 
settled on the old homestead and had two children, Horace, died when six years old, and 
Bessie D. 

Hon. Washington Moses, son of Daniel and Phebe (Beckwith) Moses, was born in Granger 
Jan. 9, 1834. His parents were among the pioneer families of Lima, Livingston county, where 
both were born and came to Granger in 1823. Their children were : Frances, Ashbel, who 
went to California in 1849, wrote that he had a lot of gold he wanted to send home and was 
last heard from in the mountains where it was thought he was killed by the Indians ; Luther, 
enlisted twice in 85th N. Y. Vols., and was starved to death at Andersonville ; Washington; 
Aziza, still on the old farm in Granger, constable and deputy sheriff 25 vears ; his children are : 
Alice, Luther I., Orrin, Elsie, Nettie, Lottie. Daniel Moses was supervisor, justice of the 
peace and held various offices of trust. He died in 1867, 66 years old. W shington was raised 
a farmer and married in 1863, Ellen, daughter of Ira Parker, an earh- settlei in Granger. Mr. 
Moses was supervisor of Granger in 1 86 1, '62, "67, "68 and '69, was justice of the peace 29 
years, associate justice of sessions 3 years, clerk of the board of supervisors 7 years, and was a 
member of the legislature in 1882 and in 1887. He has two sons, Grant E. and E. Walter. In 
1 891 he removed to Dalton, where Grant E. is a merchant. 

John S. Pitt (whose father William Pitt was born in Dorsetshire, England, in 1795, a son 
of William Pitt,) was born in Granger in 1843. His father married Miss Elizabeth Vincent in 
1820, came to Granger in 1830 and settled on the farm of 142 acres still the home of John S. 
Their children were, Jane (Mrs. S. H. Whitcomb), Eliza (Mrs. Wellington Fletcher), Mary, 
Anna, Emma, William H., Elizabeth (Mrs. Alonzo Disbro), James, George W., John S. Mr. 
Pitt was the first assessor in town and made the first assessment roll for the town of Granger, 
Mrs. Pitt died in 1873 and he in 1882. George W. and John S. were both in the late war; 
George as lieutenant in the 85th N. Y.; John served in the 104th N. Y. as musician and took 
part in 43 battles from the 2d Bull Run to the surrender of Lee at Appomattox. John married 
in 1869 Lucinda J. Ralston. For the next ten years he was in the West, building bridges for 
the I. & St. Louis R. R. Since 1879 he has lived on the old homestead. Besides attending to 
his farm he has run a steam thresher for 15 years past, and has been excise commissioner six 
years. 

Frank Ricketts, son of Samuel, son of Richard Ricketts, a Newfoundland fisherman, was 
born in Dorsetshire, England, in 1843. Samuel married Mary A. Brewer, and brought his 
family to Granger in 1843. Children : Frank, Emma, Charlotte (Mrs. George Parker, dec), 
Belle (Mrs. W. Framingham of Nunda), George in Batavia, Richard, Fred in Elmira. Frank 
married in 1867 Catharine Closser of Granger; children Rose M., a school teacher for the past 
ten years, Samuel and Ethel L. Mr. Ricketts owns a farm of 165 acres, and is justice of the 
peace, elected on the Republican ticket. 

Mrs. Laura M. Smith, daughter of Salmon Remington, was born in Cayuga county in 1827, 
where her father married Thankful Kemp. Their children were : Betsey A. (Mrs. Nelson 
Aldridge), Abner (lives in Minnesota), Oril (Mrs. Richard Reynolds), Clarinda (Mrs. Clement 
Bates of Granger), Tamersen (Mrs. Orton Page of Nunda). Caroline, married Norton Scoville, 
(their son, Leroy N. Scoville, has lived with Mrs. Smith 17 years and works her farm), Catha- 
rine (Mrs. Frank Pennock of Granger), Rachel died when five years old. Amanda (Mrs. Nicholas 
Luther), Eliza (iNIrs. Milo Eldridge). Salmon Remington came to Granger in 1829, and was 



Granger. 527 

killed here in a runaway accident. In 1845 Laura M. Remington married Aaron, son of Dar- 
ling and Mary (Luther) Smith, whose children were Hiram, Darling, Elisha, Luther, Aaron, 
Manning. Aaron Smith was born in Granger in 1821, and was raised a farmer. He bought 
100 acres of the old homestead, and Hiram bought the other 60 acres, and Aaron still owned 
.the 100 acres when he died. About 1855 he bought the farm where Mrs. Smith now lives, 
where he died in 1889. 

Gardner C. Smith, son of Hiram, and grandson of Darling Smith, lives with three of his 
sisters, Ellen, Sophia, and Cynthia, on the old homestead in Granger, where they were all born, 
he in 1842. Darling and Mary (Luther) Smith were natives of Otsego Co., being the parents of 
9 children. Hiram the oldest was born in 1808. From Otsego they removed to Jerusalem, 
N. Y., and in January, 1818, to Granger, where Mr. Smith bought 80 acres east of G. C. Smith's, 
at $3.50 per acre. His nearest neighbor was three miles away. An axe and two dollars in money 
were all the capital he had. They got a cow, and raised some potatoes, but often were without 
bread for several days. At one time they had no bread for a week. Mr. Smith walked to Mos- 
cow and brought a bushel of musty cornmeal on his back, arriving home about midnight, his 
wife made some mush and awoke the children to eat it. Hiram often told his children the mush 
then tasted better than any cake he ever ate. The family struggled on for nine years and had 
only paid five dollars on their land, when Hiram then 17 years old hired out to Col. George Wil- 
liams, of Portage, and worked on his farm three years at $9, $10, and $12 a month, paying for 
the 80 acres for his father and 30 acres for himself. In 1832 he married Mary Hardy, born in 
Danville, Vt. Their children were : Sophia, Sophronia, Frederick, of Portage ; Chauncey on a 
farm joining the old homestead, Orpha, (Mrs. George Morse of Portage), Ellen, Gardner, Jasper, 
Sophia, Prudence (Mrs. E. Van Nostrand of Wellsville), Cynthia, Adeline. Darling Smith and 
his wife were both born June 9, 1787, and both died in March. 1846, on the old farm then in- 
creased to 170 acres. Mrs. Hiram Smith died in 1880 nearly 64 years old. and her husband in 
1891 when S3 years old, being the last of his father's family, and survived by eight children. He 
left his family 460 acres of land. 

George St. John, M. D., is of old New England stock, his ancestors settling there before 
1650. His grandfather, John St. John, lived in Sullivan Co., where he married Clarissa Ferriss. 
John, the seventh of their 13 children, a carpenter by trade, married Sally J. Hutchins in Mid- 
dleton. Orange Co., where George was born in 1841. Jemima, the second child, is now Mrs. 
Charles Van Nostrand of Dalton, and Ferris, the youngest, lives in Ohio. Mr. St. John brought 
his family in 1844 to Allen where he died in 1877, 63 years old. Mrs. St. John is now living and 
77 years old. George tcught school five winters prior to 1863, when he began the study of 
medicine. [See Medical Chapter.] He came to Short Tract in 1890, and is the only physician 
in Granger. He has been for many years a member of the Hornellsville Academy of Medicine. 
In 1867 he married Lorette, daughter of Hosea Hoskins. Their children are : May, (Mrs. Everett 
Wilcox) and Nina (Mrs. Leonard Bennett of Granger). 

George Sylor was born in Germany in 18 14. His father left home before he was born, as a 
soldier in the Napoleonic wars and was never heard from. His mother, Elizabeth (Gruber) 
Sylor, later married John Isaman, who brought his family to Granger in 1817. George Sylor 
married in 1838 Barbary, daughter of Michael Isaman. Children : Mary, Elizabeth (Mrs. Ed. 
Bennett, children, Nellie and Charlie) ; George (married Josephine Barnes, one child, Addie) ; 
Susan (Mrs. John Wiederight) j John (married Fannie Smith, children Adelbert and Doatie M., 
2d wife, Nellie Closser, children. Aimer and Grace) ; Will (married Florence Slade, children, 
Clarence, Anna and Helen) ; Charles (married Lizzie Smith, one child Clayton) ; Michael (mar- 
ried Mary Bennett, children Roy and an infant). 

William Van Nostrand comes from Dutch-French families who settled near Bridgeport, Ct., 
where Aaron, his grandfather, and Isaac, his father, were born; the latter in 1780. Aaron 
brought his family to Milton, Saratoga Co., N. Y., bsfore 1800. Isaac, farmer, carpenter and 
millwright, married, about 1S05, Grace Hatch of Milton, born in Tolland, Ct., 1788 ; children 
Luzon, born 1807, died in Allen 1895 ; Lewis, born 1809; Sidney, 181 1 ; William, Feb. 28, 1814 
Mary (Mrs. Thomas Jones, 1816) ; Anner, i8i8, (Mrs. Alonzo W. Fuller) ; Rebecca, 1820, Mrs 
Claudius Smith] ; Lucinda, 1822, (Mrs. Sylvanus W. Smith); Aaron, 1825, died in the army , 
Jane P., 1827, and Isaac N. also a soldier who lost his life in the last war. Isaac Van Nostrand 
came in 1819 to Granger, bought land and built a sawmill on Rush creek. In 1820 he brought 
his family who settled so near that at one time he could visit them all in a half hour. He was 
supervisor ot Grove 1827 to 1835. William grew up a farmer and lumberman. He married in 
1840, Emily, daughter of Enos. and Elmira (Conkey) Baldwin, and settled on the farm still 
his home. Children : Grace, (Mrs. Eli W. Drury) ; Helen, Millie (Mrs. John B. Gilpatrick) ; 
Ethel, (Mrs. Louis Reynolds). Mr. Reynolds died in 1892. Originally a Whig, Mr. Van Nos- 
trand has been a Republican since 1856, and has never missed voting at spring and fall elections, 
serving his town as assessor, highway commissioner, and six years as supervisor. He has the 



528 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



largest library the writer has ever seen in a farmer's house, and is noted for vigor of mind 
and body, extensive reading, and accurate memory. 

George Voss, son of Thomas and Elizabeth (Strickland) Voss, was born in 1821, in Dor- 
chester, England. At the age of 12 he came to America with John Bridge who paid his fare. 
Mr. Bridge settled in Portage where George worked for him five years for his debt and $80 in 
money. Judge Collins of Angelica was his guardian, and got him a place with Judge Church 
at Belvidere as table waiter at $10 a month for a year. The next year he drove a lumber team 
for Piatt & Nathan, merchants at Short Tract, and in 1841 went to learn the carpenter's trade 
with Isaac Hatch for whom he worked three years. In 1844 he married Leah, daughter of John 
Bennett of Granger, whose farm he worked three years, when he bought the Crowfoot farm of 
50 acres for $300. He later owned 500 acres, 200 of which he has given to his sons. Mr. Voss 
is widely known as a sheep and wool buyer, and keeps 200 sheep. The children of Mr. and 
Mrs. Voss have been Elizabeth (Mrs. William Ricketts of Granger ; children Fred and Bessie) ; 
Charlie (married Bertha Ricketts ; children, Georgie, Arlie, Leslie and Clarence) ; Melissa (Mrs. 
Thomas Wilcox, of Lima ; children, Lester, Mary and Frank) ; Harry, married Florence Van- 
Nostrand, one child, Morris ; El za (Mrs. Wilson Finney, one child Mary) ; Rachel (Mrs. Lyman 
Reynolds of Dalton), children Harry and Vernis) ; Belle (Mrs. George James, children ; Leon, 
Guy, Fay, Florence and Leah) ; Tom, married Elizabeth James, one child, Floyd ; Dick, 
married Sarah Elliot. 

Gurdon H. White is son of Henry White who came from Pennsylvania when a young man 
to Groveland, Liv. Co., and was for several terms a school teacher there and in Geneseo, where 
William, James and Elizabeth Wadsworth were among his pupils. In 1817 he married Rinda 
Nowlen of Geneseo. Their children were Amy S. (Mrs. Francis Conable of Nunda) ; Elizabeth ; 
Mary (Mrs. Gurnsey of Nunda) ; Asa N., and Gurdon H., born at Hunts Corners, Groveland in 
1827. In 1833 Mr. White came to Granger and bought the farm of 97 acres still the home of 
Gurdon H. Here he lived until his death in 1866. He was justice of the peace. Mrs. White 
died in 1880. Gurdon H. White married in 1854, Juliet H., daughter of Ira Safford, who came 
in 1847 from Washington Co. to Allen where he died in 1877. Jennie V., an adopted daughter 
of Mr. and Mrs. White is now Mrs. William H. Smith of Nunda. (She has one child, Clifford.) They 
have also an adopted son Volney E. Rev. Francis Conable, husband of Amy S., wrote the 
widely-known history of the Genesee Conference of the M. E. Church. Gurdon H. White and 
Senator H. M.Teller were schoolboys together in Granger, their fondness for each other ripen- 
ing into a lifelong friendship. In 1892 mV. White passed two weeks with him in Washington. 

John Welstead, born Dec. 26, 1807, married, Oct. 26, 1829, Margaret Willcox, born June 
25, 1808. They came from England to Granger in 1829, where they settled and cleared land 
for the little log house where they lived some time, and also worshiped in a log house. Their 
children were' Betsey, William, John, Jane, Thomas, James, Daniel. Mr. Welstead was a 
farmer and shoemaker. His wife died July 4, 1846. He married second, Eva Lampman, who 
died Jan. 18, 1874. Mr. Welstead then made his home with his son William, until his death 
Aug. 2(, 1887. William Welstead educated as a farmer, was a clerk for George Ayrult for 5 
years, and since then has been a merchant in Short Tract for over 25 years, deputy postmaster 
3 years with the ofifice in his store, and an excise commissioner for 3 years. He has also con- 
ducted a farm and now owns 234 acres of land. He married, in i860, Mahalah Bradley, born 
in 1841. Their children have been Lincoln A., born Feb. 9, 1861, died Oct. 14, 1875; Maggie 
A., born Oct. 13, 1878, died Nov. 6, 1890; Otto J., born Aug. i, 1868, married in 1887, Emma 
Harris, born Dec. 17, 1867. They have a son, Fayett Leroy Welstead, born Nov, 21, 1889. 
John Welstead moved to Illinois about i860 where he enlisted in the First H. A. and served 4 
years. He later went to Nebraska, took up government land, sold his interest and went to 
Fremont, Neb. Jane married at Short Tract, Edwin Ralf, went to Illinois about i860 and 
after taking up government land, sold and went to Fremont, Neb. Thomas Welstead moved 
to Illinois, was a farmer, moved to Iowa, where he served about 6 years as supervisor, was 
member of the legislature, later located in Waterloo and deals in stock. James Welstead en- 
listed in the 136th N. Y. Reg't, remained 5 months, was ill and discharged. Later located in 
Fremont where Daniel, who married Clara Townsend at Short Tract, also made his home. 

John Wiederight, is son of David Wiederight, who married Elizabeth Boss in Canada, and 
came to Grove about 1820. Children : Catharine, Jane, Amelia, Mary, Alanta, George and 
John, born in Grove, in 1835. John was brought up a farmer and learned the shoemaker's 
trade. In 1862 he enlisted in Co. F, 104th N. Y. V., and served in the army of the Potomac, was 
in the battles of Cedar Mountain. 2d Bull Run, South Mountain, Antietam, Fredericksburg, 
Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg, where he was wounded in his foot. He married Susan, 
daughter of George Sylor. Children : Herbert (married Mary Stewart) and Mary. Mr. Wied- 
eright has kept a shoeshop at East Granger since 1865, where he owns a farm, and has kept a 
grocery for the past 1 5 years. 



Ward. 529 



CHAPTER XLVII. 

BY ELDYN REYNOLDS, ESQ. 

THIS town was formed from Alfred and Amity by a resolution of the board 
of supervisors of Allegany county passed Nov. 26, 1856, and was named 
in honor of Hon. Hamilton Ward. The first town meeting was held at the 
house of N. H. Reynolds on the premises now owned by Joseph Brodie, 
March 3, 1857. Jeffery M. Thomas now a resident of Scio, cast the first 
ballot. These ofiicers were elected: Supervisor, Silas W, Cartwright; clerk, 
Michael J. Bower; justices of the peace, J. M. Thomas, Andrew Baker. Lo- 
renzo D. Collins and David H. Babbitt; assessor, Joseph Edwards; highway 
commissioner, S. W. Cartwright; collector, George A. Bunnell; overseer of 
the poor, John Penny; inspectors of election, William Fuller. Alexander Black 
and Henry Sheldon; constables, G. A. Bunnell, O. P. McOmber, P. Hogan, 
Isaac Sprague and John Sheldon; town sealer of weights and measures, L. S. 
Bennett. Of these officers but five are living, and but one resides in Ward. 

The town is made up of hilly uplands, the hills in many instances being 
quite steep and rugged. The soil being a clay loam is well adapted to graz- 
ing and the raising of oats, barley, potatoes, corn and grass. The air is pure 
and heathful, cool breezes abound in summer and the winters are quite 
severe. The town is cut by numerous streams and rivulets, the two most 
jDrominent being Philip's Creek in the northern part and the Vandermark 
Creek in the southern part. The manufacture of cheese is the chief pro- 
duct, although considerable butter is marketed, also oats, buckwheat, barley, 
potatoes, etc. Its people are hard working, economizing, persevering 
and Christian, being in most instances the direct descendants of the sturdy 
pioneers who cleared its forests and developed its farms. In 1861 when the 
Civil War broke out it is a matter of history that nearly one half of the male 
population of the town between the ages of 18 and 40 years left their farms 
and enlisted under the Union banner, and that over one third of that num- 
ber died in the defense of their country. Its peoj)le are generous and hos 
pitable and in most cases free from want. There are no millionaires within 
her borders but jmupers are as scarce. Politically Ward is given over to 
Populism it being the only town of the county that is at present represented 
by a populistic supervisor. Its schools are flourishing and well filled, the 
people generally attend some place of worship, all can read and write and 
are generally prosjierous and happy. 

The first settler was Abraham Walldorft", who came from Oneida county 
and built a log house near the site of the cheese factory of Ockerman & Pul- 
ler on Philip's Creek in April, 1817. The logs were of clear pine and the 
building was taken down a few years ago and rebuilt as a blacksmith shop 



530 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

in Philip's Creek where it now stands, the logs being entirely sound and a 
frame dwelling house is built on the top as an upper story. Afterwards Mr. 
Walldorff built a frame house below the original log one where he kept a 
tavern for several years; he also built a sawmill which has long since gone 
to decay. He is buried in the cemetery at Philip's Creek. 

Stephen Easton was one of the pioneers having moved here in 1817, 
and j)urchased 320 acres of land at $4 per acre. He raised a family of 11 
children. He was born July 26, 1794, and was a soldier in the war of 1812. 

Joseph Goodrich moved from Rensselaer county and settled on Van- 
dermark Creek in the southern part of Ward in 1819 on the farm now owned 
by the widow of Nathan Tucker. 

William Tucker was born in Charlestown, R. I., Jan. 30, 1801. He was 
a son of Gardner Tucker and came to Alfred (now Ward ) in 1826 . He married 
first. Wealthy Wilber; second, Lucy W. , daughter of Stephen and Susan 
Vaughan, and had 8 children, Weltha V. (Mrs. S. B. Easton), William R., 
Susan R. (Mrs. Merritt Hall). Orville A., Elmer E., May L. (Mrs. Wesley 
Ives), Charles E. and Achie V. (Mrs. Elba Thomas). Mr. Tucker was a man 
looked up to and respected by all who knew him, and was justly accorded a 
leading position in his town and section. With a character of uprightness 
and integrity he was trusted and esteemed in an unusual degree, and his 
counsel sought, and advice followed by many. He was a hard working man 
and by his industry had hewn a competence from the forest which he en- 
tered into when a young man. At the time of his death, in November, 1882, 
he was possessed of 1,200 acres of land lying in the immediate vicinity of 
his home. He left a farm for each one of his children which all but 2 occuxDy 
at the present time. Stephen Vaughan first located in Alfred on a farm ; after 
a number of years traded his farm for a gi'istmill and a piece of land 
adjoining it and lived there until he died Feb. 17, 1838. It was a part of 
what is known now as the Maxson farm. It was Alfred then and Ward now. 
His wife was born Jan. 16, 1800, died Jan. 19, 1879. Stephen Vaughan was 
born March 26, 1777. 

Gardner Tucker, son of Gardner Tucker, was born in Rhode Island. He 
married Martha Partridge of Massachusetts, and came to Ward in 1839 
where he was- a large farmer. Six of his 8 children are living. Wm. G. of 
Andover, Lydia A. (Mrs. Martin Reynolds), Mary (Mrs. K. S. Black), 
Amanda (Mrs. Henry L. Reynolds). Sarah A. (Mrs. Chnton Satterlee) and 
Victoria (Mrs. John Youngs). 

Nelson Hall, son of Russell and Phoeba Hall, was born in 1831. He mar- 
ried Lucinda, daughter of Daniel and Jemima (Flint) Benjamin in 1850. He 
settled in Ward and was a farmer and lumberman. He lived in Belmont for 
some time and died there in 1893. He left seven children, one, Merritt D. 
Hall, married Susan Tucker. 

Elijah P. Kaple, son of Edward F. and Grace (Gardner) Kaple, was born 
Dec. 6, 1842. In 1864 he enlisted in Co. C, fifth regiment N. Y. Vol. Cavalry 
and was discharged June 13, 1865, He returned to Ward in 1867 and mar- 



Ward. 531 

ried Addie E. , daughter of Daniel B . Lanphear of Ward and settled where 
he has since resided as a farmer. He was commissioner of highways for 
four years, supervisor in 1892. He is a member of B. Prank Maxson Postf 
No. 428, at Alfred. 

Washington R. Dodge was born in England and came to America about 
1840 and settled in Ward. He married Grace Apsey. He was a carpenter 
and farmer. In 1872 he moved to Virginia. George E. Dodge, his son, was 
born in 1852 in Ward. He married Ida, daughter of N. H. Reynolds. He 
has followed the business of cheese maker for several years. He has one 
child Ora E. He is now making cheese at the cheese factory in Ward on 
Vandermark Creek. 

Nathan B. Tucker, son of Gardiner and Martha (Partridge) Tucker was 
born in 1852, and Dec. 24, 1873, he married Mary J., daughter of Lewis and 
Angeline (AUen) Halsey, and settled on the farm now owned by his widow. 
He was assessor of the town for several years and died in 1888. His chil- 
dren were Lewis G., Fred N. and Fannie A. 

Daniel White married Polly Dennison about 1819 and they soon after 
removed from Rhode Island to Livingston's Manor, Columbia Co., N. Y. 
Here they remained two years and then went to Windham, Greene county, 
where they remained 12 years. In the spring of 1833 they sold their farm 
and removed to Ward, then a part of Alfred. Here they purchased a farm and 
having cleared it, established what is still the " White Homestead. " They 
died in 1870, the wife in March, and the husband in August, at the age of 82 
years and 2 days. Isaac White, their oldest son, was born April 21, 1823, 
and was 10 years old when his people removed to Ward. He married Helen 
D., daughter of Lafayette Thomas, and they settled on the old farm in 1872. 
Here they remained until the spring of 1895, when they removed to Belmont. 
Their children are Ella N. and Matthew D. Isaac White now owns the 
original 200 acres of the farm and James P. White, a younger son, owns 108 
acres that were added later. The White Homestead is still occupied by de- 
scendants of Daniel White. 

James Farwell, Sr., son of Abraham M., moved into Ward when four 
years old. His father settled in Ischua where he lived until 1857 when he 
moved to Ward where he was a farmer. He died in 1884. He married Mary 
Miner and had five children. His wife died in 1846. He married second, 
Orrilla Partridge and had five children. James Farwell, Jr., his son, was 
born Jan. 22, 1835. He married Lois, daughter of George Walldorif, who 
died in 1862, and for his second wife he married Alvira M. Johnson, daughter 
of Elisha, and has three children, Fred W. , Orrilla and Lois. He was a mer- 
chant at Philip's Creek for many years and was supervisor in 1875-6. He 
was justice of sessions of AUegany county for three terms and was post- 
master 15 years. He died in 1875. 

Edward Thompson a native of Connecticut came to Livingston county, 
and from there to Ward in 1819 and settled on the farm now owned by 
Joseph Brodie. He took up a lot of wild land, built a log house and made a 



History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



home. His son Harvey settled where his father did. He married Lnrana, 
daiigfhter of Calvin-Powell, Dec. 12, 1813, and settled on the farm that Isaac 
White now owns. He lived at Alfred Station for a few years. He was justice of 
the peace. Afterwards he moved to Ward where he died Dec. 12, 1853. His 
wife died Nov. 22, 1859. He had five children three of whom are yet living. 
Calvin Thompson, son of Harvey, was born May 11, 1825. He married Mary 
A. Farwell and settled here. She died April 21. 1890, leaving one child, 
Lura, who now resides with her father. 

Stephen Easton came here about 1820 and settled on the farm now 
owned and occupied by his son, S. B. Easton. He took up a lot of wild land, 
built a log house. He married Lovilia C. Austin and had 13 children, 10 are 
living. He died in 1885. His wife died in 1873. 

Janna Taylor came to Ward in 1822 and settled on the farm now owned 
by Mrs. Asa Bently. He took up a lot of wild land and built a log house. 
He was colonel in the w^ar of 1812. He married Lovisa Andrews and had 
three children attaining maturity, Daniel, Peter and Betsey. He died in 
1856 and his wife in 1862. 

Beriah Bliven came from Rhode Island to Ward in 1825, bought 100 
acres of land, carrying the lumber for his house on his shoulders from a 
mill three quarters of a mile distant. He died in 1864. His wife Betsey E. 
Bliven died in 1872. 

Alexander Black came from Broome county, N. Y. , and located in Ward 
on Vandermark Creek in 1831. He was in partnership with his brother 
William in shipping pine lumber. A few years afterwards he purchased 
his brother's interest and rebuilt the sawmill. He hauled most of his lum- 
ber to Hornellsville where it was rafted to Baltimore. His mode of hauling 
the lumber in winter was with an ox team. He often drew 5,000 feet at a 
load. He was considered the best pilot on the Canisteo and Susquehanna 
rivers. He was a great hunter and killed many deer. He was born in 
Scotland in 1790, married Ursula Harris of Broome county, in 1820. They 
had 8 children. He died in 1881. He married his second wife Mary Ann 
Morse Oct. 8, 1848, and had three children, Eldridge N., who lives with his 
mother at Belmont; Gertrude S., who married Leonard F. Willets of Bel- 
mont; Melona M. Black, all of whom survived him. 

Among other pioneers were, Lorenzo Worden, son of Dudley, came from 
Stephentown in 1825, Russell S. of Willing is his son; Elijah McOmber who 
came in 1830; David H. Babbitt who came in 1835; Eliphalet Johnson who 
came in 1836. 

Pioneer Life. — With scarcely an exception the early settlers were poor 
but honest, upright, hard working, Christian men who suffered all the hard- 
ships and privations of pioneer life. Oxen were almost exclusively used as 
teams to haul burdens, and the only carriages were sleds, these being the 
only means of conveyance at all times of the year. The frosts were severe 
and the crops which had been planted or sown were often ruthlessly cut 
down by them. In 1828 the frost nearly destroyed the crops; corn was 



Ward. 533 

worth -^2.25 per bushel and flour retailed at $14 a barrel. Butter was worth 
6 cents a pound. House ashes 12i cents per bushel. Field ashes 6 cents 
per bushel. Clear pine $8 per thousand in store pay delivered at Baker's 
Bridg-e. Cahco 87+ cents per yard. In 1835 hay was $4 per ton, i^otatoes 26 
cents per bushel; eggs 6 cents per dozen; butter 8 to 12 cents per pound; 
oats 18 cents per bushel. A good yoke of oxen was worth $80. A fair horse 
$100. Day wages was 50 cents. In 1836 hay was bringing $10 per ton; oats 
50 cents a bushel and corn $1.87 a bushel. There was a severe snow storm 
in 1831 in which many cattle perished. At an early day 50 cents per week 
was the regular wages for a hired girl. 

Manufacturing and Bushws.s Enterprlfies. — Stephen Easton and his brother 
built a sawmill on Philip's Creek in 1818. It was the first mill in the town. 
In 1819 Joseph Goodrich located on Vandermark Creek and opened the first 
store. He afterwards built an ashery and kept a tavern. A few years later 
Benjamin Powers built a gristmill near the site of Thomas Bliven's cheese 
factory. Between 1820 and 1825 Uriah Goodrich built a sawmill on the 
farm on which William Tacker's widow now resides. He also carried on a 
cabinet shop. About the same time Abraham Walldorff built a sawmill on 
Philip's Creek where he opened a tavern, which had a large patronage. At 
an early day Ray Green built an ashery on Vandermark Creek road on land 
now owned by the heirs of Gardner Tucker. Afterwards Orrin Sprague 
built a blacksmith shop on the farm now occupied by Daniel B. Lanphear 
and owned by Milo Burdick's estate. At an early day a sawmill was built 
by one Scriptor or Scripture on the site of the one afterwards owned by 
Alexander Black. 

Churches. — The Philip's Creek Methodist Episcopal church was organ- 
ized as a society according to law May 27, 1850. A. Johnson, L. Bennett, J. 
Warrick, W. B. Parker, E. T. Kaple, S. S. Easton and S. W. Cartwright were 
elected trustees. It w^as named the Balerma Society. In 1851 an effort 
was made to build a house of worship. Subscriptions amounting to $730 
were received, and Jesse Warrick contracted to build the house. It was 
dedicated Dec. 28, 1852. Among the local preachers who served the society 
at an early day were Elij^halet Johnson, Lewis Dunning and Elder Kaple of 
Andover, and later Jesse Warrick and Ahira Johnson. Among the circuit 
preachers who have supplied the church were Revs. A. G. Terry, Con- 
ant, J. S. Martin. 1844; S. Benjamin, A. D. Burlingame, W. Bradley, C. 
Gould, W. Haskell. Those labored with the church previous to 1852 and 
since that date. Revs. V. Brownell, C. Guernsy, J. J. Turten, Jackson C. 
Rowley, Pingrey, Dayton, Mering. Libby, Peck, Clough, Tuller, Scrimshaw^ 
and perhaps others. 

Philip's Creek Universalist church was organized as a society in July, 
1845, with 32 members. Sanford Beach, Ira Baker and Harry Lewis were 
the first trustees, and Harvey Thompson was the first clerk. The house of 
worship was built in 1849. George Walldortf donated the lot on which the 
building stands. It was built under the sujoervision of C. M. Rice at a cost 



534 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

of abont $800, and was dedicated during the winter of 1849-50. Rev. O. B. 
Clark preached for the society from the time of its organization up to 1853 
when he was succeeded by Rev. Jason Lewis, who preached two years. 
Rev. I. K. Richardson succeeded Mr. Lewis and remained untilJan. 22, 1860. 
Mr. Richardson was followed by Wellington Sisson, and he, by Rev. Mr. 
Payne, who preached until about 1865. Since 1865 the society has not main- 
tained regular services. Rev. F. M. Alvord has preached for the society 
occasionally since that time. 

The Wesleyan Methodist church was organized Oct. 24, 1847. Dr. Asa 
Crandall was chosen class leader. Including those who joined soon after, 
the number of members was 23. Revs. F. R. Mastin, Southard and Phinney 
were the clergymen who officiated at the formation of the society. The 
church building, which was erected in 1860, is a neat gothic structure and 
was located about two miles below Philip's Creek until about 1887 when it 
was removed to Withey in the town of Amity, and is used for church serv- 
ice. The church was originally built upon land donated by Anson C. Hall. 
Among the clergymen who had charge of the church before its removal from 
Ward were Revs. F. R. Mastin, S. Phinney, Peter Norris, Z. T. Petty, 

Alanson Bixby, Palmer, G. W. Scudder, W. Royce, Ira Weaver and 

C. Swift. 

Dairy Interests. — As soon as the country became cleared sufficiently to 
afford pasturage and admit of the raising of crops and hay for the keeping 
of cattle, the early pioneers turned their attention mainly to dairying. The 
soil is well adapted to grazing, the growing of grass and the cultivation of 
the lighter grains. From the earliest settlement dairying has been the 
chief occupation of the farmers. Each farmer keeps as many cows on his 
place as can be conveniently pastured through the winter and which will 
afford sufficient hay and grain to keep them through the winter. For a 
number of years a large amount of butter was manufactured and shipped 
or carried to market, but with the advent of the cheese factories, and even 
before with the facilities for making the cheese at home, cheese making has 
been the staple industry of the hardy farms of the hills which abound here. 
The factory at Philip's Creek was built in 1865 and is now owned and operated 
by Ockerman & Fuller and has been for several years. This is one of the 
leading factories of the county, receiving the milk of about 800 cows. An- 
other factory located on Vandermark Creek, owned and operated by George 
E. Dodge since 1875, uses the milk of over 250 cows, and in 1893 made 80,- 
000 pounds of cheese. Another one on Babbitt hill receives the milk from 
many cows. All of these factories run the entire season for making cheese, 
and many thousand pounds of their product are yearly shipped to the vari- 
ous markets of the country. 

The beginning of the village of Philip's Creek was a log house built by 
Isaac Hotaling between 1830 and 1835. Silas W. Cartwright built a log house 
in October, 1838, into which he at once moved. In the following spring he 
fitted up a portion of the house for a store and commenced business with a 



Ward. 535 

small stock of goods. He also carried on an ashery. A short time previous 
Alexander Crandall had built a sawmill near the site later occupied by Will- 
iam P. Button's sawmill. Soon after the formation of the town a steam 
gristmill was built. John Lewis, George Walldorif, S. W. Cartwright, Dan- 
iel Fuller, David Lanphear and others were the first proprietors. It was at 
one time damaged by the explosion of the boiler. It was finally destroyed 
by fire and never rebuilt. The mill of W. P. Button & Son was built in 1874 
and operated for several years as a grist and sawmill when it was removed 
to Withey. The village now contains one store, one blacksmith shop, two 
churches, about thirty dwellings and a population of about 100. 

On July 26, 1838, at 11 A. M., the town was swept by a terrific hurricane 
or tornado, the only one in its history. Its direction was northwest to south- 
east, its path being about half a mile in width. It was ushered in by heavy 
peals of thunder which were rapidly followed by the tornado. All buildings, 
fences and trees in its path were hurriedly leveled to the grouud and trunks 
of large trees lying half buried in the ground were torn from their resting 
place and hurled high into the air. The house of Rev. Eliphalet Johnson, 
who was at one time a minister and preached in the Methodist church, was 
swept away and his daughter, Martha S., 24 years of age was killed by 
the falling of the stone chimney. An infant daughter, now Mrs. Daniel 
Fuller, was found rolled up in a feather bed by the roadside many feet from 
the site of the house. After passing across the southern portion of the 
town the storm abated and came to an end in the northern part of Andover. 

Supervisors.— im7, '60, '61, Silas W. Cartwright; 1858, '59, Anson C. 
Hall; 1862, '63, Milo Burdick; 1864, '67, D. S. Lanphear; 1865, Philip Collins; 
1866, '72, Anson C. Hall; 1868, '69, William Fuller; 1870, '71, '77, L. S. Ben- 
nett; 1873, '74, '78, '88, Daniel B. Lanphear; 1875, '76, James Farwell, Jr. ; 
1880, '81, '85, Stephen H. McOmber; 1879, Andrew J. Fuller; 1882, '83, 
George A. Bunnell; 1884, '87, James K. Hall; 1886, Sherman Hurd; 1889, H. 
H. Watson; 1890, '92, '93, W. D. Bunnell; 1891, E. P. Kaple; 1894, '95, Frank 
Lewis. Officers for 1895, clerk, Fred W. Farwell; justices of the peace, Mer- 
rick P. Babbitt, Acors Lanphear, Henry Ward and D. C. Fuller; collector, 
Burnett Mulligan; assessors, Joe Brodie, Joe Ives, Riley Tucker; highway 
commissioner, S. E. Hurd. 



History of Allrgany County, N. Y. 



G-ROVE* 

CHAPTER XLVIII. 

GROVE, lying on the north border of the county east of the center, was 
incorporated as Church Tract, March 8, 1827, the territory coming 
from Nunda. It assumed the name of Grove in 1828, and included the terri- 
tory of Granger until April 18, 1838. It is surrounded, north by Livingston 
county, east by the same county and the town of Burns, south by Birdsall 
and west by Granger. Grove contains 21,070 acres of land. The surface is 
rough, hilly, with several valleys and ridges. Branches of Canaseraga and 
Black creeks permeate the eastern and southern sections, and Cashaqua 
Creek heads in the northwest part. Chautauqua Valley is in the east part. 
The soil is a gravelly loam in the valleys and a clay loam with hardpan subsoil 
on the hills. The shipment of the products, largely dairy ones, is greatly 
facilitated by the proximity of both the Erie and Central New York and 
Western railroads, each has about five miles of track in the town. It is a 
purely agricultural town, with no great historical features, no manufactur- 
ing and a decreasing population, which the census gives as 623 in 1840, 1,154 
in 1850, 1,139 in 1860, 1,056 in 1870, 1,125 in 1880 and $54 in 1890. 

The first officers, elected at the first town meeting, held at the house of 
John Bellows, a two-story log structure, were Isaac Van Nostrand, super- 
visor; John Boughton, clerk; Henry Root, Curtis Coe, John Wheeler, asses- 
sors; George Matter, Elias Smith, overseers of the poor; Dexter Carpenter, 
Enos Baldwin, John Boughton, highway commissioners; Abner Comstock, 
collector; Ira Hopper, Abner Comstock, constables; Abner Scoville, Willard 
S. Maer, school commissioners; Charles Mills, Jr., Elijah Griswold, Jr., 
John Boughton, school inspectors. At this meeting it was voted to raise 
$250 for schools and $250 for roads; also voted to make a fence i^ feet high 
a lawful fence, and to forbid cattle, sheep and hogs from running at large 
within half a mile of any store, tavern or mill between November 1st and 
Aj)ril 1st under a penalty of one dollar for each offense. Cattle and sheep 
were to be " free commoners " from April 1st to November 10th. 

John White, the first settler, born in Columbia county in 1786, came 
here in May, 1818, and located on lot 35. He brought his family from Her- 
kimer county with an ox-team, and cut his way from Nunda through a 
dense forest. His log house built that year was the first civilized residence 
of the town, and here the first religious (Methodist) services w^ere held in 
1821, and the first school was taught in 1826 by Emily Page. Around this 
modest habitation was soon a little settlement. Alexander Bailey, from 
Vermont in 1818, being the first neighbor of Mr. White locating on the same 
lot in the spring of 1819. On this lot 35 occurred the first birth (that of 

* We are indebted to Mark W. Heath, Esq., for the facts of this history of Grove. 



Grove. 537 

Laura Bailey on Christmas, 1821), the first wedding (Ehjah White to Lucy 
Dana in 182i!) and the first death (that of Wilham White, date unknown). In 
this section of the town was kept the first "inn" in 1828 by Henry 
Andrews, near where the town's first store was opened three years earher 
by Tliayer & Smith. 

In 1823 James Brewer from Nunda located southwest of the center of 
the town. His house was frequently chosen as the place to hold elections. 
and as neighbors located near, notably Jonathan Parsons, Benjamin Pratt, 
Elias Alvord and others, an active business center was developed, with 
stores, shops, etc., w^hich did much trade until the lumbering interests had 
carried to market the bulk of the original forests of the town. A log school- 
house was built here in 1826. In 1851 Jesse Brewer opened his tavern, 
which for years was noted for its public gatherings, balls, town meetings, 
elections, etc. With the decline of lumbering The Corners dwindled to 
nothingness. Samuel Swain, born in Northwood, N. H., located in Nunda 
then in Allegany county in 1818. In 1849 he moved to Grove, although by 
being active in the town affairs of Nunda and holding town offices he had 
much to do with this part of the town before. He was a surveyor, laid out 
many of the roads of Grove and gave name to Swains station where quite a 
village was developed. A sawmill, built here early by one Jenks, was 
bought and conducted by Philip A. Seager, who was the first merchant of 
the place and prominent in affairs. He located on lot 2 in 1828 and jDrevious 
to 1840 moved to the vicinity of Swains. 

Early Settlers. — Heman Parker came in 1821, Riley Parker in 1822, John 
and Henry Grunder in 1824, Rev. Frederick Closser and James Ewart in 
1830, Harry Knight in 1833, Daniel Goelzer and Timothy Mabie in 1838, 
George F. Rogers in 1840, Sylvester S. Heath in 1843, Burton Bentley and 
Isaac C. Guy in 1844. Cephas B. Carter who was prominent in building up 
the dairy interests of Grove, erecting the town's first cheese factory in 1872, 
came in 1847. Many settlers came before 1850. The names of the earliest 
settlers are given in the list of names in the town's first official board, and 
Beer's (1879) History gives these names of settlers before 1844 who were 
living at that date: J. S. Barney, Samuel Brace, Daniel G. Brewer, Burton 
Bentley, J. W. Bennett, Chauncey Dodd, Michael Eiseman, James Ewart, 
John Gruber, John Grunder, Daniel Goelzer, C. L. and V. R. S. Havens, 
Thomas G. Haight, Moses March, Timothy Mabie, Asa and Heman Parker, 
George Swartz and D. Smith. 

The town has been populated by a frugal and industrious people, who in 
an unostentatious way have wrought well in the work of civilization and 
many have acquired ample means from their industry. The air is pure, the 
water comes from springs and everything exists to give long life and good 
health to its residents. The town was most patriotic in the dark days of the 
Civil War that tried men's souls. The list of its soldiers is a noble one and 
eloquently tells Grove's devotion to the Union. 



I 



538 History of Allegany Counts-, N. Y. 

Soldiers of 1861-5. — \st N. V. Dragoons, William J. Emmons, Co. A ; William Holmes, 
Co. E ; Charles B. Fox, William H. Kelley, Co. F ; George Ames, Elisha G. Ames, Ziba E. 
Barney, Alonzo H. Bennett, John W. Booth, Robert C. Chapman, James Closser, Salmon Farr, 
Henry Fry, James H. Folon, Simeon Gaelser, Chancellor L. Havens, Elijah Harwood, George 
R. Harwood, Joseph Harwood, Ransom Haight, Mark W. Heath, William H. Niles, Milan 
Parker, Halsey Phelps, James Rogers, Byron D. Russell, Leonard P. Russell, Edward Smith- 
Godfred Smith, Henry Smith, Jesse W. Smith, Philip Smith, George H. Spoon, John L. Spike' 
Benjamin F. Town, John Threehouse, Sepherenus Ward, Seth H. Weed, Marcus W. Wood' 
Co. L 33^ TV. v., John M. Knight, Jacob Seager, Co. E ; Norton E. Bardwell, Eugene Beach' 
Charles Newman, Horatio B. Raynard, Co. F. 74//1 N. V., Josiah I. Byers, Co. F. 85/// A^* 
v., George W. Barney, John Barney, William S. Smith, Co. E. 8g//t N. Y., Edwin A. Bennett' 
Co. A. 97/// N. v., Harley H. Pierce, Co. K. 104M A^. V., Harlan Barney, Abram Folon- 
Carlos G. Lowell, William G. Masks, Hiram Passage, Randolph R. Weed, Daniel White, Elijah 
White, Co. A; Washington G. Bennett, John Weideright, Jay G. Young, Co. E ; Solomon Closser- 
William H. Culver, John Gruber, Jr., Daniel Swender, Co. F. 109/,^ N. V., Hiram F. Camp- 
bell, Co. K. 136M A^. v., Hiram Allen, Co. B ; Devillo A. Dodge, Co. E.; Jacob Steih. Co. F ; 
Patrick Ryan, Co. H ; John Ryan, Co. L 188/'// N. V., James Clute, Co. B ; John Nichols, El- 
bert Sprague, Samuel Thornton, Co. G.; John Ames, Andrew D. Barnhart, Winslow H. Clark- 
George P, Fay, William S. Gibbs, Calvin L. Jenks, George W. Patterson, Lawrence Pender- 
gast, Sylvester H. Pickett, Jacob Pitts, James L. Sutton, Alva Thompson, Clark Thompson, 
Co. L 189//^ N. v., John Ryan, Co. F. is^ Vei. Cav., Hiram Brace, Austm Evans, George F. 
Rogers, Co. D. 2d Vet. Cav., George White, Co. L. 2\st Vei. Cav., Obed A. Patterson, Co. 
K. A^. Y. Heavy Artillery, Fourth Regt., Harrison W. H. Hovey, Co. D ; Albert Pratt, Mar- 
tin Pratt, Co. F. Sixth Regt., Harvey E. Derrien, Co. L. Eighth Regt., Henry Anthony, Co. 
H. Ninth Regt., Jacob Aylor, Daniel Gruber, Henry Swender, Co. A; Daniel Steih, Co. F. Six- 
teenth Regt., Harrison W. Bentley, Co. F. Charles Knight served in Co. I, 15th Mich., Wil- 
liam Mabie also in a Michigan company, John White in Co. I., 12th Penn. Cav., and Lafayette 
L. Wirt in Co. I, 19th Mass. 

Religious Bodies. — Methodism was early here, Rev. Cyrus Story, an itin- 
erant, preached at the house of his brother Methodist, John White, in 1820, 
and here the White's Settlement M. E. class was formed in 1821 with four 
members, Mr. and Mrs. White, Alexander Bailey and another. A church 
was built early in the town; as settlement changed the church was moved, 
from time to time remodeled, and is now situated between Brewer's Corners 
and the north line of Grove. The "White's Settlement" church, built in 
1875, had a Rev. Mr. King for its first pastor. The present one is Rev. J. 
K. Underhill. The Sabbath- school has 35 attendants. 

A German Evangelical church costing $500 was built in 1856 in the west 
part of the town. Rev. Jacob Waggoner was the first pastor. Rev. Ernest 
Gleason is now in charge. The Sabbath school has 75 members. 

"The People's Church of Swains," built in 1889 is occupied by the Prot- 
estant Methodists. Rev. Alex. Manship was its first pastor; Rev. W. H. 
Marshall is now in charge. The Sabbath school has about 80 members. 

From 1836 to 1840 a Presbyterian church existed here under the pastoral 
care of Rev. W. P. Kendrick. 

There are ten school districts and ten frame school houses, and the 
assessed value of the school property is $5,500. 



Grove. 539 

The village of Swains is the business center of Grove. Here is located 
the steam saw, planing and feed mills of H. G. Shaw, the stores of Sedam 
and Bergen and F. S. Hark, the latter being the postmaster. These, with 
the Erie station (E. C. Merrill station agent) and a small population form a 
quiet hamlet in a picturesque valley. There are two portable steam saw- 
mills now located in Grove. M. Havens has one on the Burton Bentley farm 
where he maiiufactures hardwood and hemlock lumber, and J. L. Spike and 
Samuel Blakeley operate one about four miles west of Swains. 

Harvey G. Shaw, son of Cyrus Shaw, was born in Dansville, Sept. 27, 1827. He was edu- 
cated at the common schools, married Sarah Eldridge, and has 2 sons and 2 daughters. In 
1856 he settled in Grove and erected a sawmill at Swains, and manufactured and dealt in lum- 
ber, and where he now has a steam saw, planing, and feed mill. Politically Mr. Shaw is a 
Democrat and has been 10 times elected supervisor of the town with quite a large majority, the 
usual Republican majority being about 60. He has been thrice elected justice of the peace, 
has been postmaster 3 terms, was census enumerator one term, and is a member of Canaseraga 
Lodge, F. & A. M., No. 781. 

Mark W. Heath, son of Sylvester S. Heath, was born Nov. 8, 1842, in Nunda. When 
Mark was a year old his father settled in Grove and there passed the remainder of his life. He 
married Catharine White and they had 10 children, 4 of whom are livmg. S. S. Heath died 
Jan. 2, 1892. Mark W. Heath enlisted Aug. 11, 1862, in Co. I, 130th Regt. N. Y. V., and 
served 3 years. He is a member of Seth H. Weed Post of Canaseraga. He has been constable 
for several years and was deputy sheriff in 1880. He married Dora D. Clark ; they have a 
daughter, Erma May Heath. 

John L. Spike, son of Josiah Spike, was born in Naples, N. Y., Nov. 8, 1843. His father 
came to Grove in 1853, and is now a resident. John L. Spike enlisted in Co. I, 130th Regt. N. 
Y. v., and served 6 months, then re-enlisted in Battery D, Fourth U. S. Artillery, and served 
until discharged in August, 1865 He is a member of Seth H. Weed Post, No. 296. In 1866 
he married Lucina J. Johnson and has 3 children. Since the war he has been engaged in farm- 
ing and is also a manufacturer of lumber. He has been town clerk for 9 years. 

Grove had for years quite a fame as the residence of Frederick Decker, 
"the Ossian giant." He was born in Geneseo, May 9, 1836, son of John B. 
and Christiana Decker, people of slightly more than medium size. He how- 
ever grew to a height of 6 feet, llf inches, with a weight of 300 to 350 lbs. 
He was on exhibition for years in many of the United States, and made his 
home in Grove in 1877 where he died March 21, 1886, and was buried at 
Swains. Of ten children he was the only one exceeding noj-mal size. His 
wife, formerly Mary E. Lane, whom he married Oct. 21, 1861, weighed about 
105 lbs. and none of their children attained his proportions. His son Frank 
lives at Angelica and is a conductor on the C. N. Y. and W. R. R., his daugh- 
ters Viola and Flora married brothers named Nelson and live at Nunda, Nora 
married John Lanphear and lives near Fillmore. Mrs. Frederick Decker 
married second Israel Price and lives at Swains. 

Stockbreeding is here quite an important branch of farming, and there 
are some quite extensive stockraisers and farmers. Among them are L. F. 
Windsor, proprietor Echo Bank stock farm, W. E. Swain, William Van Nos- 
trand, who formerly had a large heading mill here, Michael Gelser, John 
White and others. 



540 History of Allegany County. N. Y. 

Present Toivn Officers. — Justices of the peace, Edwin Mabie, Earnest R. 
Gelser, William Kelley, Elmer C. Merrill; assessors, Fletcher Pierce, James 
Ryan, Fred Ludwig; constables, James Ryan, John Bardwell, Ezra Ludwig, 
Chris. Mechenbacker; collector, C. L. Dunn; inspectors of election, E. W. 
Ludwig, N. P. Staub, Talman Johnson, Thomas Haight; excise commission- 
ers, John Carter, C. A. Stuart, Jacob Ludwig, Jr.; highway commissioner, 
James Aylor; overseers of the poor, Daniel Stee, A. Hinman. 

Supervisors. — Isaac Van Nostrand, 1827 to 1832; Reuben Weed, 1833, '34, '38, '42, '43, 
'44, '45, '46, '48, '55 ; John Boughton, 1835 ; Joseph Piatt, 1836, '37; Elisha Scott, 1839; John 
S. Culver, 1840 ; John Willard, 1841, '47 ; Heman Parker, 1849, '50 ; William Kellogg, 1851 ; 
R. Lawrence, 1852; Alex. Bailey, 1853, '54; Sidney T. Derrien, 1856, '57, '58, '59; Jesse 
Brewer, i860 ; Samuel Swain, 1861 to 1870; Goodwin S. Hovey, 1871 to 1873 ; Harry G. Shaw 
1874 to 1880, '86, '90, 91 ; Daniel C. Grunder, 1881 to 1885 ; A. J. White, 1889 ; C. C. Cronk, 
1892, '93 ; C. K. Bacon, 1887, '88, 94, 95. (Mr. Bacon removed from town in 1895 and Ezra 
Ludwig was appointed to fill vancancy.) 



WI LLI/N G. 

CHAPTER XLIX. 

BY O. T. PERKINS. 



THE TOWN OF WILLING was formed from Independence and Scio Nov. 
19, 1851, and is named in honor of Charles Willing, one of the original 
owners of the Willing and Francis tract. Alma was taken from its territory 
Nov. 23, 1854, and a portion of Wellsville Nov. 22, 1855, leaving 22,150 acres 
as its present area. It lies upon the southern border of the county and 
state, being town 1, range 1, Morris Reserve and Willing and Francis 
tract. Its first town meeting was held Mar. 2, 1852, when John A. Foland 
was elected supervisor; Ozias Yale, town clerk; Daniel P. Witter, Fielden 
Chapman and A. Hurlbut, justices; David Wilcox, superintendent of schools; 
Charles Rogers and Samuel B. Stebbins, assessors; George M. Arnold, 
Oliver Ackerman and Asa Parks, commissioners of highways; .Amasa Ellis, 
collector; George W. Cate. Charles Weed, David Dunham and L. A. Jenison, 
constables; Jabez Card, Wm. Wilcox and Ambrose Straight, inspectors of 
election, and Jared Stillman, overseer of poor. Of this list but two are now 
living (April, 1895,) viz. Geo. W. Cate and David Wilcox, the former still a 
resident of the town and the latter a county judge in Minnesota. 

The Supervisors from organization of the town: 1852-53, John A. Foland; 
1854-60, Amasa EUis; 1861-65, Daniel P. Witter; 1866-67, 1873-74, 1879, L. 



WII.LING. 541 

H. Ackerman: 1868-69, 1875-76, O. L. Barney; 1870-71, James M. Parker; 
1872, B. M. Phillips: 1877-78, Silas Stillman; 18H0-81, A. J. Johnson; 1882-83, 
S. A. Beach; 1884-85, 1889-90. L. D. Witter; 1891-92, S. A. Beach; 1893-94-95, 
O. T. Perkins. 

Town officers for 1895 are: Supervisor, O. T. Perkins; town clerk, E. S. 
York; justices, L. H. Ackerman. Elmer Parker, Phidello Wilson, John H. 
Trask; assessors, Philo Payne, Thomas Mapes, James T. Covel; commis- 
sioner of highways, A. L. Graves; collector, John H. Graves; overseer of 
poor, John W. Kelligan; commissioners of excise, (no-license) E. D. Perkins, 
Moses Miller, Fred Phillips; constables, E. B. Harris, Henry Brandes, 
Harold A. Seaver, John H. Graves. 

The town lies upon the head waters of the Genesee river about two 
thirds upon the east and the remainder upon the west side of the river. 
The principal tributaries upon the east are the Hemlock, Sway and Rabbit 
creeks forming the Chenunda near Hallsport and the Cryder creek. Upon 
the west side Fords and Marsh creeks constitute the principal streams. 
These creeks are fed by innumerable spring runs and rivulets making the 
surface of the land very uneven. The W. C. & P. C. railroad passes up the 
Genesee valley in a southerly direction entirely through the town, having 
switches at Shays, Mapes and Graves, and a station at Shongo. The people 
are mostly engaged in farming being about equally divided between dairying 
and potato raising, the famous Beach Hill district being almost entirely 
devoted to potato culture while at Hallsport and Shongo flourishing cheese 
factories attest to the extent of the dairy interest. The cheese manufact- 
ured at the Hallsport factory has averaged 170,000 lbs. annually for the last 
fourteen years, reaching 189,000 lbs. in 1891 from 1,780,000 lbs. milk. Upon 
the west side of the river lumbering is still carried on to a limited extent, 
but the valuable hemlock timber and bark have mostly disappeared, leaving 
the land generally in a pretty poor condition, covered with the stumps and 
refuse from past lumber and bark operations. 

There are five postoffices in the town, viz., Shongo, Stanard, Hallsport, 
Mapes and Stone Dam. 

Shongo, a hamlet in the south part of the town upon the Genesee river, 
contains a flouring mill, sawmill, two blacksmith shops, wagon shop, one 
general store, a drug store and the postoffice, hotel, railroad station, has two 
physicians, a cheese factory, and a school, with about 175 people. The 
Shongo gristmill built by A. J. Forman and owned now by L. H. Acker 
man has 3 runs of stone carried by waterpower. Mr. Forman also built a 
sawmill at this place which has capacity of 18,000 feet per day. The Shongo 
cheese factory was built in 1893 by R. C. Ayles worth. In 1894 80,000 lbs. 
of cheese were made from 270 cows. Tradition has it that the wife of old 
Chief Shongo of the Seneca Indians is buried here, hence the name. 

Hallsport, the next hamlet in point of size, is located upon Chenunda 
creek in the northeast corner of the town, has a general store and postoffice, 
a cheese factory, a blacksmith shop, two wagon shops, one sawmill, one 



542 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

shingle mill with planer and matcher, one feed mill, a school and about 150 
population. This settlement was named for Calvin Hall, one of the first 
settlers. 

Stannard's Corners (Stanard), upon the north border of the town, lies 
partly in the town of Wellsville. The portion lying in Willing contains a 
store and postoffice, M. E. church and parsonage, a blacksmith shop and 
about 100 people. This settlement was named after one John Stannard who 
kept the first hotel in the place. 

Stone Dam, a postofiice upon the western border of the town, has two 
hotels and a few dwelling houses. 

Mapes, upon the river near the center of the town, has a general store 
and postoifice, the large lumber yard of Duke & Co., a blacksmith and a 
wagon shop but no dwelhngs aside from the adjacent farm houses. It is a 
shipping point of considerable importance upon the W. C. & P. C. railroad 
as it is the outlet from Honeoye creek in Alma and the Eleven-mile in Potter 
Co. Pa. , also for the Beach Hill section in Willing. 

Settlers and Settlements. — As near as can be ascertained the wilderness 
was first broken by one John Ford, an Irishman from Connecticut, who came 
to Friendship in 1818 and the next year to lot 43 and also took up lot 44 in 
Willing. He was a Revolutionary hero and was said to be in every way 
qualified to battle with the forest and its denizens. After remaining until 
1830 he sold his betterments to Asa Parks his son-in-law and moved to Ohio. 
In 1842 he returned to Willing and resided with Mr. Parks until his death in 
1855 at the advanced age of 88 years. The next settler of which we have 
any record was Elijah Robinson, who came from Brookfield, Madison Co., in 
1825. He settled upon the river close to the state line, built a sawmill (said 
to have been a few feet over the line in Pennsylvania). He remained here 
until about 1830 when he became deranged, left the town and we have no 
further record of him. [n 1827 Davis Parks moved down the river from 
Genesee Forks just across the state line and located on lot 38. Four years 
later he removed to Andover and from thence to the west. In 1828 John 
Graves, a native of Harpsburg, Del. , settled on lot 33 and in 1830 moved to 
lot 15 just across the river and remained there until his death in 1862. His 
son, Abner Graves, a very aged man, still lives in the town. His son Henry 
died recently. In 1829 Asa Parks moved from Independence and settled on 
lot 43. In 1833 he located on lot 82, and in 1836 took up his residence perma- 
nently upon lot 181 upon the hill east of the river. His article for lot 43 is 
said to be the first article taken for land in the town. 

In 1830 Jeremiah and Seth Graves located on lot 32 and Hugh Burrows 
from Delaware county on lot 162. Jeremiah Graves came from Steuben 
county, Seth from Connecticut via Potter county. Pa. About eight years 
later Jeremiah Graves removed to Independence where he died in 1873 at a 
very advanced age. Seth Graves resided in Wilhng during his life. His 
son George still lives in the town. He says that in his youth it was not an 
uncommon day's hunt for his father to kill six to eight deer and he has 



Willing. 543 

known him to kill five bears in a day. The bears and wolves were very- 
troublesome at times carrying ot¥ their sheep and shotes. 

In 1831, Lot Harris and Henry Hagerdorn settled here. The former on 
lot 17 and latter on lot 18. In 1832 Stillman Rogers located on lot 12. He 
died in 1893. His son E. A. Rogers resides now upon a portion of the same 
lot. Ozias Yale, a native of Oxford, Chenango Co., settled upon lot 43 in 
1833, and lived nearly or quite fifty years upon the same farm, dying but 
recently at the home of his daughter-in-law in Wellsville. General Jones the 
father-in-law of Mr. Yale made it his home with him for many years. He 
was a Revolutionary hero and is buried upon a beautiful mound upon the 
same lot. Nathan Woodcock was also a noted settler of 1833. He was a 
native of New Hampshire and settled upon lot 189 and resided in the town 
until his death in 1870. In 1834 D. T. Graves a native of Pennsylvania 
located on the river and in 1859 removed to Andover. Enos Giftbrd and 
Charles Rogers also came in 1834. Rogers locating on lot 38 where he reared 
a noted family; Eli, Lowell, and William becoming ministers of the gospel, 
Joel (w^ho was killed at the battle of Antietam), Charles and Harrison, still 
residents of the town. It was the writer's fortune to lay under the same 
blanket with Joel the night before Antietam. He had just returned from a 
sick leave and was not yet strong but was very anxious to get to his place in 
the ranks before the battle was on. 

Jacob Truax, a native of Albany Co., and Rev. John Walden. from Ot- 
sego Co., were settlers of 1835, the former upon lot 23 and the latter on lot 
134. Augustus Beach from Genesee Co., was also a settler of 1835. He 
located upon lot 163 upon " Beach Hill " where he resided until his death in 
1861. He was a pioneer in every sense of the word, as he had to cut a road 
a mile through the woods to get to his place. His two sons, Columbus and 
Azariah, are residents of the town, the former living upon the farm taken up 
by the father. 

While these settlements were in progress upon the river and adjacent 
sections, there w^as a small colony of settlers locating upon the Chenunda 
creek in the northeast corner of the town now known as Hallsport. John 
Cline, from Steuben Co., came in 1831, then Calvin Hall, Jacob L. Bloss, 
John Wheeler, Thomas M. Perkins and others follow^ed, mostly from Inde- 
pendence. They later cut a road along the river through to Stannard's Cor- 
ners, which was soon used as a mail route from Angelica to Knoxville, Pa. 
Calvin Hall opened a hotel in 1838, Thomas M. Perkins built a sawmill in 
1839 or 40, and Jabez Card a store and ashery in 1841. 

The settlement of the town after 1840 was quite rapid and in 1855 the 
census shows a population of 1,127 people; appearing again in 1875 at 1.713; 
since that time there has been somewhat of a decrease as the census of 1892 
gives us but 1,360 people. 

The first religious services were held by Rev. Seneca Fish in 1834. The 
first school w^as taught by Betsy Lovell in 1836. The first death was that of 
a child of Austin Butlers in 1837. Hotels were opened at Shongo and at 



544 History of Allegany County. N. Y. 

Hallsport in 1838. The pioneer store was opened by James R. Wood at 
Shongo in 1839. In 1894 Mr. Wood was still running a small store in Sliongo. 
The First M. E. Church was organized in 1871 by Rev. William Rogers 
who was its first pastor. A church edifice was erected the same year with 
seating capacity of about 250 persons. Its original cost was $2,500. It has 
since been repaired and remodeled inside, a parsonage has been erected 
•upon the church lot and the society is now in a thriving condition. Its pres- 
ent pastor is Rev. F. S. Osborne. Methodist classes were organized at 
Stannard's Corners and at Hallsport in the early time of settlement but it is 
not possible to secure the names of the members. 

The town of Willing sent many of her sons into the Civil War. It would 
be a pleasure to the writer (who was one of them) if he could place their 
names upon this printed page, but the town records of those days are miss- 
ing and if such record was ever kept it is not now in existence. In 1882 the 
survivors organized 

Wesley Rolfe Post, No. 332, G. A. R. — It started out with 22 charter mem- 
bers, has increased to 54 members, but at this time has but about 40 mem- 
bers. The first officers were: Commander, O. T. Perkins; S. V. C, I. A. 
Keuson; J. V. C, JohnLestner; Q., James T. Covel; Officer of the day, C. F 
Cline; Chaplain, Nathan R. Woodcock; O. G., L. Campbell; Adjutant, R. J. 
Fosbury; S. M., S. A. Livermore; Q. S., Henry Plants. The officers fo'r 
1895 are: Commander, O. T. Perkins; S. V. C, Wm. W. Moore; J. V. C, C. F. 
Cline; Q. M., James T. Covel; Officer of the day, L. Campbell; Chaplain, 
Nathan R. Woodcock; O.O., E. Allen Rogers; Adjutant, Wm. Donihi; S. M., 
Moses Miller; Q. M. S., Henry Brandes. 

Rolfe Corps, No. 69., W. R. C. — Soon after Wesley Rolf e Post was formed 
the patriotic ladies of Stannard's Corners and vicinity organized this body 
which has been a faithful ally of the post. Its membership now is about 40. 
Officers: President, Mrs. Millie Peacock; S. V. P., Mrs. Frances Fosbury; 
J. V. P., Mrs. — Foster; Chaplain, Mrs. Rev. Osborne; Sect., Mrs. W. W. 
Moore; Treas., Mrs. Vina Kruson; Con., Mrs. Rose Donihi; A. Con., Mrs. 
Henry Williams; G., Mrs. Ruth Foster; A. G., Mrs. Olive Campbell. 

Stannard's Corners has the honor of supporting the largest lodge of 
Good Templars in the county with Lewis D. Witter at its head. A flourish- 
ing lodge of K. O. T. M. has its headquarters at Shongo, also a large society 
of the E. A. U. is located at Hallsport. 

Cyclone. — Upon Sunday evening, September 24, 1884, Shongo was visited 
by one of the most terrific cyclones that ever visited the county and perhaps 
state. Three persons were killed and 22 wounded, which comprised almost 
every person who passed through the terrible storm. Everything that came 
within its scope was destroyed, while buildings upon its borders were torn 
from their foundations and drawn in towards the terrible vortex. The track 
of the cyclone was less than 40 rods wide and in this track stood 26 buildings, 
every one of them was literally torn into splinters, and nearly all were car- 
ried away by the wind, lodging in some instances as far as 18 miles in Steu- 



Willing. 545 

ben county, with portions of them scattered upon the fields along its zigzag 
course through that whole distance in the higher current of air. So tierce was 
the wind that the village cemetery was not even spared. The Wellsville Daily 
Reporter of Sept. 29. 1884, says that but two tombstones were left standing 
in the cemetery some being carried across the street. An iron potash kettle 
holding 60 gallons was carried 40 rods and lodged bottom side up in an open 
field; a heavy lumber wagon was taken in the air and hurled against the ad- 
jacent hillside and smashed to kindling wood. The killed were Willis Gardi- 
ner, Mrs. Edgar Pratt and Ann Lancaster, all full grown and active people. 
Some of the injured are cripples for life. The little village nestles closely 
between the rugged hills of the upper Genesee river and is nicely protected 
from fierce winds, but the cyclone seemed to descend from the clouds, strike 
this small jwrtion of earth and again rise and be no more heard of. It has 
been a matter of comment that no more people were killed outright of those 
caught in the whiiipool. Two stores together with their stocks of goods van- 
ished in the air, blacksmith and w^agon shops, the village schoolhouse, fine 
residences, barns and all connected with them disappeared as by magic. 
The wind struck the earth at exactly 6.20 P. M. and was all past in less than 
two minutes. Some of the injured were not found until the next day. 



Some Personal Chronologies. — Oliver Ackerman, son of Elisha, was born in 1813, 
He married Angeline, daughter of Josiah Rogers, and moved to Willing very early with his 
wife and three children, and located on a lot of wild land now the farm owned by his son 
Lucius. He built a log house, cleared the land and made a pleasant home where he died in 
1883, and his wife died May 23, 1884. Seven of their nine children are livmg. Mr. A. was 
road commissioner for several years. Lewis H. Ackerman, son of Oliver, was born Nov. 5, 
1835. He married Lodema, daughter of Major and Aurilla (Harris) Payne, and made his 
home in Willing. Always a farmer, he has been supervisor six years, justice of the peace four 
terms, justice of sessions ttiree years. He enlisted in Co. B, Second Indiana Cavalry in Sep- 
tember, 1 86 1, served two years, and was promoted to orderly sergeant and ist lieutenant. In 
1863 he was mustered out on account of ill health and returned to Willing. In 1864 he and 
Elias Horton, of Whitesville, recruited Co. I for the 189th N. Y. Mr. Ackerman was commis- 
sioned I St lieutenant in this organization in September, 1864, and was mustered out in 1865. 
He has one child, Earl. 

Lucas A. Babcock, son of Nathan, was born May 17, 1828. Marrying Elvira L. A. Wil- 
son, daughter of Matthew, he settled in Independence. Several years later he made his home 
in Willing, where he has been a farmer and dairyman. He has two children, .Adelbert A. and 
Alice R. (Mrs. Elmer E. Parker). In company with S. L. Hall in 1877 Mr. Babcock purchased 
the Line Brook creamery at Hallsport and transformed it into a cheese factory. This now 
uses the milk of 500 cows, and has a product of 150,000 lbs. of cheese yearly. Adelbert A. 
Babcock is a merchant at Hallsport in company with his brother-in-law, E. E. Parker, with 
whom he is also engaged in extensive dairy operations. He is also postmaster. He married 
Flora Beach. Elmer E. Parker, son of Hiram, born Feb. 17, 1852, married Alice R. Babcock, 
resides at Hallsport, where, with A. A. Babcock, he conducts merchandising and one of the 
finest dairies of this section and is justice of the peace. 

Augustus Beach, son of Uriah, was born in Connecticut and moved to Willing in 1835 and 
settled on the farm now owned by Columbus Beach, his son. He took up 100 acres of wild 
land, built a log house, cleared his farm and made a comfortable home. He was wellknown in 
town, was a farmer and carpenter, and assessor several years. He married Lovina Skinner 
and had children : Columbus, Azariah, and Lydia A. (Mrs. Jacob [ohnston). He died in Sep- 
tember, 1862, his wife in March, 1866. Columbus Beach was born Feb. 20, 1823, married 



546 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Miranda, daughter of Simeon Wikox, and settled on the farm now the property of his son, S. 
A. Beach. A farmer all his life, he has been a justice of the peace 12 years and road commis- 
sioner 5 years. He had four children : S. Augustus, Flora M., Eva A., and Adelbert (dec). 
S. Augustus Beach, son of Columbus, was born July 22, 1847, and is now located at Shongo 
as a merchant. He married Lucy Coller, was town clerk for several years, and in 1881, 1882, 
1891, 1892, supervisor of Willing. 

Daniel Bess, son of John, was born in Greenwood, Steuben county. About 1852 he was 
engaged in the mercantile business at Andover. In October, 1855, he married Lephia E. Fos- 
bury, daughter of James, and settled in Willing where he has been both farmer and merchant, 
and is proprietor of the Shongo House. His daughter, Eva J., is Mrs. A. M. Doremus of Shingle 
House, Pa. James Fosbury, son of Stephen, was born in Bainbridge, N. Y., married Lomanda 
Jones and settled in Wellsville about 1840 as a blacksmith. Some years later he moved to 
Andover and passed some years on a farm he bought there. He later was a farmer in Willing' 
and then moved west where he died. He served as a soldier in the 37th Iowa during the civil 
war. He had 12 children, 4 of the 8 now living reside in this county. His sons were Augustus 
and Julian (who served in 85th N. Y.), Heber and Eugene. 

Edward Foster from Madison county settled early on a lot now owned by Philo Payne, 
and passed his life there. His son, Anthony R., born in Madison county, came to Willing in 
1837, in 1840 settled on lot 139, where his son Ai E. now lives. He married Ann Maria, 
daughter of Ebenezer and Lois Richmond. Children: Edward R., A. J., Ai E.. Louisa M., 
and Lottie Maria Foster adopted in March, 1864. Anthony R. died in 1880 and his wife in 
1878. Edward R. Foster was born Nov. 21, 1841, and married Louisa A., daughter of Theo- 
dore and Rebecca (Graves) Livermore, Dec. 24, 1864, and settled on the farm where he now 
has his home. Their children are Clark O., Louisa E., Edwin D. Ai E. Foster was born July 
13, 1849, ^"d married Helen M., daughter of Edward A. and Lucretia (Harris) Richmond, who 
died in 1876. His second wife was Ina A. Livermore. Mr. Foster was born and has ever re- 
sided on the old farm, and has five children: Harry L., Mabel, Grace, Elmer E. and Archie R. 

Thomas Fortner came from Tompkins county to Independence Feb. 21, 1821, and located 
100 acres on a part of the John Hill farm where he lived till 1833 when he moved to lot 138 
in Willing. Nichols Fortner, son of Thomas, settled in Willing, married Lestina, daughter of 
Nathan Woodcock, and was a blacksmith and farmer Byron Fortner, son of Nichols, born 
Oct. 10, 1841, married Eveline Kellogg, and in 1882 settled on his present farm. He is a 
farmer and has been justice of the peace four years. Children Earnest R. and Lillian M. 

Seth Graves, son of Bela. born in Connecticut, came to Willing in 1828 and settled on the 
farm now owned by his son George. He took up 64 acres, built a log house, barn and black- 
smith shop, and became noted as a hunter. He married Jane George, and had 1 1 children. 
George Graves, son of Seth, was born in Tioga, Pa., in 181 7. He married Jane Hunter, set- 
tled on the old homestead, is a farmer and blacksmith, and has nine children. A. L. Graves, 
son of George, was born m 1863, married Jennie, daughter of A. J. Rolph, of Canisteo, and has 
two children. Pearl and Cecil. Mr. Graves resides on the old homestead and has been high- 
way commissioner. 

John Lestner, son of John and Julia (Baer) Lestner, was born June 9, 1839 in Dusznik, 
Prussia. He came to America in 1856, first to Germania, Potter Co., Pa., and in 1857 to Inde- 
pendence. In August, 1861, he enlisted in Co. H, 85th N. Y. Vols., and was with the regiment 
when captured at Plymouth, N. C, in April, 1864. He was taken to Andersonville prison and 
was there until Sept. 11, 1864, when he was transferred to Charleston and later to Florence, 
S. C, March 3, 1865, he was sent north and was mustered out April 27, 1865. He returned to 
Willing, in 1866 married Deborah J. Philips and settled on lot 212 where is now his home. He 
is a member of Wesley Rolfe Post, No. 332, G. A. R. He has three children, Minnie E., Lura 
and Sarah T. 

Henry Mapes, a revolutionary soldier, came to Belfast about 1806. He was a cooper and 
farmer and married Sally McElwaine. Of their nine children none are living but John G. By 
a second wife Mr. Mapes had four children. John G. Mapes, son of Henry, born in 1809, mar- 
ried Sally Rogers, and was a carpenter and builder in Belmont until 1855 when he moved to 
McKeen Co., Pa., to manufacture lumber, and in 1865 removed to the place where he now lives in 
Willing. Mrs. Mapes died m 1868 leaving 2 surviving children. Thomas Mapes, son of John 
G., born July 27, 1837, m September, 1862, enlisted in the I72d Pa. Vol. and was commissioned 
second lieutenant of Co. H. He was discharged in 1863, in 1864 came to Willing, in 1866 mar- 
ried Madora, daughter of Nicholas Fortner. Children Berton G., Clair F., Anna L., and M. 
May. Mr. Mapes has been a farmer, a merchant, assessor and postmaster. 

Hiram Parker, son of Ebenezer, settled in Independence early. He married Cynthia Covell 
and made his home on the farm where his son Clark now lives. He was an earnest hard-work- 
ing farmer, built a log house, cleared up a farm and developed a comfortable home. He died in 



Willing. 547 

1883. His wife survived him and now lives at Hallsport. The children living are Helen, Elmer 
E., James D., Clark H., and Rose B. (Mrs. L. T. Shannon). 

Orville T. Perkins was born in Willing, July 21, 1845, I'^ed upon a farm until in October, 
1861 he enlisted in Co E, 93d Regt N. Y. Vols., being but just past 16 years of age and weigh- 
ing but 1 13 pounds. He was first placed in the drum corps but soon was sent back to the ranks. 
He was promoted to corporal in "63, re-enlisted in the field in December, '63, promoted to ser- 
geant m May, 1864, transferred to Co. A, July 3, '64, promoted to ist sergeant and placed in 
command of Co. A, in September, '64 was promoted to sergt. major and April 4, '65, promoted 
to 2d lieut. He commanded a company five months, was in the army nearly four years, was in 
39 battles (including the final " roundup " of Lee at Appomattox), was mustered out July 13th, 
'65, and eight days later celebrated his 20th birthday with relatives in Willing. He has always 
held his residence in Willing, although he was four years in the pinery of Wisconsin, and about 
one year at Duke Centre, Pa. He has been postmaster at Hallsport eight years, assessor six 
years, justice of the peace nme years, commander of Wesley Rolfe Post, G. A. R. for 11 years, 
accountant and treasurer of the Hallsport cheese factory 16 years, and supervisor of the town 
for the last three years. He married, Oct. 27, 1866, Clarrie F. Livermore of Independence. 
Children : Archie D., Lytie G. and Essie S. C. 

Clark Witter was an early settler in Almond, where he took up a lot of land. He moved in 
1838 to Willing settling on the farm now owned by Lowell Fanton. He later removed to 
Friendship where he died. He was a lumberman as well as a farmer, and reared nine boys and 
two girls. Daniel P. Witter, son of Clark, was born in Almond in 1832. He married Betsey 
Foster, daughter of Asa and Susan Taggart, and settled at Stannard's Corners, where he died 
in 1889. He combined lumbering with farming, and was prominent in town, taking great in- 
terest in its affairs, was justice of the peace several years and supervisor during the important 
period of the Civil War. He had seven children ; six are living : Dencie (Mrs. C. D. Mills), 
Clara (Mrs. Sidney Crandall), France M., Libbie (Mrs. Peter Packard), Dr. G. H. Witter, of 
Wellsville, and Lewis D. Witter, who was born May 5, 1850, and in 1880, married Bettie, 
daughter of Wellington and Olive (Phillips) Hayes. They have four children, Victor, Jessie, 
Willie and Lawrie. Mr. Witter was supervisor of his town in 1885, '86, '89. '90. Luke G. Witter, 
son of Clark, married Ruth J., daughter of John Witter, and settled in Almond. In 1841 he 
moved to Willing and located as a farmer on the place now owned by his son Lorenzo where he 
died in 1881 and his widow in 1885. He had three children, Lucretia, Lorenzo and Zurial. 
Lorenzo married Mattie, daughter of George and Huldah (Bliven) Sisson, and succeeded to the 
homestead of his father. Mr. and Mrs. Witter have two children, Josie M. and G. Clifford. 

Nathan Woodcock, son of Nathan, was born in Swanzey, Cheshire Co., N. H., and came to 
Willing in 1833. He took up 200 acres of land now owned by David Wilson, cleared up a farm 
and passed his life here. He married Abigail Crosset ; of their ten children 6 are living. Nathan 
R. Woodcock, one of these children, was born May i, 1821. He married Delilah Burrows Jan. 
14, 1847, and settled m Willing. August, 1862, he enlisted in Co. A, 136th N.Y. Vols, as a drum- 
mer and was mustered out in 1865. He is a member of Wesley Rolfe Post, and has been its 
chaplain since organization. Mr. Woodstock has three children, Effie A. (Mrs. Ambrose Ben- 
jamin of Scio), Melvina L. (Mrs. Wm. Kruson), and Nathan O. 

Eben Covell, son of James, was born in Bristol, Ontario Co.. N. Y. He married Sophia 
Barker, daughter of Samuel of Italy, Yates Co. About 1827 he moved to Independence and 
subsequently removed to Naples, N. Y. After several years he moved to Willing where he 
died. Of his 10 children 5 are living. 



548 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



ALMA. 

CHAPTER L. 

ALMA IS A rough hilly town on the south border of the county surrounded 
on the north by Scio and Wellsville, on the east by Willing, on the south 
by Pennsylvania and west by Bolivar, and although it has tine farms in some 
parts, and much pine and other lumber has been taken from its forests, its 
importance and wealth has principally come from the mineral treasures 
under its surface. Here the Allegany oil field was first shown to exist, and 
to-day, after eighteen years, the oil is found in paying quantities and fur- 
nishes the chief revenue of the town. The steep hillsides are not well 
adapted to cultivation and the streams, Honeoye creek and others, have but 
narrow valleys and flow in deep ravines for the most part. The " Niles Hill " 
country is a fine farming section. There are two sawmills, one hotel and one 
store in this town on the Honeoye. Jones' steammill and shinglemill was 
built by Wallace Jones. The town has 28,349 acres of land, the equalized 
value of its real estate in 1894 was $286,496, the assessed value of personal 
property $2,375, and there was $23,414 assessed to corporations. 

This " first township of the second range of the Morris Reserve " was 
taken from Willing, Nov. 23, 1854. It comprises the Lawrence Tract, 144 lots, 
15,360 acres, and 40 lots of the 9,640 acres of the Patterson Tract, there being 
a strip of this tract, 40 chains, 83 links wide, extending along the south side of 
Scio and Wellsville now included in these towns. The written history of 
Alma began in a general way in 1620 when King James of England granted 
the first charter of this territory from 42 degrees to 44 degrees north latitude 
reaching from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans, continuing on through the 
grant by Charles I. in 1663 to the Duke of York and Albany of the Province 
of NeAv York, which extended from a north and south line 20 miles east of 
the Hudson w^est rather indefinitely and embraced the present states of New 
York, New Jersey, etc. Massachusetts became later undisputed owner of 
the grants, and consequently of Western New York.* It includes the various 
changes of title to the soil. 

*In April, 1788, Massachusetts contracted to sell to Nathaniel Gorham and Oliver Phelps, contractors of 
army supplies during the Revolution, who lived near Boston, their right to full 6,000,000 acres for $1,000,000 
to be paid in three annual installments, for which a paper money issued by Massachusetts and called Consoli- 
dated Securities was to be received at par. This was then selling at 25 per cent and made the land cost less 
than 5 cents per acre. In July, 1788, Phelps and Gorham purchased the Indian title to 2,600,000 acres of the 
eastern portion of their Massachusetts purchase bounded on the west by a line drawn south from the conflu- 
ence of Canaseraga creek to the Genesee river and from thence northerly along the river to a point 2 miles 
north of Canawagus village (now Avon), thence west 12 miles, thence northwardly so as to be 12 miles distant 
west from the road to Lake Ontario. In November, 1788, Massachusetts gave to Phelps and Gorham a deed 
of the land to which they had extinguished the Indian title, and this forms the Phelps and Gorham Purchase. 
That portion of the purchase west of the Genesee (about 28 miles by 12) was given by the Indians for the con- 
sideration that a mill should be built at the great falls (Rochester), and is known as the " Mill Seat Tract." 

In 1790, when the United States assumed the debts of the States, the consolidated securities of Massachu- 
setts at once rose to par without a rise in the value of real estate. Phelps and Gorham failed to pay, but the 
state allowed them to relinquish their title to the western two-thirds of this territory. March 12, 1791, Massa- 
chusetts agam sold the territory to Robert Morris in five different pieces by different deeds. The first, west of 
the Phelps and Gorham tract, was to be 12 miles wide, the second, third and fourth were to be each 16 miles 
wide, and the fifth was to contain the remainder of the claim of the state, be it more or less. The last four 
pieces, including 3,300,000 acres, Morris sold to some Holland merchants. This land is the Holland Purchase. 
The tract of the first deed took the name of Morris Reserve because Morris retained it when he sold to the 
Holland Company. Mr. Morris was soon overtaken by business reverses and contracted to sell the Reserve in 
parcels of from 40,000 to 150,000 acres, thus giving name to different portions as Church tract, Bond tract, 
Willing and Francis, Schermerhorn, Short, Sterrett, Lawrence and Patterson. 



Alma. 549 

The title of the realty of Alma is well defined by deeds recorded in the 
Allegany county clerk's ofltice, particularly one in Book A of Deeds, page 333, 
which relates that in "May, 1797, Robert Morris, Esq., of Philadelphia, Pa., 
of the first part, and Garrett Cottringer, gentleman, and Bridget, his wife, 
of the same place, of the second part, and Samuel Sterrett of Baltimore, Md., 
merchant, of the third part, made a contract whereby Sterrett purchased 
from the others the south end of the Morris Reserve, 175,000 acres. (This 
stretched along a wide distance and embraced much of the land that after- 
wards became the Church Tract.) In December, 1797, Samuel Sterrett con- 
tracted to George Harrison, who, in January, 1798, sold to Joseph Sterrett 
the 25,000 acres now^ known as the Lawrence and Patterson Tracts." On 
page 165 of the Book of Deeds referred to commences the record of a deed 
copied for us by W. F. Allen, of Friendship, which is a history in itself. 

This Indenture made ihe 28th day of March, 1801, between Thos. L. Ogden, of the city and state of 
New York, Esq., of the one part, and Joseph Sterrett, of the city of Baltimore and state of Maryland, Esq., of 
the second part, Whereas: Thomas Mather of the city of Albany, merchant, by indenture of release bear- 
ing date April 22, 1800, did remise, release and quickclaim unto said Thos L. Ogden, his heirs and assigns, 
all that certain tract or parcel of country situated in the county of Ontario and state of New York, bounded 
South by the Pennsylvania line; North, by the line which divides the dominions of the King of Great Britain 
from the territories of the United States, West, partly by lands reserved by the state of New York extending 
from L. Ontario to L. Erie along the river Niagara and partly by lands ceded by the state of New York to the 
United States and purchased by the state of Pennsylvania commonly called the Presque Isle Angle and East- 
erly by the land confirmed to Nathaniel Gorham and Oliver Phelps, by the Legislature of the Commonwealth 
of Massachusetts ; and Whereas Roger Sprague, Esq., Sheriff, of said County of Ontario, by deed of inden- 
ture, bearing date the thirteenth day of May in the same year, did grant, bargain, sell and convey unto Thos. 
L. Ogden, his heirs and assigns, all and singular, the said tract of country, the same having been theretofore 
seized and taken by the said sheriff as and for the property of Robert Morris, Esq., under and by virtue of a 
certain writ of the people of the state of New York, commonly called a Testatum Fieri janas and sold to the 
said Thos. L. Ogden at a public auction (he being then and there the highest bidder for the same) as in and 
by the said several deeds of indenture may appear, and whereas : by certain articles of agreement bearing date 
April 22 in the same year, made and executed by and between Thos. L. Ogden of the first part : Wilhelm 
Willink, Nicolaas Van Staphorst, PieterVan Eghen, Headrick Vollenhoven, and Rutger Ira Schimmelpennick 
of the second part, and Gouverneur Morris of the third part, it was declared and agreed that said tract of 
country should be so purchased and held by the said Thos. L. Ogden upon the trusts and the several interests 
and purposes in the said articles of agreement expressed and declared and among other things, in trust, to 
grant, release, and convey certain parts and parcels of said tract of country, in the articles of agreement par- 
ticularly mentioned and described, to certain persons therein particularly named, and claiming the same, or 
such part or parts of the said several tracts of land, any or either of them, as Alexander Hamilton, David A. 
Ogden, and Thomas Cooper, of the city of New York, Esqs., or any two of them should under their hand 
prescribe and direct, and in respect to the rest and residue of the said Tract of Country in Trust, to grant 
and release, sell and convey the same to such person or persons in such part or parts and upon such terms and 
conditions as they, the said Alexander Hamilton, David Ogden and Thomas Cooper, or any two of them, 
should under their hands prescribe and direct, and not otherwise, as in and by the said articles of agreement 
relation being thereto had may appear, and Whereas the said Alex. Hamilton, David A. Ogden, and Thos. 
Cooper, in execution of the powers vested in them as aforesaid, by a writing under their hands and seals, 
bearing date Ian. 22, 1801, have among other things ordered, appointed, directed and prescribed that the said 
Thomas L. Ogden should release, convey and confirm unto the said parly hereto of the second part, his heirs 
or assigns, in FEE simple all that tract or parcel hereinafter mentioned and described being part and parcel of 
the same tract of country so as aforesaid granted and conveyed to the said Thomas L. Ogden, as in and by 
the said writing relation being thereto had may also appear. now therefore. 

This Indenture Witnesseth that the said Thomas L. Ogden, in pursuance of the said direction and appoint- 
ment, and in consideration of One dollar to him in hand paid by the said party hereto of the second part, the 
receipt whereof is hereby acknowledged. Hath bargained, sold, released, conveyed and confirmed, and by 
these presents doth bargain, sell, release, convey and confirm, unto the said second party hereto, his heirs and 
assigns, all that certain tract or parcel of land situate, lying and being in the county of Ontario and state of 



550 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



New York aforesaid : Beginning at a point in the Pennsylvania Line Six miles West from the South West 
corner of the lands purchased by Nathaniel Gorham and Oliver Phelps from the Five Nations of Indians by 
deed bearing date 1788, and running thence Due West along said Pennsylvania line 6 miles to the South East 
corner of lands deeded to Wilhelm Willink and Jan Willink and Wilhelm Willink, Jr. and Jan Willink, Jr., 
thence Due North 6 miles, 40 chains and 83 links, along the meridian line run by Joseph and B. Ellicott as 
part of the eastern boundary line of the said tract of land of the said Willinks et al, to a point to be planted, 
thence Due East 6 miles to a point to be planted in the western boundary line of the lands of Thomas Will- 
ing Francis, thence due south along the boundary line of the lands last mentioned to the place of beginning — 
containing 25,000 acres. 

May 29, 181 2, Joseph Sterrett, of Baltimore city, merchant, and Molly his wife, for the sum of $30,000, 
deeded to Robert Gilmore, Jr., and John Oliver, merchants, of the same city. In trust, The Lawrence tract 
(6 miles by 4 miles) containing 15,360 acres, to be sold as they thought best, but the proceeds was divided into 
24 shares, of which Gilmore, Jr. & Oliver owned 6, Robert Gilmore the Elder 4, Hugh Thompson 4, Mark 
Pringle4, John Sherlock 4 and William Lonnan 2 ; all these being business men of Baltimore. This deed 
relates that not only land was sold, but all houses, buildings, improvements, water ways, watercourses, rights, 
liberties, privileges, appurtenances and advantages to the same belonging. In 1830 John Oliver having died, 
Robert Gilmore, Jr., sold for $6,912 to Richard M. Lawrence of N. Y. City, the tract which bears his name 
In 1814 Joseph Sterrett sold to Thomas Tennant the north 9,640 acres in trust to be disposed of, and the pro 
ceeds to be paid under certain conditions to Mr. Sterrett. In 1815 Tennant disposed of the property at a pub- 
lic sale held in the city of Baltimore for $14,942. The purchaser being Joseph W. Patterson of Baltimore. 

The forests first echoed to the tread of actual settlers in 1833, when 
Myron Hough, a Canadian, and John Longcore located here. Others soon 
came, Azor Hurlbutt on lot 26 in 1834. He opened the first " tavern " in 1837, 
and his daughter Emehne was the first white child born in the town. Wm. 
Smith, one Harding and one Hunter came in 1835, when the sole roads were 
rough sled tracks in winter and footpaths in summer. Samuel B. Stebbins, 
a very active citizen, was here in 1836 on lot 20. Rev. Reuben Kent was here 
in 1838; his daughter Clarinda taught the first school in 1839. Myron Allen 
the pioneer of Allentown came to lot 1 in 1839, and Samuel Wyvell was an 
early settler. From 1840 to 1850 solid residents made homes, and the ring 
of the axe. the falling of trees and the burning of " slashings " went on mer- 
rily. Jared Emerson come in 1840. The first sawmill was built by J. W. 
Post in 1843, in which year also came William Andrus to lot 22, as did his 
stepson, R. R. Russell, who has been one of the town's most valued citizens. 
Samuel Peet opened the first " store " in 1844, Jacob Crandall came in 1845, 
Paris Clair in 1848, and Joseph Smith and others in 1849 and 1850. In the 
next ten years many came, lumbering was an important industry, numerous 
mills were built and great gaps were cut in the heavy forests. Among other 
names of settlers are Cole, Chamberlain, Oviatt, Bartlett, Elliott, Garrison. 
Nobles, Wilcox, etc., a goodly number. 

A great event occurred at Hurlbutt's tavern March 6, 1845. None other 
than the town's first town meeting. The hst of officers elected contains 
names of other prominent settlers. There were elected John H. Poland, 
supervisor; Darius C. Rudd, clerk; Arvis Burrows, John C. Rowell, Walton 
T. Rice, Ambrose Straight, justices; S. B. Stebbins, A. R. Southmade, Al- 
zina Straight, assessors; Solomon Allen, Daniel Shaw, Jasper White, road 
commissioners; Ebenezer Southmade, Charles C. Fay, inspectors of election 
W. S. Oliver, superintendent; John Halbert, overseer of the poor; Samuel 
Wyvell, constable and collector; William Andrews, Saul G. Green, Solomon 



Alma 551 

Allen, constables. The town's first census, 1855, showed 111! population, 
that of 1H60, 578; 1870, 766; 1880, 865; 1890, 1,509. 

In the early days of the town there came to this wild district, it is said, 
a man who purchased a small mill and ostensibly manufactured lumber, 
which each season he would raft down the Ohio. His real business was the 
making of counterfeit silver coin which he distributed freely at the various 
towns he passed on his rafting trips. After some years stay in Alma sus- 
picion feU on him and he was forced to flee. During the lumbering period 
small centers of activity sprang into being. Alma (formerly Honeoye Corn- 
ers. Honeoye and Shongo), Pikeville, where Mark W. Pike for ten years 
from 1856 conducted lumber manufacturing on a large scale, and Allentown 
in the extreme northwestern corner. 

Allentown became very prosperous after the discovery of oil, growing 
with the development, which took on the characteristics of a " boom," and 
stores, hotels, shops were rapidly built of wood. The streets were crowded 
with men and horses at all hours of the day and night, and ''leases " and 
"rigs" and "drilling," " wildcatting, " and "oil" were the absorbing 
topics of conversation. Numerous wells were drilled and many of them 
were producers. Some of the first ones put down are yielding enough to 
pay for keeping the pumps running to-day. Allentown is surrounded with 
derricks which tower like giant finger-posts indicating the source of the 
town's wealth. (See the history of the Allegany oilfield on page 144.) Riley 
Allen, the most prominent business man, lives just over the Scio line, but he 
is so identified with Allentown and Alma that his biography is put in this 
town. Allentown has witnessed all the changes of an oil city, prosperity, a 
deep depression, and then a steady solid growth. It has three small hotels, 
the office of Allen & Coyle oil producers, four stores, boiler and machine 
shops, flourishing societies, G. A. R. Post, and schools, and one of the best 
appointed post ofiices in the county. There is also a "church union" 
meetinghouse where the Methodists hold regular religious services. 

Terrence Higgins opened a general store here in 1880 or 1881, and in 
1888 took his brother James into partnership, forming the firm of Higgins 
Brothers. They have also a grocery store in Austin, Pa. Hugh J. Coyle 
also conducted a store from 1881 to 1890, and in 1892 again engaged in trade. 

The Allentown (Scio) cheese factory w^as built by a stock company, but, 
since 1884, has been owned by Riley Allen. The milk of from 250 to 300 
cows is here manufactured. The product in 1893 was about 80,000 lbs. 

The Allentoiun High School* is in a very healthy condition. No person 
has taken greater interest in this school than Mr. Riley Allen, one of the 
chief tax payers of the town. He has served as trustee for nearly ten years, 
and still ably fills that position. Prof. O. M. Burdick was principal of the 
school for four years, until 1895 and succeeded in introducing a course of 
study by which the school is graded and capable of doing better work. Too 

* Contributed. 



552 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

much praise cannot be given the people of Allentown who have aided and 
encouraged this work. With an enthusiastic trustee, faithful teachers and 
an intelligent public, such results are not surprising. The school has 130 
scholars on its roll, with an average attendance of nearly 100. To say that 
the school remains so uniform in size (when speaking of an oiltown, where 
removals are constantly taking place,) speaks volumes as to the character of 
the work done. The school building was built in 1883 and cost $2,000. It is 
artistic in design, and commodious in its arrangement^ — a credit to the vil- 
lage in which it is located. The teachers now are Prof. George E. Miller, 
principal; Edith LaZear, intermediate department; Gertrude Sullivan, 
primary. 

The religious life of Alma commenced in 1838 when services were held 
by Rev. Reuben Kent, and twelve years later the Methodists formed a clsas. 
The Mies Hill Seventh-Day Adventist church formed August 10, 1862, with 
32 members, by Rev. N. Fuller, is still in existence with a fine church build- 
ing at Petrolia. We have not been able to obtain its present condition. 

Eastern Star Chapter * — The first charter for a chapter of this order here 
was granted to 62 members for Allentown Chapter, (Mr. and Mrs. F. A. 
Hulbert being the first promoters) which was organized March 31, 1887. by 
Mrs. Sadie McKelvey of Rochester, Grand Matron, with Mrs. Lina Raydure, 
Worthy Matron, Robert McCutcheon, Worthy Patron, and 65 members. 
The chapter was sustained until 1894 when the charter was surrendered and 
some of the members united with ladies in Bolivar in applying during the 
same year for a charter for a chapter to be located at Bolivar. This was 
granted and Buttrick Chapter, No. 109, O. E. A., was then organized with 
these charter members: Mrs. Melvina Allen, W. M. ; Mrs. Harriet Beatty, 
A. M.; Mrs. F. A. Hulbert. Treas.; Mrs. Prank Beers, Sec; Mrs. Clara 
Andrews, Con.; Mrs. Lillian Tuttle, A. Con.; Mrs. Garthwaite, Warder- 
Mrs. Ada Barber, Ada; Miss Estella Smith, Ruth; Mrs. Bertha Weiler, 
Esther; Mrs. Hunt, Martha; Mrs. Ella Dunning, Electa; Thomas P. Lardin, 
W. P. The chapter is nourishing and meetings are held bi-monthly on 
second and fourth Tuesdays in Masonic Temple, Bolivar. Mrs. Melvina 
Allen has been W. M. for five years in Allentown and Bolivar, and District 
Deputy Grand Matron of the 13th District for two terms, 1890 to 1895. 

Marshall Phillips Post , G. A. R., No. 640. Alpheus L. Witherspoon, for- 
merly of Co. I, 19th Maine, gives us this information concerning this jDost and 
the soldiers of Alma. "This post was organized by the efforts of A. B. 
York and others who became active members and the charter was granted 
Sept. 28, 1889. The first officers and members were: A. L. Witherspoon, 
commander; Frank C. Dore, senior vice commander; Sheldon S. Applebee, 
junior vice commander; Edwin C. Baker, quartermaster; Frank N. Smith, 
surgeon; Riley R. Russell, chaplain; Charles Woodard, O. D.; Alva B. 
York, O. G.; and A. J. Eveland, James Q. Welch, Lester L. Lewis, Henry L. 

* Contributed. 



Alma. 553 

Lamb, William H. Richardson, Christopher Filber, Thomas P. Lardin, 
Charles H. Young, Newton Phillips, William H. Dunn. Names of men that 
did not join any post: Jacob Apker, Jesse Johnson, Daniel Simons. "On the 
30th day of June, 1893, I. A. L. Witherspoon, then acting quartermaster, 
did square all acounts on the book, paid the -per capita tax to the Department 
of New York, and reported that there was not enough membership to sus- 
tain the post, as there was not interest enough taken by the members to get 
out enough members to hold any meeting whatever. And so we had to let 
the post go by the board. The greater part of the members now belong to 
other posts, some at Wellsville, some at Bolivar, some at Richburg, a number 
have left this part of the county, one is dead (A. J. Eveland), and one (Chris- 
topher Filber) in the State Soldiers' Home at Bath." 

Supervisors. — (855, John H. Poland; 1856, '57, Arvis Burrows ; 1858, '59, Luman B. 
Elliott; i860, '61, '62, Mark W. Pike; 1863, '64, '65. Luman B. Elliott ; 1866, John H. Foland ; 
1867, '68, Ittai Elliott; 1869. George S. Wilcox ; 1870, '71, '72, L J. Elliott; 1873, Henry C. 
Wilcox ; 1873, '74. Martin Strickland ; 1875, '76, '77, I. J. Elliott; 1878, '79, '80, '81, Stephen J. 
Rhoades; 1882, E. E. Lindsley ; 1883. W. S. Raydure ; 1884. '85, H. J. Coyle ; 1886, James 
Reese; 1887, James Shields; 1888, '89, Newton Phillips; 1890, Newell Phillips; 1 891, '92 
George S. Wilcox; 1893, '94, '95, Terrence F. Higgins. 

The present town officers are T. F. Higgins, supervisor; G. S. Wilcox, clerk ; James 
McCarriston, collector; W. A. Vance, overseer of poor; D. S. Johnson, E. C. Baker, F. E. 
Elliott, justices of the peace ; H. J. Coyle, W. F. Lane, commissioners ot excise ; E. H. Gigee, 
H. H. Hanchet, H. L. Elliott, assessors. 



Some of the Townsmen. — Daniel H. Anderson was born in Warren county, N. J., in 
1843. In 1862 he enlisted in Co. H, 31st Regt. N. J. S. V., and served nine months, the term 
of his enlistment. In 1872 he went to Parker City, Pa., and was employed as a pumper. In 
1874 he commenced as a producer of oil in Clarion county. Pa., and has been in that business 
ever since. In 1881 he came to Richburg. In 1882 he married Miss Helen Johnston, of 
Edenburg, Clarion Co., Pa. In 1884 Mr. Anderson located in Allentown, where he is largely 
interested in the oil business. 

Hugh J. Coyle, son of Peter, was born in Scio in 1857. In 1881 he came to Allentown, 
built a store, and established himself in the mercantile business, which he conducted for seven 
years. He then sold his store, and engaged in the oil business, forming a partnership with 
Riley Allen, under firm name of Allen & Coyle, and has been in the oil busmess since, operat- 
ing in both the New York and Ohio oil fields. In 1892 he again went into trade. Mr. Coyle 
has been town clerk four years and supervisor for 1884-5. I" '^^5 he married Mary E. Cul- 
bert and has four children. 

Oscar F. Barnes, son of Hiram and Charlotte (Almy) Barnes, was born May 9, 1835, in 
Spafford, N. J. In 1855 he came to Wirt and engaged in agriculture. In 1865 he married 
Lucinda Brandon of Amity and they settled in Scio. Mr. Barnes has held the office of high- 
way commissioner for one term. In 1891 he located in Allentown. Mrs. Charlotte (Almy) 
Barnes married second, Lemuel Bessey and removed to Wirt in i860, where she died in 1868. 

Ittai Elliott, a native of Massachusetts, came to West Almond in 1826, bought a farm, built 
a log house and made the first clearing. His wife was a Miss Page. Of their 10 children. 
Jared P. Elliott, the oldest son, was born in 1809, chopped the first fallow on the farm and slept 
on hemlock boughs. He married Mary Smith. They had 11 children. He resided on the 
old farm until about 1864 when he moved to Alma and settled in the south part of the town. 
He held the office of assessor and highway commissioner of West Almond. He has been 
justice of the peace two terms and highway commissioner 3 years. His wife died in February, 



554 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

1890. Henry S. Elliott, son of Jared P., was born on the old homestead at West Almond in 
1832. In 1864 he settled in Alma, and has been a farmer and lumberman. He has served as 
collector for 2 years and assessor for several years. He married Elizabeth Wilson, their chil- 
dren are Julius A., Belle (Mrs. Wells Wyvell), Ward H., Jennie (Mrs. John Riley of Olean). 

Robert A. McCutcheon was born at Big Bend, Pa., in 1857. When he was 12 years old, 
he commenced to work pumping oil and received $1.25 per day, and has been engaged in the 
oil business since. When 14, he learned telegraphy, attended Janes' Academy at Clintonville, 
and high school at Emlenton. He was in the Clarion oil-field from 1876 to 1880, in the Butler 
oil-field one year, in 1881 went to Bradford, and after remaining three years, in 1884, he came 
to Allentown as operator and engineer for the National Transit Co., and has been with it since. 
In 1882, Mr. McCutcheon married Kate Richardson and has 5 children. He is special agent 
for the Pennsylvania Mutual Life Insurance Co., is a member of Wellsville Lodge No. 230, F. 
& A. M., Wellsville Chapter R. A. M. No. 143, St. John's Commandery of Olean No 24, Ishmalia 
Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Buffalo. 

Marshall N. Phillips, son of John, was born Aug. 31. 1822. in Vermont, and when 6 years 
old, came with his father to Bolivar, and in 1846 married Sarah Green. Their six children sur- 
vive. Marshall N. Phillips enlisted in Co. A, 179th N. Y. Regt., and was wounded at the battle 
of Petersburg, Va., June 17, 1864, and died June 21. The G. A. R. Post at Allentown was 
named for him. 

Newton Phillips, son of Marshall N., was born in Bolivar in 5847. He enlisted in Co. A, 
179th N. Y. Regt., and served two years. He was wounded at the battle of Petersburg, and 
was discharged in 1865 for disability. He is a member of Marshall Phillips Post No. 6. In 
December, 1876, Newton Phillips married Phebe Perry of Sharon, Pa., they have 3 children. Mr. 
Phillips has been in company with his brother Newell, since 1880, as an oil producer and has 
48 wells. He has been supervisor two years (1888 and 9), is a member of Wellsville Lodge, F. 
& A. M. No. 230, Wellsville Chapter, Olean Commandery and Mystic Shrine of Buffalo. 

Robert R. Russell was born in Homer in 1824. He came to Alma in 1843, bought the farm 
where he now resides, made the first clearing on it and built his loghouse. January i, 1849, he 
married Ada E., daughter of Wilson Phillips. They had 4 children, all are living. Mr. Russell 
worked in the first steam sawmill erected in the county 50 years ago, In 1862 he enlisted in Co. 
H. i6oth Regt. N. Y. S. V., was taken prisoner at Cedar Creek, Oct. 19, 1864, and was detained 
■as prisoner until about March i, 1865. He was in all the engagements in which his regiment 
took part and was discharged June 5, 1865. Mr. Russell has held the office of highway com- 
missioner, assessor and other town offices. 

Lagrand A. Tuttle, son of Caleb, was born near Windsor, N. Y., Oct. 11, 1854. In 1856 
his father came to Scio, and when a boy Lagrand was clerk in a store in Scio for 4 years. In 
1878, he went to Rixford, Pa., and established himself as a merchant. The next year he pur- 
chased a variety store, which was burned in 1880, Mr. Tuttle losing about $2,roo. In 1883 he 
came to Allentown, and was in trade 4 years. He then commenced business as an oil producer, 
which he still continues. He has been notary public since 1883, was appointed postmaster in 
1894, is a member of Macedonia Lodge No. 258, F. & A. M. of Bolivar, and Bolivar Chapter. 
In 1879 he married Lillian, daughter of Sherman S. Perkins of Scio. He is also a member of 
St. John's Commandery, No. 24 of Olean, N. Y. 

William A. Vance, a native of Butler county. Pa., was born in 1847. In 1866 he com- 
menced dressing tools in the Pennsylvania oil field, and was drilling and pumping until 1877, 
when he commenced producing oil in the Butler field and was engaged in that vicinity until 1883 
when he came to Alma. Here he drilled 18 wells for Anderson, Otis & Co., and wells for other 
parties. Since 1884 he has been in the business for himself. Mr. Vance has held many town 
offices, highway commissioner for three years, assessor, constable and overseer of the poor. He 
is a member of Wellsville Lodge, No. 230, F. & A. M. Mr. Vance married in 1871 Emma S. 
Thompson. 

George S. Wilcox, son of Clark, was born in Groton, N. Y., Oct. 22, 1818. He came to 
Wellsville in 1852, engaged in lumbering and built a shinglemill on Brimmer brook. In 1857 he 
located about five miles south of Allentown, buying a sawmill on Centre brook, which he con- 
verted into a steammill and ran until 1892. He bought the Central House, Allentown, which 
he conducts, in 1893. He was the first Republican elected supervisor of Alma serving three 
terms. He has held most of the town offices, been justice many years, and often a delegate to 
county and other conventions. 

Alva G. York came to Scio with his father, Barnabas York, in 1808, when a child. They 
were among the pioneers of the town. Alva G. York married Amy Welch. Their children were 
Dr. Edgar, who was in the 85th Regt. N. Y. S. V., was in a rebel prison, now lives in Kansas, 
Delos and Thomas died in the army, John died about i860, Alva B. and Delight, who married 
Frank Vosburg and died in 1888. Mr. York died in 1892, his wife in 1864. Alva B, York, son 




vv A rerqusson 5- Co 



^y^^O^ ( C/^ 




Alma 555 

of Alva G., was born in Scio, in May, 1845. He worked for his father who was a lumberman 
for some years. In January, 1864, he enlisted in Co I, 109th Regt. N. Y. S. V., and was dis- 
charged Aug. 6, 1865. He was a charter member of Hallett Post of Belmont. In 1868, he mar- 
ried Marie, daughter of Wm. L. Norton. They have four children. Mr. York removed from 
Scio in 1882 to Allentown. He was justice of the peace four years in Scio, and four years m 
Alma, and has been postmaster of Allentown for five years, and is an oil producer. He is a 
member of Wellsville Lodge and Chapter F. & A. M., St. John's Commandery of Olean, No. 24. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



RILEY ALLEN. 

The pen of the historian can in no better manner be employed than in 
perpetuating for posterity some of the incidents connected with those who 
by their energy and self reliance, industry and perseverance have raised 
themselves from humble positions to affluence, and have demonstrated 
themselves as important factors in the business and social life of the com- 
munity. One of these men is Riley Allen, of Allentown, the veteran oil pro- 
ducer, who is one of the leading men of southern Allegany. His extended 
acquaintance with oil and oil production in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, 
Indiana and elsewhere has caused him to be known to and by more people 
than any other resident of that section. He was born in Wirt, a son of 
Clinton Allen, Nov. 18, 1848. He attended the district schools only until he 
was old enough to work, and has since that time acquired a most valuable 
practical education, laboring faithfully and intelligently, and attaining by 
his own exertions a most enviable success. He has had a rough, rugged 
school, but it has produced valuable results. He was early in life engaged 
in lumbering in Scio and in the forests of Pennsylvania. "When the oil ex 
citement arose in Allegany he was one of the first to join the ranks of its 
developers, and being a warm and intimate friend of O. P. Taylor, he formed 
in 1880 what proved to be a lasting, pleasant and remunerative partnership 
with him under firm name of Allen & Taylor. Their first producing well 
was at Sawyer's Station. This was soon followed by the first well at Allen- 
town, which they drilled. They were also of the happy company which 
drilled the old Richburg well, which demonstrated the rich possibilities of 
this field on its completion on Ajiril 28, 1881. From that time on Mr. Allen 
has been a leading oj^erator, and has experienced all of the " ups and downs" 
of life in the oil field. He is now interested in 400 wells located in the Alle- 
gany field, besides large holdings in Pennsylvania and Ohio, and is probably 
the largest individual operator of this field. He has domonstrated his 
practical ability in other kinds of business. He owns and operates seven 
farms and personally plans and supervises the work on them. He has a 
handsome dairy of 140 Ayrshires, and is an owner of the Allentown cheese 
factory. He laid out and plotted the village of Allentown, which bears his 
name, in 1881, and here his residence is pleasantly located. His wife, for- 
merly Miss Melvina Prince, is prominent in society circles and a leading 



556 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

officer and a district deputy in the Order of the Eastern Star. Five daugh- 
ters and three sons constitute the family circle. In his business corre- 
spondence Mr. Allen has the able assistance of his daughter May, who is an 
expert business woman. Mr. Allen is a 32d Degree Free Mason, a member 
of the Mystic Shrine and of the Order of Elks. He is much interested in 
and liberal toward all objects he deems deserving of his aid, and the efficiency 
of the AUentown Union School is largely due to his personal efforts and 
liberality. He has been its popular trustee for many years. Mr. Allen 
occupies a high position, and his success has been gained by honest and hard 
labor, keen and wide-awake business sagacity, well-directed effort and in- 
telligent personal supervision of the details of his numerous fields of in- 
dustry. He has many friends, who esteem him for his personal good quali- 
ties, his liberal, open-handed generosity and his freedom from ostentation. 



Allegany and Its People 



A Centennial Mennorial History 



TOW/NS OF THE PHELPS A/NB 
GOPHAM PUPCHASE 



ALMOND, ANDOVER, INDEPENDENCE, BURNS, ALFRED. 



Almond. 559 

ALMO/NB. 

CHAPTER LI. 

BY D. A. STEBBINS, ESQ. 

THE TOWN of Almond was originally knownas township number fourof the 
seventh range of townships which belonged to the Pulteney Estate. It 
was originally a portion of the town of Canisteo in Steuben county but, when 
Allegany county was formed in 1806, became a part of Alfred and so re- 
mained until by an act of the legislature March 16, 1821, the town of Almond 
was formed. Aportion of its territory was taken May 4, 1829, to form Bird- 
sail, and another portion was taken April 15, 1833, to form West Almond. 
The town contains 27,374 acres of land. The surface is hilly and is separated 
into several valleys. One valley extends from the county line southerly 
through Whitney Valley and is traversed by the Canacadea (formerly Kana- 
kadea) Creek, a tributary of the Canisteo river. McHenry Valley extends 
southeasterly through the town from Almond village. North Valley runs 
from the west line of the town northeasterly and North Valley creek 
empties into the Canisteo river at Arkport. A portion of the soil is sandy, 
some of it is clay and some loam, and a portion is gravelly and well adapted 
to raising hay, grain and potatoes. The Erie railroad crosses the south- 
eastern corner. The population has been: 1830, 1,804; 1835, 2,059; 1840, 1,- 
434; 1845, 1,735; 1850, 1,914; 1855, 1,952; 1860, 1,739; 1865, 1,655; 1870, 1,686; 
1875, 1,609; 1880, 1,567; 1890, 1,419; 1892, 1,413. 

The first settlement was made in Karr Valley in 1796 by Andrew Gray a 
clergyman, with Moses Van Cam pen, Henry McHenry and Joseph A. Rath- 
bun, A deed is now in the possession of the writer dated Sept. 27, 1796, 
from Charles Williamson of Bath to Josex^h A. Rathbun of Sharon, and con- 
veys "all that piece or parcel of land one mile square, for 449£ 4s., being on 
lot Number five, situate and lying and being in the Northern quarter of 
township number four in the seventh Range of Townships, in the County of 
Steuben, which said lot number five adjoins the Indian Line, and contains 
647 acres of land, according to the survey made of said lot by George Bailey, 
in the month of May, A. D. 1793." The deed is signed by the initials C. W. 
with seal, and was never recorded. A bond is also given by Rathbun for 
the payment of money v/hich is still in existence. This is probably a con- 
veyance of the first land in Allegany county, and shows that what is now 
Almond was originally a part of Canisteo. The first settlers came from 
Luzerne county. Pa. Joseph Coleman came ■with the first settlers as far as 
Canisteo, now Hornellsville, and assisted in building a gristmill there and 
the next year, 1797. settled on a farm in Karr Valley. In 1797, William 
Gray, Walter Karr, Samuel Karr, Joseph Karr, Silas Ferry, Stephen Major, 
Benjamin Van Campen, and George Lockhart also settled in Karr Valley; 



560 History of Allegany County, N. Y 

they came from Wilkesbarre, Pa. , and their mode of travel was in open scows 
up the Susquehanna River and they propelled their boats or crafts against 
the current by setting-poles. They disembarked at the Left'ert farm in 
Canisteo, two miles below Hornellsville. There they set up their wagons, 
upon which they put their goods, which w^ere drawn by oxen up Karr Valley. 
There were no roads and they were obliged to cut away the underbrush in 
order to pass through. From Hornellsville they followed Kanakadea Creek 
as far as the Joseph Lincoln place below Almond village; there they bore to 
the right through an opening in the hill and over sand hills. When they 
were within 200 rods of their destination, near where the stone house stands 
now owned by H. S. Hall, the wagon on which Mrs. Matthew McHenry was 
riding overturned and she broke her leg, and her husband and Rev. Andrew 
Gray set it successfully. Subsequently Mr. Gray sold out to Stephen Ma- 
jor, who cleared up the farm and occupied it until he died. Stephen Major 
was a tailor, and used to go to Angelica, Genesee and other places to make 
clothes. Matthew McHenry took up the farm where Lewis McHenrjt. now 
resides and died in 1801. Samuel Karr took up and settled upon the farm 
now owned by J. M. Karr and died in 1843. George Lockhart located where 
Joseph Lockhart now resides, and lived to a good old age. Joseph Karr 
settled where Charles Karr now lives. Mr. Ferry located on the farm now 
owned by Clark Cotton. Joseph Coleman took up the farm now owned by 
Louisa Shephard. 

Henry McHenry settled in McHenry Valley. Walter Karr cleared the 
farm now owned by Orin Crandall. The first settlers were obliged to go to 
Bath for groceries and milling for several years. Margaret Karr, the mother 
of Walter, Joseph and Samuel Karr and Elizabeth Major, came with her fam- 
ily to Karr Valley in 1798, as near as we can learn. Her husband had pre- 
viously died in Luzerne Co., Pa. At the Wyoming massacre she stood by 
the door of theirhouse (her husband being away) and told the Indians to take 
everything but spare her children. They took much of the furniture, killed 
the stock, and left the family undisturbed. She was a widow when she came 
to Almond, and lived with her children after coming here. Mrs. Karr was 
considered a very skillful nurse, especially in midwifery, and rode long dis- 
tances to attend the sick. Her mode of travehng was on horseback. There 
was then no physician nearer than Bath or Dansville, and people ten and 
even twenty miles away were considered neighbors. On one of her journeys 
her horse swam the Genesee river at Transit Bridge ajid she took a heavy 
cold and ever after was troubled with asthma. Joel Karr, her grandson, is 
now living, aged 86 years, and is no doubt the only person hving who can re- 
member her. Her descendants are as the sands of the sea shore. It is 
said her maiden name was Kerr, and that she was a cousin of her husband. 
She was a peacemaker in the commuirity. She died in 1820 at the age of 83. 

Whitney Valley was first settled by a Mr. Putman and his two sons, 
Peter and Jacob, about 1803. They were followed by Tarbell Whitney in 
1806, and Silas Stillman in 1807. The first permanent settler of North Val- 



Almond. 561 

ley was Solomon David, who located on the Hull farm in 1804. Elihu Knight, 
with Ardeno Cobb, and Wheeler Hinman settled in the lower part of North 
Valley about 1804. Benjamin Hayes, who had been in the Revolutionary 
War, settled on the Peter Lippencott farm in 1807. North Hill was settled 
by William Howe and Charles Cook and his father in 1808. Howe was a very 
prominent man in the town, and died about 1870, the oldest resident of the 
town. John and Jeremiah Van Vechten came from Montgomery Co. about 
1817, and settled near Bishopville. Zenas Ward, grandfather of the Wards 
now living in North Valley, was one of the first settlers of that locality. 

The first school was opened in Karr Valley by Joseph A. Rathbun in 
1802 in a log schoolhouse on the hill, near the residence of L. A. Rathbun. The 
building was covered with bark. The first child born was Henry McHenry, 
son of Matthew and Anna McHenry, Feb. 1, 1798, although Sally Coleman, 
oldest child of Joseph and Mary Coleman, w^as born July 10, 1797 at Hor- 
nellsville. Her parents lived at Almond but were at Hornellsville when the 
child was born. The first marriage was that of Peter Putnam and Polly 
Waters in 1804, celebrated by Rev. Andrew Gray in Karr Valley. The first 
death was in 1801, that of Matthew McHenry, aged about two years. He w^as 
son of Matthew McHenry. Walter Karr was taken prisoner by the Indians 
at the Wyoming Massacre and was kept in captivity until the close of the 
war. The first log house was built in Karr Valley by Rev. Andrew Gray in 
1796, and the first frame house in 1802 by the same gentleman. The first 
brick house was built by Rufus Whitney. Matthew McHenry and Joseph 
A. Rathbun died of fever in 1813. 

The first annual town meeting was held at David Crandall's inn, in Karr 
Valley, the first Tuesday in April, 1821; Tarbell Whitney was moderator. 
Thefollowing persons were elected towai officers: Supervisor, Silas Stillman; 
-town clerk, L. S. Rathbun; assessors, Roswell W. Knight. David Crandall, 
George Lockhart; commissioners of highways, Lawrence Clark, Joseph Karr 
and Daniel McHenry; collector, George Lamphere; overseers of the poor, 
Stephen Major and Henry McHenry; constables, George Lamphere, Carey 
McKay, and Amos S. Maxson; school commissioners, L. S. Rathbun, William 
Howe and Henry McHenry; inspectors of schools, Roswell W. Knight, Sam- 
uel Karr and William Burdick. The 11 families who first settled in Karr 
Valley reared altogether 88 children who lived to be men and women. 

Phineas Stevens was the first settler of what is now Almond village. 
George Stevens, his son, built the first mill about 1809. The whole of the 
land now occupied by Almond village, and much more, was once owned by 
the Stevens, and was later sold to the brother-in-law of George Stevens, the 
Hon. Joseph Corey. David Crandall kept the first tavern. William 
Rodgers opened the first general assortment store, with Joseph Corey as 
clerk for a number of years. A. L. Dawson was Almond's first physician 
and postmaster. Wm. R. Rodgers the second postmaster, and Joseph 
Corey the third postmaster. The first distillery was built by George 
Stevens in 1816. He also built a hotel where Whitwood's blacksmith shop 



562 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

stands. The first store at the "upper battery" was built by George 
Stevens and Joseph Corey in 1827. 

Hon. Joseph Corey was born at Luzerne Co., Pa., in 1802. He had three 
brothers, Rufus, Jenks and Ansell, who were killed in a battle with the 
Indians near Wilkesbarre. His father escaped by hiding under the river 
bank and was later killed in a fall in a gristmill at Almond when but 56 years 
old. Mr. Corey had a younger brother killed at Whitesville on a Fourth of 
July by the bursting of a cannon. Mr. Corey when a boy worked one half- 
month driving oxen and received a penknife and a vest pattern amounting 
to 50 cents for his half-month's work. Mr. Corey was a strong Democrat 
but strongly opposed to slavery. In 1850 he was elected to the legislature^ 
and served one term. In 1862 a meeting of loyal citizens was called. Mr. 
Corey was elected chairman. He offered $5 to each man who would enlist, 
and |50 extra to the man who would go as his substitute. Ebenezer Lowe, 
aged 26, was the man who went in his place. In 1822 he opened a store for 
himself, and continued in the mercantile business at Whitesville and Almond 
until 1847, when he turned his attention to farming. He married Mary 
Smith in 1838 and had five children. She died, and in 1864 he married 
Elizabeth Wygant, of New York City, who survives him. He was a man of 
more than ordinary ability, and even in his last years could remember what 
had transpired in his early life. He died Jan. 10, 1893, aged 91. 

The original settlers of North Valley with but few exceptions are alL 
gone and have left but few descendants living there; some of the Wards are 
still there, descendants of the original settlers. Judge William Hawley 
lived in North Valley 60 or 70 years ago. He was the father of Miles Hawley 
of HorneUsville and Clark Hawley dec. The Van Vechtens, w^ho were origi- 
nal settlers of North Valley, are all gone. Silas Stillman, an early settler of 
Whitney Valley, has two sons Joseph and Silas living in Whitney Valley who 
are old men. Daniel Stillman, another son, died the past year leaving his 
wife and two sons, Horace and Elisha, who live in Whitney Valley, and Dr. 
Stillman who lives in Andover. Horace is now postmaster at Almond. 
Benjamin Van Campen came here accompanied by his widowed mother who 
kept house for him until he married. She died an old lady about 80 years 
ago. Her husband was killed by the Indians when Moses was taken pris- 
oner. Mr. Van Campen kept the first tavern in town, and helped dig the 
first grave. 

The Bath and Clean Turnpike, constructed by the agents of the Pulteney 
Estate, surveyed in 1808 by Oliver Miller, ran through the town nearly east 
and west, and was completed about 1811 or 1812. It was the great thorough- 
fare of immigration to Ohio and other western states. 

For almost a generation no other fanning mills were used in Western 
New York than those made by Hon. George W. Patterson at Leicester. 
Doty's History of Livingston county says, " In the spring of 1821 Mr. Patter- 
son had much wheat in store at Almond where it could not be sold for ready 
money. The cost of taking it to Rochester, the nearest cash market, was 3 



Almond. 563 

shilling's a bushel, and its price there not quite 32 cents, and it was traded 
for boards on the river at Olean. Seven bushels were given for 1.000 feet. 
Mr. Patterson became a raftsman, floated his lumber down to Cincinnati, 
sold it (after taking it out of the water and piling it on the bank) for $7 per 
M in wildcat currency, then worth 60 cents a dollar, but which depreciated 
ten cents a day until it was worthless. On arriving home his answer as to 
what he made was ' I have saved myself.'" Mr. Patterson's successor in 
the manufacture of these mills was Henry G. Taylor, who moved the busi- 
ness to Wellsville, and met a sad death by freezing some years later in the 
north part of the county. — Editor. 

In 1836 the New York & Lake Erie Co. commenced to grade at Almond 
on the first survey. It was then expected the divisions of the railroad would 
terminate here, but in 1850, when the road was re-organized, Hornellsville 
was made the division terminus. 

Of the first settlers of Karr Valley, Matthew McHenry had seven chil- 
dren; one of them Henry McHenry, the oldest, was the first male child born 
in the town, Henry married Mary Rathbun, they raised two daughters, Ann 
and Irene. Ann married Attorney Milo H. Wygant and died long ago; Irene 
married Rev. Wm. Luke and is living. Philip, another son of Matthew 
McHenry, married Sally Karr. They had nine children. Five sons and 
three daughters are living in Almond, V. B. McHenry, Marion, Walter, 
Henry, Elizabeth Mack, Mary Mack and Julia A. Young. Joseph, another 
sou of Matthew McHenry. died about two years ago. He has one son, Lewis, 
and one daughter, Rebecca. They both live on the old homestead in Karr 
Valley. Maria, a daughter of Matthew McHenry, married Joel Karr. who 
now lives in Karr Valley. Mr. Karr is now about 87 years old; his wife has 
been dead for many years. They have 5 children living (one son was killed 
in the army) Henry Karr, Mrs. Joseph Lockhart, Mrs. A. L. Litchard, Mrs. 
Dewitt Berry, Mrs. Henry Woodruff. 

Joseph Coleman, one of the pioneer settlers, was born in Pennsylvania, 
married Mary Doderer and settled in Karr Valley in 1797, had four daugh- 
ters and six sons. Sarah, the first child born in the town, married John 
Mcintosh. They had eight children, four sons and four daughters. Phineas 
now lives below the village of Almond. Hiram, who had been a prominent 
man in town for many years, died in 1894, and one daughter, Jane 
Lincoln, lives below the village. Ann, daughter of Joseph Coleman, mar- 
ried Peter Harman. They have two sons and one daughter now living, 
Amasa and George Harman, and Maria, wife of Nathaniel Perry, all living in 
or near Almond. Benjamin Coleman, a son of Joseph, married Nancy Ma- 
jor. He had one son, Stej)hen M., now living at Almond. Mr. Coleman has 
been a prominent man for many years, and to him we are under obligation 
for some of this family history. His mother, "Aunt Nancy " Coleman died 
the past year aged 85. Matthew Coleman, another son of Joseph, married 
Harriet Rathbun, daughter of Hon. L. S. Rathbun. They had one son, V. 
B. Coleman, now living at Belmont. John Coleman, another son of Joseph, 



564 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

married Jane Marvin. For many years he drove stage in Allegany county. 
Two of his sons, Matthew and Chester, served honorably in the late war. 
Robert H. Coleman married Mary Karr. They had one son, J. W. Coleman, 
lately deceased. Joseph Coleman, another son, married Sally Charles, 
and had one daughter (now Louise Shephard) who lives on and owns the 
farm upon which her grandfather first settled. Irene Wakeman, another 
daughter of Joseph Coleman, is the wife of Dr. Joel Wakeman now living at 
Painted Post. 

Samuel Karr married Margaret Lockhart. They had four sons and 
five daughters, none now living. Walter Karr, taken prisoner by the In- 
dians during the Revolutionary war, married Amy Neal and raised three 
sons and seven daughters, none living. Joseph Karr married Ann Lock- 
hart first and Sally Whitney second, raising two children, Margaret and 
Isaiah by the first wife and Lois, Joel and Joseph by the second. Isaiah 
and Joel were prominent men, both having held the office of supervisor of 
the town. Joel and Joseph are living in Almond. Two sons of Isaiah, Sam- 
uel S. and Charles still live in Almond. Samuel Karr's son James had three 
sons, William, Samuel and Wilson. Samueland Wilson are still living. Wil- 
liam had one son Edward P., now a postal clerk, and two daughters, Gertrude 
and Anna (wife of Bert Dungan), all live in Almond. George and Hiram, 
sons of Samuel Karr, were deacons in the Presbyterian church. Hiram 
died a few years ago, leaving Fred, Walter and Alta, wife of S. S. Karr, who 
live in Almond, and George, who lives in Tennessee. Parker, son of Samuel, 
died several years ago, leaving one son, J. M. Karr, now living in Almond. 
He had two daughters now dead. 

Joseph A. Rathbun had three sons and five daughters. The oldest son, 
L. S. Rathbun, was a man of prominence in town afi'airs and represented the 
county in the legislature two terms. John was a prominent music teacher 
in an early day; the eight children are all dead. 

Stephen Major married Elizabeth Karr. They had five sons and one 
daughter, all dead. One of his sons, Samuel, married Susie McHenry. They 
had three children all long since dead; Thomas married Lydia Hyde, raised 
two sons and two daughters, Charles of Scio, John and Elizabeth of Almond, 
and Mary Hurlburt of Arkport. Walter married Henrietta King. John 
married Cyrena Rathbun, had two sons and four daughters. 

George Lockhart, a pioneer settler, married Major Moses VanCaili|)en's 
oldest daughter Mary, had five sons and two daughters. Joseph is living 
on the old homestead, Alfred is living in Washington, Mary Lockhart, a 
daughter, lives in Almond. One of the daughters now dead married Henry 
Grand all. 

Silas Ferry married Jerusha Goss. They had four sons and three 
daughters, none now living. Elijah and Andrew, grandsons, are living here. 
Mr. Ferry dropped dead while fighting fire in the woods. 

Christopher Saunders, born in Rhode Island, came here about 1814. He 
died not long after.' His widow resided here with her family for several 



Almond. 565 

years. John and Billings Saunders, sons of Christopher, went to Genesee. 
Billings married Mary A., daughter of Ruf us Green of Belfast, settled in 
Genesee, was a farmer and carpenter. He died in 1892. His children 
were Louisa, Eugene and Lois. 

David Vincent, a son of Joshua, was born in Petersburg, N. Y., and came 
to Alfred wiien a boy with Judge Clark Crandall. He married Freegift, 
daughter of Christopher Saunders, and made his home in Almond on the 
farm now owned by his son Joseph. He was assessor several years. His 
sons Nathan H., Eli S. B., and John C. were soldiers in the Civil War. 

Jesse Ferrin, born in Grafton Co., N. H., in 1807, married Angelina 
Sims and settled in Almond in 1841. He combined shoemaking and farming. 
His wife died in 1889 and he in September, 1892. They had three sons and 
one daughter. 

Rufus Whitney, son of Tarbell and Lois Whitney, was born in Pennsyl- 
vania, came to Almond in 1806. His wife was Laura Pickett. Mr. Whitney 
was a well-known carriage maker. He was a deacon of the Presbyterian 
church. 

Thornton F. Curry came from East Sparta to Almond early and settled 
on the farm now owned by his son, Rev. Amos F. and his grandson, Thornton 
F. Mr. Curry was justice of the peace several years, was postmaster at 
Almond many years. He was much interested in educational work. He died 
in 1887, his wife Sarah (Letts) Curry died in 1882. 

Abel HcJsley, son of Samuel, was born in Pepperell, Mass. He married 
Hannah Warner, came to Friendship about 1837, and about 1842 to Almond, 
and located on the farm now owned by his son, Levi W. He was a farmer 
and a cooper. 

David Crandall came to Almond later than those mentioned above, and 
kept a store. He had two sons, Henry, who married Elizabeth Lockhart 
(who died many years ago), and Leonard, who married Frances, daughter of 
Charles Barnard. He also ha;d three daughters, Sarah, wife of Hon. Alfred 
Lockhart of Angelica. Mary, wife of Horace Dart, and Elizabeth, who married 
a Terry and died many years ago. Henry now lives just below the village 
and Leonard in this village. 

Karr Valley cheese factory was built by B. B. McHenry and H. Cole- 
man in 1866. In 1867 Walter McHenry purchased it and is the present pro- 
prietor. It can use the milk of 400 cows, was not running in 1895. 

McHenry Valley cheese factory is owned by E. P. Fenner of Alfred. 
It uses the milk of 150 cows and 53,000 lbs. of cheese were made in 1894. 

The Turnpike cheese factory was built in 1892 by I. N. Helmer. In 1894 
John C. Vincent jDurchased it. The milk of 100 cows is used. 

Bishopville cheese factory, built by A. L, Mcintosh in 1891, uses the 
milk of 250 cows. 



566 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Supervisors. — 1821, Silas Stillman ; 1822, Asa Lee Davidson; 1823, George Lockliart. 
1824-26, Rosvvell W. Knight; 1827, '28, David W, Crandall ; 1830, Elias Hull ; 1829, '31, '33, 
Jesse Angell ; * 1840, Samuel Major : 1842, '67, Isaiah Karr ; 1843, Elias Hull ; 1844, John Major ; 
1846-48, P. A. Stebbins ; 1847, Zabael C. Handy; 1849, Joseph Corey; 1850, '51, Asher C. 
Smith; 1852, John Ferry; 1853, '62, Charles B. Barnard; 1854, '57, '61. Benjamin Coleman; 
1855, Isaac Rawson ; 1856, A. E. Scoville ; 1858, '63, James W. Black; 1859, Joel Karr; i860, 
Peter Lippencott ; 1864, '65, '66, Wesley Brown ; 1867, '68-70, John J. Upson ; 1871-73, Abram 
Wyant; 1874, '78, Elias Hopkins; 1875, '76, R. P. Sisson ; 1877, Charles S. Hall; 1878, Elias 
Hopkins ; 1879, Charles Hall ; 1880, '81, John J. Upson ; 1882. '83, D. C. Hopkins ; 1884, '85, '86, 
Joseph Lockhart ; 1887, '88, Wesley Gibbs; 1889, Walter McHenry ; 1890, '91, Fred Halsey - 
1892, '93, W. C. Benjamin; 1894, '95, E. E. Sisson. 

Totun Officers 1895. — Supervisor, E. E. Sisson ; town clerk, W. H. Hagadorn ; justices D. 
A. Stebbins, J. A. Burdick. George Collins. A. J. Fenner; assessors, William Ostrander, Dart 
Hosley, William White ; road commissioners, Melvin E. Palmer, T. D. Kline ; collector, C. T. 
Emery, Charles Ferry; overseers of poor. Ward Vincent, James L. Sisson, Milton Cottrell ; in- 
spectors of election, ist district. Homer Emery, C. W. Mcintosh ; inspectors, 2d district, Fred Wil- 
cox, Ward Prior ; constables, Milo Tucker, Chas. Easterbrooks, Fred Smith, L. D. Kline, Myrton 
Spencer ; excise commissioners, John J. Upson, Abram Wyant, Albert Burdick. 

Almond Village. — Disturnell's Gazetteer, published at Albany in 1842, 
says the village of Almond then contained about 400 inhabitants, 60 dwell- 
ings, 1 Presbyterian and 1 Baptist church, 2 taverns, 6 stores, 1 gristmill, 2 
sawmills and 1 tannery. The present population is about 600. There are 3 
drygoods and grocery stores, 1 restaurant, 1 drug store, 2 hotels, 2 grist- 
mills, 3 blacksmith shops, 1 wagon shop, 2 printing offices, 2 hardware 
stores, 3 doctors, 1 lawyer and 2 resident ordained ministers. 

In 1868 a brick academy building was erected by a tax of $7,000 upon 
the property of the town and a subscription of $3,000, and a seminary was 
maintained for several years. Among the principals were Rev. Mr. Bing- 
ham, Prof. Crawford and Rev. Rufus King; owing to the bitterness which 
grew out of the taxation to build it the school never prospered and was 
closed and the building sold a number of years ago. The building is now 
owned by H. G. Stillman and used as a storehouse and hall. 

Although at the breaking out of the Rebellion Almond was about half 
Democratic, under the leadership of such Democrats as the Hon. Joseph 
Corey she sent her full share of soldiers to the front. Among the old sol- 
diers who live in this town now are S. S. Karr, who was a long time in prison 
and very severely wounded; George W. Stearns*; Milo Tucker, now deputy 
sheriff; Charles W. Mcintosh, Walter McHenry, who has been supervisor 
of the town; Matthew McHenry, Joseph W. Emery, Walter B. Amidon, J. W. 
Wilner, C. M. Jones, Charles Brink, Sylvanus Whitford, Walter C. Knight, 
Jackson Ayers, H. D. Palmer, Marion McHenry, Charles Humphrey, Col- 
lins Burdick, Mr. Lincoln, John Vincent, Martin Carpenter and William 
Flint, who live in the north part of town, and perhaps others. 

*We have not the names until 1840. 

* George W. Stearns, son of Calvin and Laura (Howell) Stearns, was born April 26, 1846. His father 
came to Almond with his parents in 1820. George W. enlisted in Co. H, 130th N. Y., Feb. 6, 1864, and was 
discharged in June, 1865. He has been deputy sheriff 6 years. His brother, Calvin L. Stearns, was killed at 
Gettysburg. 



Almond. 567 

Jesse Angel came to Almond from Dansville about 1828. He taught 
school and read law in Dansville and was a prosjjeroiis merchant here for 
years. He married Elizabeth Coon. They had four children, all dead ex- 
cept Elizabeth, and Maria A., wife of F. G. Hall, both of Dansville. Mr. 
Angel moved to Dansville in 1855. and died in 1866 about 66 years old. 

Charles S. Hall, son of Justin, was born in Dansville, Nov. 15, 1833. His 
parents died when Charles was 9 or 10 years old and he went to live with 
his uncle Hiland S. Hall, father of F. G. Hall of Dansvihe and H. S. Hall, a 
former resident of Almond. He came to Almond in 1851, w^as in the employ 
of Mr. Angel until 1860. and then went to Dansville as his partner. He was 
one of the executors of Mr. Angel's will, and later came to Almond and spent 
the balance of his life. He married Lucy Ferine of Dansville, w^as super- 
visor of Almond two or three years and represented the county in the as- 
sembly two years. 

E. W. Ewers, for many years a merchant in Almond, came from Warren 
Co., Pa., in 1847. He was a deacon in the Presbyterian church and post- 
master and merchant for years. His first wife w^as Ann Hunter. They had 
two children, one now living in Nebraska. In 1867 he married Mrs. Saman- 
tha Kennedy. Mr. Ew^ers died several years ago, his wife is still a resident 
of Almond. 

Elias Hopkins was born in Luzerne Co., Pa., in 1817. came to Almond 
with his father, Daniel, in 1831. He w^as engaged in the carriage manufac- 
ture for some years. He married Lucinda Forbes and died several years 
ago. His wife lives with her son Daniel C. Hopkins. Mrs. Alvin Berry is 
his daughter. Daniel C. Hopkins, son of Ehas, lives on a farm just below 
Almond in Hornellsville but still owns the farm owned by his father in Al- 
mond and runs a nursery and fruit farm. He was born in Almond and has 
represented it on the board of supervisors. He married Sarah, daughter of 
Henry W. Crandall. 

Manufacturing Tnterests. — The first mill was built in 1808 or 1810 by 
Stephen Webb, and sold in 1812 or 1813 to Joseph Corey, Sr., wiio repaired 
it, and, at his death in 1816, it was sold to^a son-in-law of Mr. Corey, Benja- 
min F. Hayes, who rebuilt it and sold it to Jesse Angel in 1830. Mr. Angel 
sold it to Evan Davis who was a very successful miller. Edward Halsey 
owned it at one time and sold it to J. M. Wetherby who sold it to Ira Cutler. 
It is now gone. It was also owned by Mr. Rudiger and by W. Slingerland 
and also by Wm. Richardson. The Gibbs gristmill was built in 1868 by 
Isaac Rawson, Hiram Mcintosh and Joel Parnsworth. It was burned and 
was rebuilt by Wesley and Jesse Gibbs, and is now owned by O. W. Roby. 
It has 2 runs of stones and 2 double sets of rollers. The upper or re* grist- 
mill has been built a long time and is now run by Mr. Shull. A woolen mill 
was built in the south part of the town by Elisha Potter. It was owned by 
N. G. Hadsell for several years and was burned six or eight years ago. The 
first woolen mill in this vicinity was built in the lower part of the village just 
back and a little below Bennett's hotel, by a man named Fuller, he sold to 



568 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Alexander Heard, and Heard sold to Hiram Cutler about 1822. A large tannery 
was built in 1850 by Chase, Rushmore, Stone & Co. It was converted into 
a mowing- machine factory by Isaac and David Rawson and afterwards re- 
moved to Hornellsville. The building is now used by Charles Humphrey 
as a planing mill. The Richardsons built a large three-story building about 
1860, and employed a large number of men there in shoe manufacturing and 
in tanning for several years. The business was moved to Hornellsville 
by William Richardson who still continues the business there. Thomas 
Richardson from Utica located in West Almond in the thirties, buying a. 
farm on Jersey Hill and was a shoemaker. In 1843 he came to Almond, de- 
voted himself to shoemaking, and by 1850 developed quite a manufactory 
which was conducted by himself and sons William, Washington and A. J., 
with ever increasing capacity for over 30 years. A large tannery was also 
operated by them. The factory is owned by A. J. Fenner and used as a 
general store. The postoffice is now kept in this building. There are lodges 
of Maccabees, E. A. U. and Equitable League of America in existence here. 

Former Residents.- — Charles Barnard was a partner of Jesse Angel for 
some time. He had two daughters, Mrs. Ira Cutler (dec.) and Mrs. L. D. 
Crandall. Clement Curtis for many years the only harness maker in town 
was a partner with A. W. Witter for several years. Mr. Curtis died a year 
or two ago and Mr. Witter is in Minnesota. Mr. Curtis had one daughter, 
Mrs. Hiram Nephew, who lives in Almond. Col. Jesse B. Gibbs in 1831 
located in West Almond on the Turnpike, built a dwelling, opened it as a 
hotel and kept it ten years. He moved to Almond in 1865. He was born in 
Tompkins county in 1809. Mr. Gibbs served five years as supervisor of 
West Almond, eight years as justice of the peace and held the office of colo- 
nel of the militia by appointment from Governor Marcy. He died several 
years ago. He had several children, only one. Wesley, now lives in Almond. 
Asa Sisson, born in Washington county, R. I., in 1814, came to Alfred in 
1830, married Amy Place, later moved to Almond and died here. He had 
one son, Rodman P., who now lives in this town. George Howell kept hotel 
here for years, moved to Wellsville and died there. Ira Dixson lived here 
many years, kept a drug store and died about three years ago. He had two 
sons, Fred and John B., both living but not in Almond. Ira Cutler was a 
prominent resident for many years, and died ten or twelve years ago. J. 
M. Wetherby, for many years a prominent hardware merchant, died about 
one year ago. 

Presbyterian Church. — The first church was organized in what is now 
this town in 1798 or 1799, and was first a Dutch-Reformed church. It was 
organized by the Rev. Andrew Gray and he became its pastor; Mr. Gray 
was the first pastor in Allegany county, and is described by Judge Philip 
Church as "a broad shouldered man of extraordinary muscular power and 
was a very earnest preacher." May 5, 1812, it was re-organized into a Pres- 
byterian church. The difference is not material. There is no doubt but 
that this is the first church formed in Allegany county. At the re-organiza 



Almond. 569 

tion Rev. John Niles of Bath presided. There were 21 members: George 
Hornell, Hornellsville, Christopher and James Hurlburt of Arkport, Henry 
McHenry. Samuel Karr, Enos Seward, Silas Ferry, Nathan Corey, Betsy 
Hu]-lburt, Margaret Karr, Jerusha Ferry, Elizabeth Major, Sophia Hayes, 
Amy Karr, Martha Hornell, Sally Karr, Priscilla McHenry, Philo Moffitt, 
Elizabeth Hurlburt, Amy McHenry and Abigail Hurlburt. These were the 
first members of the re-organized church. Henry McHenry, Samuel Karr 
and Christopher Hurlburt were appointed the first elders. Rev. Robert 
Hubbard was engaged as the first pastor of the re-organized church and 
divided his time between the Almond and Angelica churches until 1S29. Rev. 
James Cahoon was the next pastor and remained until 1831. The Rev. 
Moses Hunter was the next pastor, commencing his labors in June, 1832, 
and continuing until April, 1839. About the first of Mr. Hunter's pastorate 
35 new members united with the church. Mr. Hunter left the church at 
his own request to found a mission institute in Illinois in company with tlie 
Rev. Dr. Nelson, author of "Causes and Cure of Infidelity." Rev. Abial 
Parmelee was the next pastor. (The greatest religious interest in the town 
was under the preaching of the Rev. DeWitt C. Lit tie John, who was after- 
wards tried and deposed from the ministry by the Presbyterian church. 
Mr. Littlejohn was of the rough type of preachers and used very startling 
expressions. At the present time it would be difficult for such a preacher to 
do much good. His trial occurred during the pastorate of Mr. Parmelee.) 
Mr. Parmelee remained until April 1, 1844. The Rev. Dr. Joel Wakeman, 
then a young man, was called as pastor Sept. 1, 1844. He remained as pas- 
tor until 1865. Under his ijastorate the membership and influence of the 
church largely increased. He was the most noted pastor the church has 
ever had. He was an earnest anti-slavery advocate, and contributed largely 
to form the anti-slavery public sentiment which made Allegany county Re- 
publican in 1856. Dr. Wakeman, now living at Painted Post, is 86 years of 
age, and to him the writer is under obligation for some of the early history 
here recorded. Rev. R. G. AUen succeeded Dr. Wakeman, in January, 1866, 
and in 1867, Rev. J. G. Ogden became pastor until 1871, when Dr. Wakeman 
again supplied the pulpit two years. Rev. D. K. Steele succeeded Dr. 
Wakeman for several years. Rev. L. S. Boyce, a young man from Ohio, a 
graduate of Princeton, was engaged as pastor, remained about two years, 
and is now in Nebraska. Rev. Bradbury was the next pastor, remained 
about two years, he died a couple of years ago at Howard. Mr. Bradbury 
was succeeded by Rev. J. D. Hillman who resigned after about two years. 
The church is now presided over by the Rev. Frank H. Bisbee, born at De- 
posit, N. Y., July 31, 1869, graduated from the Deposit High School in 1889, 
afterwards attended Park College and graduated from Auburn Theological 
Seminary May 10, 1894. He was ordained at Cuba, N. Y., by the Presby- 
tery Aj^ril 18, 1894, took charge of the Almond church June 1, 1894 and was 
installed as pastor May 15, 1895. The present membership is 167, with a 
Sunday school of 125, and a Christian Endeavor Society of 40. The first 



570 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

church edifice that originally stood on 'the parsonage lot was built in 1814 
and sold for $25 to the late Thomas Major and is now a part of the barn of S . 
S. Karr. The present church edifice was erected in 1835, enlarged in 1851, 
and again repaired in 1868. 

The Baptist Church was organized by a council of five churches in a 
schoolhouse near the former residence of Mr » Dake in North Valley, Feb. 
15, 1826. Two ordained ministers attended this organization, Elders Jona- 
than Post and Richard Hunt. There were 17 male and 19 female members. 
Rev. Hunt served as pastor until April 1, 1828, and was succeeded by Rev. 
Oviatt, who preached two Sundays in a month. In 1830 Elder Bemis (who 
came to Almond as a missionary, preaching at the schoolhouse) became pas- 
tor for one year and a half; he was followed by Elder Randall, and he by 
Elder Bemis who became pastor a second time. Henry McHenry and David 
Clark were two of the first deacons ordained. L. S. Rathbun was also a 
prominent officer of the church. He also served the county in the legisla- 
ture in 1824. Benjamin Coleman, Esq., was until his death an active mem- 
ber. His brother Matthew Coleman became a member and later pastor. 
The present church edifice was erected in 1833, Mr. George Stevens being a 
leading man in the movement and contributing largely of his own means for 
its completion. It was remodeled and repaired in 1858, while the Rev. J. 
W. Kennott was pastor. Some of the pastors who have served the church 
are Rev. R. B. Carrier and Rev. Charles Smith. Rev. James Summerbell, ^ 
Seventh-day Baptist, supplied for a time. Mr. Carrier was pastor for 1875 
and 1876, and died at Almond in August, 1876, after an illness of two days. 
The present pastor is Rev. J. G. Mahoney, who was born in 1840 in County 
Kerry, Ireland, in the town of Toherbawn, parish of Kimberly, and came to 
this country in 1859, was converted to Protestantism, and after preparing 
himself at the theological school at Rochester, was ordained and has since 
preached at West Almond, Woodhull and Almond. The church was once 
the largest church in the Allegany County Baptist Association. Its present 
membership is 68, with a Sunday school of 56 scholars (an average attend- 
ance of 30), and a Christian Endeavor Society of 25. 

Methodist EpiscojKil Church. — It is not known exactly when the Almond 
Methodist church was formed but probably about 1848, for Hotchkin in his 
History of Western New York speaks of it in that year as being " small and 
weak and without an appropriate house of worship. " This church held its 
first services in the schoolhouse in Almond village. Under the ministration 
of the Rev. Mr. Post from 1856 to 1858 the society erected its present church 
edifice. The church received large additions in the spring of 1878, was re- 
paired and refitted, and again repaired and refitted at a cost of $537 in the 
spring of 1894 under the pastorate of L. A. Simmons, the present pastor. 
It now has 67 members, with a Sunday school of 65, and an Epworth League 
of 52 members. 

A Protestant Methodist church was erected in North Almond Valley by 
a Mr. Bishop, a resident of that section of the town, at his own expense in 



Almond. 571 

1852 and 1853, and at the death of Mr. Bishop his son moved to Friendship. 
It was after the first Mr. Bishop that the name of the postoffice at that place 
derived its name. Churcb services have been maintained in this b^^ilding 
by various branches of the Methodist church ever since. 

Personal .Mention. —Alfred H. Armstrong, a hfelong resident, is now a 
retired farmer and hves in Almond village. Squire J. Bailey was born in 
Almond in 1847, and is a prominent farmer. He married Martha A., daugh- 
ter of Hiram Mcintosh. S. P. Cottrell came to Almond in 1833. is a wool- 
buyer. Orin B. Crandall, a native of Rhode Island came to Almond in 1850, was 
born 1828. Christopher F. Emery, born in Hornellsville in 1841. is a teacher 
and farmer. Andrew J. Fenner, merchant, has been justice several years. His 
father. Isaac, came from Rhode Island about 1818 with a one-horse wagon, and 
settled in Alfred. Mr. Fenner has the largest general store in Almond in 
company with his sons, Lewis and Lavern. N. G. Had sell was a former owner 
of the Pheonix "Woolen Mill. Walter Hosley, born in Friendship in 1840, 
farmer and drover. J. M. Karr, born in Almond in 1850, prominent farmer. 
Joel Karr the oldest native resident of the town has been supervisor and 
justice, is 86 or 87 years old. J. C. Van Dusee is the oldest resident of the 
town. He is about 90 years of age. Samuel S. Karr was born in Almond in 
1840. In 1861 he enlisted in Co D, 86th N. Y., served four years and was a 
long time in prison. He is one of Almond's most prosperous farmers. 
Joseph Lockhart, born in Almond, married Anna, daughter of Joel Karr, in 
1865. He is one of Almond's most responsible farmers. Walter McHenry 
was a soldier, has been supervisor and justice. Hiram Nephew was born in 
Almond in 1844, became clerk for Jesse Angel in his fourteenth year, was a 
partner of the late C. S. Hall and is now a prosperous merchant. Abizer 
PhiUips, born in 1830, is a prosperous farmer of McHenry Valley. Andrew 
J. Root, born in Almond in 1829, married Sophronia Watkins, is a prosper- 
ous farmer. His brother Erastus, born in 1824, is also a prosperous farmer. 
Niles M. Steadman. born in Livonia in 1847, came to Allegany county in 
1849, is a prosperous retired farmer and lives with his mother in Almond. 
Amos Terwilhger, carpenter, born in Almond in 1833. Joseph Vincent, 
prominent farmer, married the daughter of Asa Sisson. Charles White, 
farmer, born in 1845. Cyrus White, prosperous farmer, hves on his farm 
near Bishopville. William White, farmer, is now assessor. C.C.Wilcox, 
farmer, born in Almond in 1828. Abram Wyant was born in 1826, came to 
Almond in 1851, married Maria Bailey of Burns. Mr. Wyant has held the 
offices of supervisor, assessor, and collector. Theodore Wyant. born in 
Hornellsville in 1851, is a prosperous farmer. F. J. Taylor is a merchant of 
Almond. Dart Hosley, drover, is an assessor. E. S. Scholield is druggist. 
John J. Upson, son of Willis B. Upson, who came to Almond in 1831, was 
born in 1833, has been supervisor five terms and has probably held that office 
more terms than any other man in town, was appointed loan commissioner 
for Allegany county by David B. Hill and held the office for nine years, is a 
prominent Democrat. Sylvanus Young, a retired farmer, drove stage from 



572 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



Almond village to the depot for many years, is about 86 years of age. 
Charles W. Mcintosh, born in Almond, Jan. 19, 1837, enhsted August 6th in 
Co. H, 130th N. Y., afterwards transferred to 1st N. Y. Dragoons, was pro- 
moted from first sergeant to first lieutenant for meritorious service in the 
face of the enemy was brevetted captain of cavalry. In 1875 was elected 
school commissioner of the first district of Allegany county, has held the 
office of justice of the peace and other offices and now resides on the farm 
owned and occupied by his grandfather about 1812. Elmer E. Sisson, born 
in Alfred in 1853, was a son of Joseph M. Sisson. His father was a soldier. 
Mr. Sisson has been collector of this town and is now the supervisor. John 
Marvin is a lifelong resident of Allegany county. His mother was Mary A. 
Mc Henry, a daughter of one of the old settlers of Almond. Mr. Marvin is a 
carpenter and lives in Almond village. Charles Karr is a prosperous farmer 
of Karr Valley. Nathan M. Farnum, Esq., born in West Almond in 1835, 
studied law for a time in the office of Martin Grover, at Angelica, went in 1864 
to Idaho and Montana, followed mining for about twenty years, returned to 
Almond about 1889 and is now a farmer. Has been justice of the peace for 
the past three years. Isaac N. Helmer, senior member of the firm of Helmer 
Sisson & Co., dealers in flour and feed, was postmaster at Almond under 
Harrison, and has held assessor and other town offices. The other member 
of the firm is Charles W. Sisson, only son of Rodman P. Sisson. Fred Hal- 
sey, born in Almond, was son of Lewis Halsey. His mother was Angeline 
Allen the daughter of Ebenezer Allen. Mr. Halsey married Miss Sisson, a 
sister of E. E. Sisson, has held the office of supervisor for two years. He is 
a prosperous farmer of McHenry Valley. Wm. Ostrander, a prosperous 
farmer of McHenry Valley, married a daughter of Ebenezer Allen. He has 
been road commissioner several terms and is now assessor. Clinton Moss, 
a prosperous farmer, is an officer in the Presbyterian church. Henry C. Mc- 
intosh is a farmer and prporietor of cider mill. Charles T. Ferry is a pros- 
perous farmer and dealer in hay. John B. Ferry is a farmer and deacon of 
the Presbyterian church. Elmer Ferry was born in Almond, is a prosperous 
farmer. Rodman P. Sisson was born in Allegany county, and has always 
lived here. He is the son of Asa Sisson. He married Carrie Terwilliger. 
They have tw^o children, Charles W., and Mrs. N. F. Allen of Hornellsville. 
Mr. Sisson is one of the most responsible men in Almond, owns two large 
farms, lives in Almond village and has been supervisor several terms. 
Wesley Gibbs, son of Jesse B. Gibbs. is the only one of the Gibbs family now 
in Almond. About 1850 he went to California and spent some time in the 
west. He is a farmer, has been supervisor several terms. James Burdick, 
farmer, lives in the northwest part of the town and is a justice of the peace. 
George M Colhns of North Valley is a farmer, and justice of the peace. 
Phido Pryer, an old resident, has been justice of the peace, now lives in 
Almond village. O. D. Wallace runs a foundry. He has held the office of 
justice of the peace several terms. John Busby and Luther Whitwood are 
blacksmiths. 



Almond. 573 

Some Early and Other Settlers. — Joshua Armstrong, son of Abram, was born near 
Hyde Park, N. Y. He married Susanna Hoag, and came to Almond about 1823. After locat- 
ing some wild land he purchased a lot on what is now Karr Hill on the farm now owned by 
Charles Ferry. Here he lived until 1859 when he moved into North Valley where he died. He 
was in the war of 1812. He had 7 children. Alfred H., his son, married Elizabeth Prescott, 
settled at Almond village, carried on the wagon business until 1861 when he moved to North 
Valley and engaged in farming and wagon making. His wife died in 1858 and he married 
Caroline Bartlettand has 4 children. 

Allen Barber, a native ot Rhode Island, came to Almond when 16 years old on foot. He 
was an early settler and taught school in the log school house. He married Maria Vealey, 
always resided in town. Of his 10 children 4 are living. Alonzo, his son, married Sarah Cot- 
trell and after long years' residence in Almond removed to Hornellsville where he now lives. 
His children are James L., Alta D., and Lewis V. James L. Barber married Luella TefTt and 
settled on the Jesse Tefft farm. His children are Allen W. and Cora E. 

Charles R. Brink, son of Isaiah and Nancy (Reynolds) Brink, was born Dec. 27, 1839, in 
Steuben county. In 1856 his farther moved to Almond. In 1863, Charles R. enlisted in Co. 
C, 109th Reg't. N. Y. V. He was taken prisoner June 17, 1864, in front of Petersburg, and 
was 5 months in Andersonville prison. After his discharge in 1865 he returned to Almond, 
and November 13, married Sarah A., daughter of Richard and Charlotte Lindsley. •Mr. Brink 
has been a farmer, and is now in the harness busine.ss in Almond. His children are George W., 
Willie G., Charles R., Lewis D., Grace B , Grover C, Arthur R., Claude R. 

Lara E. Dungan was born in New Jersey. His wife was Mary, daughter of William Lip- 
pincott. About 1850 he located in Birdsall where he engaged in farming and teaching. He 
was also a printer and bookkeeper. He served as supervisor of Birdsall for a few years. He 
died in January, 1858. His wife died in 1870. They had 5 children: William L , Joseph B., 
David L., Mary B., (Mrs. W. H. Baird), and Lara E. Dungan, Jr., who married Anna, daughter 
of William Karr. Mr. Dungan is a farmer and a teacher. His education was obtained at 
Friendship Academy and Geneseo Normal School. 

Joseph W. Emery, son of Abram K. and Eliza (Thomas) Emery, was born in Hornellsville, 
May 24, 1840. He enlisted in Co. F, (41st Reg't. N. Y. V., in 1862 and was discharged May 
30, 1865. He married Helen J., daughter of William C. and Rachel (Head) Ward of Al- 
mond in 1865 and settled in the town. Mr. Emery has been assessor of Almond 7 years, is a 
member of Doty Post, No. 226, of Hornellsville. He has one son Homer H. 

Moses J. Farnum, son of Calvin, was born in Dudley, Mass, He came to Amity when a 
young man and taught school for some time. He married Charlotte Sampson and settled in 
West Almond, and kept a hotel at what is known as the Half-way House, and also was en- 
gaged in farming. His wife died in 1866, and he died in 1876. Five of their children are liv- 
ing, 4 in Almond, Dr. L. D. P^arnum, Mary, (Mrs. Alvin Pincher), Catherine, (Mrs. John 
Davidson), Nathan M., and Mandana. (Mrs. Charles Headley) in Nunda. Nathan M. Farnum 
was born Feb. 19, 1835. June 5, 1883, he married Frances L. Kline. They have an adopted 
daughter Nellie M. Mr. Farnum resided in the West from 1864 until 1887. He has been a 
justice of the peace 4 years. 

Silas Ferry, a native of Connecticut, married Jerusha. daughter of Philip Goss. He came 
to Almond in 1802. His son John, born in 1796, married Angeline Osgood. He located in 
Almond. His second wife was Sarah Holloway. He had 14 children. Elijah O., his son. 
married Frances M. Benjamin and had s children, Sarah A , Charles T., John B., Hattie B. and 
Nellie G. Charles T. Ferry, son of Elijah O., was born June 9, 1851, married Mary, daughter 
of Thomas Barrett, of Risingville, Steuben county. They have one child Clarence B. Mr. 
Ferry is a farmer and hay dealer. 

Col. Jesse B. Gibbs was born in Lansing, Tompkins county, in 1809. He moved to West 
Almond in 1830, purchased a farm and the old log tavern on the turnpike and later buiit a new 
hotel in its place. He was several times supervisor of West Almond and one year county 
superintendent of the poor. During the Civil War he moved to Almond village where he died 
in 1883. He was a colonel of militia and was three times married: ist, to Esther Williams, 
they had 7 daughters and 2 sons, all dead but Wesley and Mrs. Libbie Carr; 2d, to Mary 
Brown, 3 children, of whom Jesse B. died 1888 in Hornellsville, and Sam. H. and Wm. O. live 
in Nebraska; 3d, to Mrs. Ruth (Cary) Stearns, widow of Calvin Stearns. She resides in Hor- 
nellsville. Wesley Gibbs, son of Col. Jesse B., was born in West Almond in 1833, went to 
California in 1850. In 2858 he married Mary Etta Wright m Almond, and removed to Wis- 
consin where was h;s home for 10 vears and where 4 of his children were born. He then 
returned to Almond his present residence. He has been three years supervisor of Almond and 
has an extensive acquaintance throughout the county. He has 4 living children, Carrie L. 



574 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



(Mrs. Rogers Stillman. of Belmont), Jennie B. (Mrs. John C. Rewalt, of Hornellsville), John W. 
and Fred L.. of Buffalo. 

Zebulon Wright came from Massachusetts to Almond in 1818. took up a lot o'' wild land, 
built his log house and cleared and cultivated his acres. His son Amos, born in 1809, married 
Angeline Trescott and settled on his father's farm. He had 13 children. 

Lewis Halsey come from Long Island to Tompkins county, N. Y., and about 1825 to West 
Almond. He was a farmer and a shoemaker. His son Lewis married Angeline, daughter of 
Ebenezer Allen and located on the farm now owned by his son, Fred Halsey. Mr. Halsey was 
assessor several years, and a successful farmer. His death occurred m 1892, and that of his 
wife in 1882. Their children were Mary J. (Mrs. Nathan B. Tucker), Allen J., of Wellsville, 
and Fred, who married Ella O., daughter of Joseph Sisson, and made his home on the ancestral 
acres. He was supervisor in 1890 and 1891. 

Nathaniel Haskin resided at Brookfield, Madison Co., where he married Lydia Stevens, 
and died there May 15, 1805. They had two children Eri and David. Mrs. Haskin married 
second, Enos Seward and in 1806 moved to Almond. Eri Haskm married ist, Elinor Burdick, 
who died in 1827 ; 2d, Pauline, daughter of Christopher Crandall, who died in 1854; 3d, Caro- 
line, daughter of Reuben Allen. Mr. Haskin was a farmer and settled on the farm where his 
son R. Allen Haskin now resides. His surviving children are R. Allen and Carrie L. 

John »urdick, born in Grafton, N. Y., married Mary Avery, came to Almond and took up 
a lot of wild land where his daughter, Mrs. Lucinda Fuller, lives. 

Joseph Karr, one of the pioneers of Almond coming thither in 1800, married a Lockhart 
and settled on the farm now owned by his grandson, Charles Karr. He was a farmer. His 
children were Margaret, Isaiah, Joel, Louis and Joseph. His second wife was a Whitney. 
Isaiah Karr was born in 1802, married Julia A., daughter of Amos Ellis of Almond. He 
devoted himself to agriculture, was a supervisor and assessor of the town. He and his wife 
were members of the Presbyterian church. He died in 1882 and his wife in 1891. Children : 
Josiah (dec), Samuel S., Ann L., Joseph W. (dec.j, Ruth, Charles, Margaret. Samuel S. Karr 
born in 1840, enlisted in 1861 in Co. D, 86th Regt. N. Y. V. He was taken prisoner at Cold 
Harbor, June i, 1864, and was in prison at Andersonville until September 14th, and from that 
time until December was in various prisons, then was taken back to Andersonville December 
26th, and detained there until April, 1865, when the Rebels evacuated the prison, and Mr. Karr 
took with him, and has now in his possession, the Hag of the First Georgia Artillery. On leav- 
ing the prison he went to Macon where he fell in with the Union Army. He was discharged 
in June, 1865, and returned home. He married Altie, daughter of Hiram Karr. His children 
are Martin J., Margaret D. and L«aiah. Mr. Karr is known as the pioneer potato grower. 
Charles Karr, son of Isaiah and Julia A. (Ellis) Karr, was born Nov. 26, 1849. He married 
Eugenia McHenry, and settled on the old homestead, and tilled the soil. Mrs. Charles Karr 
died in 1884. His children are J. Ellis and W. Rowland. Mr. Karr married for his second 
wife, Ella C, daughter of Peter W. Wakely. Their children are W. Garland and Ethel E. 

Samuel Karr, one of the brothers who were the pioneers of Almond, married Margaret 
Lockhart and settled on the land now owned by J. M. Karr. He had 11 children. His son 
Hiram was born Oct. 4. 181 7, married Harriet L. Hosley, settled in West Almond on what is 
called Jersey Hill. He was supervisor several vears, one of the elders of the Presbyterian 
church and much respected. He died Dec. 8, iSg'i, his wife Feb. 28, 1892. Their surviving 
children are Frederick, George and Walter. Walter Karr married Stella, daughter of George 
M. and Martha A. (Bunker) Franklin of Howard, Steuben county. They have a son, Walter 
G. Mr. Karr is a farmer, one of the elders of the Presbyterian church, and was a justice in 
West Almond. Fred Karr, son of Hiram and Harriet L. (Hosley) Karr, was born May 7, 1854, 
married Sarah M. Sisson and settled in West Almond where he resided until 1884 when he 
came to Almond. His wife died Dec. 25, 1883, leaving one child, Hiram. His second wife 
was Minnie Wyant a daughter of Abram. They have a daughter, Ruth. Mr. Karr has been 
assessor 3 years, is a farmer and potato grower. 

Samuel P. Karr, son of Samuel, was born in Almond Feb. 10. 1810. He married Erilla, 
daughter of Stephen Webb, and settled on the old homestead. He had 3 children, Harriet 
(who married D. Z. Gibbs and died Oct. 13, 1893, by the wrecking of the cars at Jackson), 
Ehza C. (Mrs. Joseph Wheeler died June 26, 1883), and James M. Samuel P. Karr died Feb. 
4. 1878, his wife Feb. 9, 1869. James M. Karr was born May 2. 1850, married Alice E., daugh- 
ter of Samuel and Mary J. Wilcox and settled on the ancestral acres. Their children are Flor- 
ence E.. S. Darwin, Arthur P., Harriet A. and Bertie E. 

William Karr, son of James and grandson of Samuel, was born in Almond in 1830. In 
1856 he married Mary, daughter of Amos and Vashti (Batchellor) Ellis, and settled on the farm 
now owned by his widow and daughter Gertrude. He died in 1890. His children were Anna 
(Mrs. L. E. Dungan), Gertrude and Edward P. Karr, who was born in i8i;8. He married Flora 



Almond. 575 

J., daughter of Samuel M. Parsons, in 1882, and settled in Almond. He was postmaster in 
1884, has been town clerk, and in April 29, 1889, he was appointed railroad postal clerk and 
is now in service. He has a daughter, Mary E. 

Ira Lamphere, son of Jabez, was born in Almond village in 1823. His father was a cloth 
dresser and wool carder. Ira married Emeline, daughter of Asa Phillips of Fremont, Steuben 
county. He located at Arkport, later came to Almond and settled on the Squire Ward farm. 
He is a farmer and carpenter. His 2 sons are Charles H. and Elbert G. Charles H. Lam- 
phere married Elizabeth, daughter of Alfred H. Armstrong and granddaughter of Joshua Arm- 
strong. He settled in Almond, was engaged in cheese making is now a farmer and makes a 
specially of potato growing. He has one son, Ray W. 

George Lockhart, son of Joseph, was born in Billshomy, County Donegal, Ireland. When a 
boy with his father he came to Luzerne county, Pa. He married Mary, oldest daughter of Major 
Moses Van Campen, and came to Allegany county at an early day, and to Almond about 1810. 
He took up land where his son Joseph now lives and was a farmer. He was supervisor of the 
town several years. He had 8 children. Moses Lockhart, his son, born April 30, 1808, in 
Angelica, married Elizabeth Karr, daughter of Samuel and Margaret (Lockhart) Karr, and set- 
tled on part of the old homestead in Almond. He was a deacon of the Presbyterian church. 
He died Oct. 4.1887. His wife Aug. 15, 1872. They had 4 children. Egbert died aged 21 
years, James J. resides in Denver, Col., George married Miranda D., daughter of Darius and 
Malvina (Ranger) White, and lived on the homestead, and was a farmer. He died Sept. 14, 
1887. His children were Mary E. and Margaret, and Nellie Lockhart. Joseph Lockhart, 
another son of George Sr., was born in 1817, married Anna, daughter of Joel Karr. has always 
lived on the ancestral acres. He was supervisor 2 years. His only child is Kate (Mrs. Bert 
Black) of Livonia. 

Lewis Marvin came early from Springwater to Birdsall, where he was a resident until his 
death except a few years passed in Michigan. His first wife was a Miss Tidd. She had 4 
children. His second wife was Mrs. Mary A. (Haines) Karr. They had 5 children. She died 
in 1891. They lived on Jersey Hill. Mr. Marvin was a farmer, and had served as assessor. 
He died in 1864. John i\4arvin, his son, married Mary A., daughter of Jerry Halsey, and has 
one son Jerry. He first located in Birdsall, then in West Almond, and in 1886 moved to Al- 
mond. He is a farmer and carpenter. 

Matthew McHenry, together with two or three others, came from Fishing Creek, Pa,, to 
Almond in the summer of 1796, and took up land in Karr Valley. McHenry made a clearing, 
sowed a piece of wheat and in the fall returned to Pennsylvania. The next spring he returned 
with his wife (Anna Dodderer) and two children guiding a colony of six or seven families. 
After leaving Hornellsville they cut their road through the woods for 10 miles to reach their 
land. When within halt a mile of their destination, their sled, drawn by o.xen, tipped over, and 
a large potash kettle fell on Mrs. McHenry, breaking her leg. The nearest physician was at 
Bath, more than 30 miles away. So M^ijor Van Campen and Rev. Andrew Gray, who were of 
the party, set the bone so well that it made a sound leg, which served her well to a good old 
age. The first white child born in the town was their son Henry. 7 of their 8 children attained 
maturity. Joseph McHenry, their son, was born in 1805 and resided on the farm where he was 
born until his death at 87 years. He married Eurie Charles, 2 of their 7 children, survive, Lewis 
and Rebecca, who reside on the farm taken up by their grandfather 100 years ago. Matthew 
McHenry, the pioneer, died aged 39, of an epidemic fever in 1813. 

Philip McHenry, son of Matthew, was born in 1803, married Julia, daughter of Lazarus S. 
Rathbun, and settled on the farm now owned by his son Matthew. His wife died in 1831 leav- 
ing two children, Varanes B, and Harriet R. (born Nov. 10, 1831, died in 1851). His second 
wife was Sarah, daughter of Walter Karr. Of their 9 children 7 survive: Julia A., Mary A., 
Elizabeth, Marion, Matthew, Waiter and Henry. Mr. McHenry was supervisor of West Almond. 
Varanes B. McHenry, son of Philip and Julia (Rathbun) McHenry was born Nov. 17, 1829. In 
1861, he enlisted in Co. D, 86th New York, and was discharged in May, 1862, by reason of disa- 
bility. He married first, Arabella Charles, (they had one son, Edward R., born Oct. 17, 1872,) 
second, Orpha A. Lord. Mr. McHenry has been a cheesemaker and farmer, and is a member 
of B. Frank Maxson Post, G. A. R. Walter McHenry, son of Philip and Sarah (Karr) Mc- 
Henry, was born in 1844. In 1862, he enlisted in Co. G, i6oth New York, re-enlisted in Co. D, 
1 88th New York. He was discharged in 1865. He was supervisor of Almond in 1889, justice 
of the peace 4 years. He has been a cheesemaker 27 years, and is now a merchant in Karr 
Valley. He is a member of Doty Post, No. 226 of Hornellsville. 

William Root came from Cherry Valley to Almond about 1820. He married Charity Blof- 
fett about 1825 and made his home on the farm now occupied by his son Erastus Root. He 
was an industrious farmer and justice of the peace several years. He died May 14, 1876, his 
wife died in October, 1876. They had 8 children. Erastus Root was born in 1826, married 



576 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Nancy Matterson and settled in town. Of their 4 children 2 are living. Mrs. Root died in 
1871 and Mr. Root married Mrs. Ann (Watkins) Stoddard. She died in 1884, and his third 
wife was Mrs. Lucy E. (Wolfe) Pendel. Mr.. Root has been assessor 6 years. 

George Sisson moved from Westerly, R. I., to Allegany county about the year 1829. He 
married Hulda Bliven in Rhode Island. They had 10 children, viz., Alonzo C , Elizabeth, 
Joseph M., Abby J., John F., George, Albert, Lucinda, George S. and Martha A. 

Joseph M. Sisson married Mary J. Allen of Alfred. Their children were Elmer E.,Ella O., 
Cora B., Calla L. 

John F. Sisson, born 1834, married Rachel Hoard of Alfred in 1865. They had 5 children, 
viz., Ira F., J. Leon, Leora E., Elnora H., H. Lena. J. Leon married Ella Potter of Alfred. 
Leora E. married Ezra P. Hamilton of Alfred. 

Elmer E. Sisson married Adda B. Thurston of Wellsville in 1882. To them were born 3 
children : J. Arthur, Howard S. and H. Lloyd. 

Sion Sisson, son of George, was of English descent. He married Betsey Welding, and 
came from Westerly, R. I., to Alfred, about 1820. He was a farmer. Two of his sons 
remained in Rhode Island. Four children came to Allegany county, George, Asa, Betsey (Mrs. 
Thomas P. Meriott), and Content (Mrs. Ezra Potter). Asa Sisson, son of Sion, came with his 
father, married Anna, daughter of Rodman Place and settled on the old farm now owned by 
Henry Allen. He was a large farmer, a man well-known and respected, served as assessor and 
road commissioner. His children were: Rodman P., Maria E. (Mrs. Joseph Vincent), Susan 
M., and Sarah M. (Mrs. Fred Karr dec). Rodman Place Sisson was born June 30, 1837. He 
married Carrie, daughter of Cyrus Terwilliger. and made his permanent home in Almond where 
he has been a large farmer and been prosperous. He lias been supervisor two years. His 
children are Charles W. and Nellie G. (Mrs. N. F. Allen of Hornellsville). 

Mrs. Miranda Dean Stevens and Mrs. Sarah Lefferts Farnum on their mother's side trace 
back to 1630, when John Winthrop, first governor of Massachusetts Bay, landed at Salem with 
900 persons. Among them was Capt. John Gallup (Galloupe), who settled in Boston. His 
son, John W., married a relative of Gov. Winthrop, became captain, and moved to Pequot, 
Conn., where he was killed Dec. 25. 1675, in the swamp fight in Northern Rhode Island with 
the Narragansett Indians under King Philip. His seventh child, Elizabeth, married Henry 
.Stevens of Stonington, Conn. Their children were : Thomas, Richard. Henry, Elizabeth and 
Lucy. Familv tradition says that Henry Stevens was the oldest son of Nicholas Stevens an 
officer under Cromwell who fled to America to escape Royalist persecution. In 1768 a census 
of Stonmgton gives Henry Stevens and wife among the 43 inhabitants, and they were members 
of the Congregational church organized there June 3. 1674. Then- son Thomas married Mary 
Hall May 26, 1702. Their children were Thomas, Phineas, Uriah (born Jan 21, 1708), Andrew, 
Benjamin, Samuel. Zebulon, and, by second wife, Jesse; all born at Plainfield, Conn, The 
father died at Canaan in 1752. Uriah married his cousin Sarah, daughter of Richard Stevens 
(born May 4, 1708). Their children were: Uriah, Jr. (born Aug. 27, 1730), Mary, Sarah, Lucy, 
Phineas ; all born at Canaan, Conn. Uriah was captain in the French war, a member of the 
Susquehanna company and one of the commissioners appointed to purchase the Connecticut 
claim from the Indians. He died October, 1764, at Canaan. Uriah W. married Martha W. 
Rathbun. Children : Sarah, Benjamin (died in continental service), Polly, Uriah (died in con- 
tinental service), Martha, John, Elijah, Elias, William and twin sister, and a second Benjamin. 
The Stillwater N. Y. colony was formed by 84 Canaan people, 9 of them of the Stevens family. 
Uriah, one of this number, was one of the Susquehanna Co. and in 1773 moved to Wilkesbarre, 
then Westmoreland, was a town officer at the first election. The Connecticut settlers were 
driven from their Susquehanna lands by a court decision depriving them of title, and Uriah 
settled in Canisteo, Dec. 25. 1789. His son Elijah married his cousin Abigail, daughter of 
Jedediah Stevens. Their children were : Nathan, Benjamin, Rebecca, Eliza, Narcissa, Mary A., 
Cynthia, Maryette. Rebecca married Charles Lefferts and had children : David B., Abigail S., 
Sarah (Mrs. Dr. Farnum), Christina and Emerette. Eliza married Oliver Dean (dec.) of West 
Almond. Children: Miranda, Julia A. (Mrs. David Baker), Abby E. (Mrs. Edwin Baker), 
George, Ina (Mrs. Levi Hosley), Mary J. (Mrs. Elisha Stillman), Amelia (Mrs. Wm. Hurd). 
He left one daughter Miranda (Mrs. Marion BuUard of Wellsville). 

Daniel Dean, born Dec, 25, 1781, came at an early day from New Jersey to West Almond. 
He was an agent for Judge Church and much respected in town. He was a member of the 
Presbyterian church. He married first, Nancy Sampson, second Mary Jewell. Oliver Dean, 
his son, was born Dec. 25, 1806, died Nov. 18, 1894, married Jan. 16, 1832, Mrs. Eliza (Stevens) 
Bostwick. Of their 7 children, Miranda S. Dean married Henry Easterbrooks, who settled in 
West Almond. He was born Dec. 19, 1824, and died Jan. 14, 1877. They adopted 3 children. 
He was justice of the peace several years and a steward of the church. Mrs. Easterbrooks 
married 2d, Dec. 26, 1880, Rev. A. Sornborger, who was born May 7, 181 5. When about 30 



Almond. 577 

years old he felt called to preach, having the " gift " and preached nearly every year until his 
death, July lo, 1888. For many years he worked at his trade of blacksmith, and preached 3 
times every Sunday. He belonged to the Protestant Methodist Church Conference. Sept. "26, 
1892, Mrs. Sornborger married Rev. J. C. Stevens, who was born Dec. 25, 1836. He attended 
the Wesleyan Methodist Seminary 2 years, and for 25 years has been a member of conferences 
of the Methodist Episcopal church, and in 1895 was made a supernumerary. Mrs. Eliza 
(Stevens) Bostwick Dean was born May 5, 1807, married Burr Bostwick about 1826; their 
children were Harriet and Sela. By her later marriage to Oliver Dean she had 7 children, and 
at her death, March 5, 18S5, she had 8 living children, 22 grandchildren and 25 great-grand- 
children. " And her children rise up and call her blessed." 

Silas Stillman, son of Joseph, was a native of Rhode Island. He emigrated to Allegany 
county, took up some 250 acres of uncultivated land in Almond, formerly Alfred, and cleared 
the farm now occupied by his son Silas. Mr. Stillman carried on blacksmithing with his farm- 
ing. He was supervisor of his town, member of the Seventh Day Baptist church, and a well- 
known townsman. His wife was Rebecca Peckham. Of their 10 children 4 survive : Joseph, 
Silas, Eusebia and Richard. Joseph Stillman, born in 1817, married Huldah Potter and resided 
in Hartsville, Steuben county, for 1 1 years when he purchased a part ot the old farm where he 
has since lived. His children are Fanny H. (Mrs. Phmeas Shaw) and Asher Stillman who mar- 
ried first, Fanny M. Burdick. She died in 1873, and he married second, Luella, daughter of 
William Davie of Friendship. Mr. Stillman has 3 children. Flora G. (Mrs. Henry Allen), Grant 
S. and Earl D. Elisha P. Stillman, son of Daniel, was born Oct. 11. 1837. He acquired his 
education at common schools and Alfred University. He married Mary J., daughter of Oliver 
Dean of West Almond and settled in Whitney Valley. He has been a school teacher, farmer, 
and for 4 years a justice of the peace. His children are Fanny, Selah and Lavern. 

Daniel P. Stillman, son of Silas Stillman, was born Jan. 15, 181 2. He married Fanny M. 
Potter of Hartsville, N. Y., June 16, 1836. Soon after his marriage, he settled in Whitney 
Valley which was his permanent residence during the rest of his long and happy life. Here were 
born his three children, Elisha P., Edwin M. and Horace G. His death, March 6, 1895, re- 
moved the oldest native resident between Alfred and Hornellsville. Many years of his early 
life were devoted to school teaching. Occasionally a gray-haired person will now be met who 
distinctly remembers his first school e.xperience under his tutelage, but, like their instructor 
most of them have gone to the great beyond. He was a carpenter and joiner as well as farmer- 
and many buildings of his construction dot the vicinity of his former home. A frame building 
was considered in that early day in great advance of the log house in which he was born. In 
religious views he was liberal, in politics. Whig, Republican, Liberal, Democrat. A great reader 
with good memory he took a lively interest in public affairs to the end. The confidence and 
esteem in which he was held by his townsmen was evinced by his successive elections to the 
office of assessor. His life e.xemplified the hardy, self-reliant, industrious, early settler. 

Horace G. Stillman, son of Daniel P. Stillman, was born July 3, 1854. He married Dec. 
28, 1876, Nellie A. Warfield of Andover. Their two children are Bessie M. born July 25, 1880, 
Pearl M. born Nov. 4, 1891. Mr. Stillman is a market gardener and iceman. Incidentally he 
holds the oflice of postmaster at Almond, under the administration of Grover Cleveland. It has 
been his aim by the aid of greenhouses to successfully compete with the South in the produc- 
tion of early vegetables. In connection with his ice trade, he has a " cold-storage " located 
in the " brick " where thousands of dozens of eggs are annually stored during the warm season. 
Mr. Stillman has been favored with town office and upon the whole is a busy, cheerful man and 
enjoys life because he is busy. 

Frank J. Taylor, son of William L. and Martha (Brown) Taylor, was born May 3f, 1858, 
in Manlius, Onondaga Co. In 1871 his father moved to Almond. March 29, 1882, Frank J. 
married Delia E., daughter of George and Wealttiy (Pt)tter) Helmer, and made his residence in 
West Almond. About 1886, he removed to Almond village and engaged in merchandising. 
He keeps a general store and has lived here since. He has served as town clerk 3 years. Mr. 
and Mrs. Taylor have had 5 children, Millie F. (dec.) Claude G., Clara M. (dec), Ralph M. and 
Earl F. 

Jesse Tefft. Jr. his wife, Dency Bliven, and three small children, came from Rhode Island 
to Almond in March, 1831, settling upon a farm on the old turnpike road, three miles west of 
Almond village. The journey was made by sailboat from Stonington, Conn., to Albany, thence 
by packet on the Erie canal to Hammondsport, where teams met them from Almond ; his fa- 
ther, Jesse Tefft, Sr., having preceded them in 1830. They encountered a terrible storm on 
Long Island Sound, were in great danger of shipivreck, and were three weeks in getting from 
Stonington to Albany. The oldest child, Mrs. Dency McHenry, now living in southwestern 
Iowa, .writes of early life in Almond. " Those were the days of privation and hardship. Being 
•'he eldest in a family of twelve children, my time was spent in caring for the younger ones. 



578 History of Allegany Counts, N. Y. 

and as years passed I learned to sew, spin and weave, as did all girls in those days. When I 
see young people now going to parties, picnics and the theatre, amusements of which I never 
even heard until after I was married, I often wonder if they are half as contented and happy as 
I was, though all my spare moments were spent at the spinning wheel or loom." While the 
farm was being cleared and put under cultivation, the family expenses were largely met by the 
sale of homemade goods ; linen table-cloths and towels, grain-bags which found a ready market, 
woolen blankets, socks, etc. These were taken to Mt. Morris in the spring and fall of each 
year and exchanged for groceries and family supplies. It was a home of industry, frugality and 
gradual prosperity. The father died in 1861, aged 63. The mother, "Aunt Dency " to all, 
lived to be nearly 86. Of the large family of children, eight lived to mature years. Mrs. Susan 
Goff died in Almond, and J. Willard in Janesville, Minn., and six yet remain: Mrs. Dency Mc- 
Henry of Dow City, Iowa, Mrs. Amy Whitticar of Janesville, Minn., Clark H. of Richmond. 111., 
Christopher and William S. of Almond and Mrs. L. A. Platts of Alfred. A large family re- 
union was held with Clark H. Aug. 30, 1893, in connection with visiting the World's Fair. 

Willis B. Upson, son of Uriah, was born in Canisteo. He married Eliza, daughter of Capt. 
John Jamison a revolutionary soldier. In 1828 he came to Almond and cleared and settled on 
the farm where his son John now lives. He was a man well known and respected. He died in 
1889, his wife in i860. The only survivor of his 6 children is John Upson, who was born in 
1833, married in 1869, Helen, daughter of Thomas Cheever. Their children are Madeline, Leona 
and Homer W. Mr. Upson has always lived on the old homestead, was supervisor of the town 
5 years, and loan commissioner from 1886 to 1895 

Capt. Zenas Ward, son of Zenas Ward, born m Connecticut, married Elizabeth M. Delaney. 
He came to Almond from Cayuga Co. in 1823 and settled on the farm now owned by the Curry 
family. He was a farmer. Of his ten children 5 are living : Cordelia (Mrs. Lewis Wollever), 
Jonathan, Jackson, Nancy J. (Mrs. Dr. D. Van Vechten of Ohio), and Angeline, who married 
Charles W. Van Vetchen, son of Jerry. C. W. Van Vechten was born in Montgomery Co., he 
came here early with his parents. He settled on the farm owned by Newton Karr. He was 
road commissioner. He died in 1885. Ashbel Ward, son of Zenas, was a native of Connecticut. 
He located here, married Electa Brown, had 4 sons and 4 daughters and died in Almond. 

James W. Wilner, son of David H. and Lydia (Baker) Wilner, was born in Otis, Berkshire 
Co., Mass., Aug. 17, 1829. In 1851 he came to Mt. Morris, N. Y. In 1857 he married Harriet 
M. George. In May, 1861, he enlisted in Co. H, 27th Reg't, N. Y. V. In September, 1864, he 
re-enlisted in Co. F, 136th Reg't, N. Y. V., and was discharged June, 1865. In 1865 he came 
to Birdsall, and in 1867 to Almond. In 1869 he moved to Wyoming, Pa. He returned to 
Almond in 1891 where he now resides. His first wife died in 1872 and he married Addie E. 
George. Mr. and Mrs. Wilner are members of the M. E. church. The surviving children are 
George M. and Charles H. 



Andover. 579 

A/SDOVE-R. 

CHAPTER LI I. 

BY T. A. BURDICK. 

THE TOWN of Andover was formed from Independence, Jan. 21, 1824. 
During the same year a portion of it was re-annexed to Independence, 
and a part of Wells ville was added on Nov. 22, 1855. Andover has an area of 
23,756 acres. The soil is admirably adapted to grazing, and the principal 
agricultural industry has for many years been dairying. It has long held a 
place in the front rank of the cheese-making industry. Within twenty years 
potato culture has been quite extensively and profitably engaged in, and in 
recent years the production of hay for market has ]3roved remunerative to 
the farmer. In the early history of the town the manufacture of lumber 
was the principal, indeed almost the only, cash-paying business the inhabi- 
tants could follow, and the old residents declare that there was very little 
cash about that. Of the large acreage of pine once standing but little 
remains. 

Nathanael Dike (fiee page 43) is claimed as the first settler, More than 
to any other man, perhaps, Andover owes its record of local history to Seth 
Baker, Sr., son of Alpheus Baker, who kept a journal, a transcript of which 
was in the possession of Michael Hann. All who knew Mr. Baker declare 
him to have been a man of unimpeachable veracity; and to that journal, 
under such indorsement, the compiler of this sketch has in great measure 
pinned his local historical faith. Mr. Baker says that Nathanael Dike was 
the first man who settled in the town; coming in and settling on the "'Leon- 
ard farm " in Elm Valley in 1795. Stephen Cole, of Tioga Co., Pa., settled 
in Elm Valley in 1796. His son Daniel, born Feb. 18, 1797, was the first 
white male child born within the limits of Allegany- county. He died on the 
farm where he was born, aged 73 years. About the same time James Dike, 
from Tioga Point, Pa., settled near Dike. There is a question which was 
the earlier settler. Cole or Dike. Benjamin Brookins and John T. Hyde 
came from Vermont soon after and settled near Cole and Dike. Thaddeus 
Baker, Sr., previoirsly a surveyor for the Pulteney estate, brought his wife 
and six children in June, 1807, and located on 400 acres of land, a part of the 
present site of Andover village, selected by him when surveying the tract. 
He died in 1845. Alpheus, his brother, settled on 200 acres adjoining Thad- 
deus on the south, in July, 1807. They were originally from Poultney, Rut- 
land Co., Vt. Seth Baker, the chronicler of local events, a native of Gran- 
ville, Washington county, was an early settler two miles west of the village. 
He was a millwright and carpenter. Joseph Baker and Joseph Woodruff, 
also of Granville, accompanied by their families, came Oct. 15, 1810. When 
Alpheus Baker, in 1792, surveyed what are now the towns of Almond, Al- 



580 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



fred, Andover and Independence, Joseph Baker had accompanied him as 
axman. Reuben Castle, a son-in-law of Thaddeus Baker, Sr., arrived with 
his wife, Jan. 25, 1812. Barnabas Eddy came in from Fabius, Onondaga 
county, in 1818. Edwin Brown, then ten years old, accompanied him. 
Brown settled on lot 108, remaining there until 1872, when he removed to 
the village, where he died on July 2, 1893. Robert R. Boyd, a blacksmith, 
a native of Orange county, came in from Canandaigua April 26, 1820, and lo- 
cated on lot 40. He cut the road from Elm Valley to his lot where he lived 
in a tent until he could roll up a cabin. He died on the farm Aug. 7, 1855. 
His son, Robert R., a prominent citizen, a man of broad intelligence and rich 
in historical reminiscence, is the present owner and occupant of the farm. 

Among those who were early settlers or who became residents prior to 
its organization as Andover, Stephen Tanner, Belah Holiday, Levi, Saun- 
ders and Solomon Pingrey are named, and the family names of Gilson, 
Allen, Converse and others are prominent. Peter Bundy from Otsego, N. 
Y., settled near the village and was a farmer and lumberman. His son 
George came soon after his father and was also a farmer and lumberman. 
His wife was Roxana Bradley. Abner BuUard came in 1820 from Canan- 
daigua. settled 2i miles north of the village on a farm and died in 1837. Two 
sons, Henry and Elijah, live in town. Jason Hunt from Vermont came in 
1826 to the site of the village, and after some years purchased Ostrander's 
store and was in merchandising over 50 years until his death in 1888. His 
son Jason A. has been a merchant for many years, town clerk, collector, etc. 
James Adams came from Vermont in 1824 and settled two miles south of the 
village. In 1820 Hazard P. Clarke, of Brookfield, Madison county, located 
on lot 96, where he lived until 1845, when he removed to the village. He 
was a blacksmith. In 1823, John S. Baker came in from Genoa, Cayuga 
Oo., John Swink from Northumberland Co., Pa., and James Adams from 
New Hampshire. LeRoy C. Davis came in 1824. The Pingreys were then 
here. 

Samuel B. Clarke, with his sons, Stephen S. and Jeremiah, came in 
1825. Jason Hunt came to Andover in 1826. He was born in FranMin Co. , 
Mass. Few men among the early settlers have more firmly stamped the 
impress of their individuality upon this community. He was an energetic 
and successful business man, one of the founders of the Methodist Episcopal 
society, and one who did much in molding and fostering religious sentiment. 
He voted the first Anti-Slavery ticket of the county, and fought " the sum 
of all villainies " until there was "no slave beneath the starry flag." He 
died in the village, Oct. 21, 1888, having been prominently connected with 
the business interests of the town 57 years. Abel Doming came from Cort- 
land county in 1829, and J. M. Goodwin, from Lansing, Tompkins county, in 
1830. 

Luther Strong came from the Lake Champlain region in 1815, according 
to Mr. Baker, and erected a sawmill about half a mile southeast of the village 
in 'the fall of that year. He added a gristmill in 1817, and still later, a dis- 



Andover. 581 

tillery. F. W. Beers' History of Allegany County names this as "the first 
mill of any kind in Andover " ; but Seth Baker avers that " Nathanael Dike, 
Sr., built the first sawmill in town, on the creek south of the Leonard House 
in 1808." These men endured the hardships and privations incident to 
pioneer life. Those who settled during or before 1816, "the year without 
a summer," suffered greatly as an outcome of that disastrous season. An 
old farmer, narrating the events of that year, said: "June was the coldest 
June ever known; frost, ice or snow almost every night, destroying every- 
thing that frost could kill. Snow fell three inches deep in Central and 
Western New York. July was cold and frosty; ice formed as thick as window 
glass. August was still worse; ice formed half an inch thick and killed 
almost every green thing in the country." R. R. Boyd has seen, on more 
than one occasion in later years, spring wheat killed by frost when it was 
all headed out. Men now living recall the fact that seed corn (grown in 1815) 
sold for five dollars a bushel in 1817. 

The record of the first town meeting, held at Luther Strong's house, 
March 2, 1824, gives the names of these persons as the towm officers elected: 
Supervisor, Thaddeus Baker; clerk, Amherst Kingsbury; assessors, Caleb 
Kingsbury, Hazard P. Clark and Luther Strong; highway commissioners, 
Joel Norton, Ichabod Babcock and Horace Mallory; overseers of the poor, 
Joseph Clark and Caleb Kingsbury; school commissioners, Luther Strong, 
Barnabas Reed and Asa S. Allen; inspectors of election, Asa S. Allen, John 
S. Baker and Barnabas Reed; collector, Roswell Adams; constables, Roswell 
Adams and Jacob Clark. 

Supervisors from 1824 to 1896 were: Thaddeus Baker, Asa S. Allen, 
Sidney Frisbey, Hiram W. Boyd, Jason Hunt, Joseph Krusen, Elijah Hunt, 
Jr., Geo. W. Estabrook, John J. Harman, Albro Bundy, Sidney Magee, 
Menzo Bundy, John Prest, Lyman D. Cobb, Abram C. Frisbey, George A. 
Green, Frank S. Clarke, Thomas N. Boyd. 

The oldest burying ground is at Elm Valley, where are buried three in- 
fant daughters of James and Phebe Dyke. Nathanael Dike, Sr. , was buried 
there in 1813. Daniel Cole is also buried there. The early interments in the 
village w^ere on John Goodwin's lot, among them being children of Alpheus 
Baker, Joseph Woodruff, Luther Strong and Benjamin Brookins, buried 
there between 1809 and 1817. What has for years been the "Lever Ceme- 
tery " was the burial place of Seth Baker, Sr., who died about 1822. The 
Bundy cemetery was set aside as a burying ground by Peter Bundy, in 1845. 
The Catholic cemetery is located half a mile east of the village on the Green- 
wood road . 

RELIGIOUS SOCIETIES. 

Presbyterian Church. — On July 14, 1824, a meeting was held to effect an 
organization under the rules of the Congregational church. The original 
members were: Joseph Woodruff, Samuel Mallory, Amherst Kingsbury, 
Asa S. Allen, Lydia Allen and Abigail Strong. The record says: "Asa S. 



582 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Allen was chosen deacon and clerk, and the society took the name of the 
First Congregational church of Andover. The first house of worship was 
dedicated in 1840. It stood on the present site of the Andover State Bank. 
It was burned in 1866. The present church building was dedicated Jan. 23, 
1868. The name of the society was changed to the First Presbyterian 
church of Andover. The Presbyterian Harvest Home, an annual festival of 
this society usually held out-of-door late in August, is the public event of 
the year to more than those under whose supervision it is conducted. It is 
liberally patronized by all (regardless of denominational affiliations) who ap- 
preciate intellectual enjoyment and are not indifferent to the blandishments 
of skillful caterers to the i3alate. The oratory, the music and the toothsome 
viands make the event a fruitful source of revenue to the church. The 
clergymen who have served the church are: Revs. Silas Hubbard, Jabez 
Spicer, Asa S. Allen, Benjamin Russell, Jacob Russell, James Conley, S. A. 
Rawson, Charles Kenmore, A. H. Lilly, J. Blakestop, J. R. Johnson, J. Wyn- 
koop, T. Kemp, Mr. Nutting, J, S. Bingham, A. C. Titus, J. Lee, B. G. Van 
Cleve, G. M. Janes. The membership in 1895 was 140. The value of church 
property is about |9,000. The work of the church is ably supplemented by 
the Sunday school with 125 members and 8 teachers, under the superintend- 
ence of W. W. Miller, and theY.P. S. C. E., numbering 75, Raymond E. 
Smith, president. 

The First BajMst Church was instituted Dec. 31, 1829. Of the constituent 
members — of whom there are said to have been twelve — only three names 
are obtainable, those of Philip Wardner, Ambrose Coats and Samuel Rush. 
Prior to the erection of the present house of worship (which was dedicated 
Nov. 30, 1853), religious services were held in schoolhouses and in the Con- 
gregational church. The Baptist society's edifice cost |3,000. The pres- 
ent value of church and parsonage is $6,500. The present membership is 
124. Of the pastors in charge up to date, in many cases only the family 
names are procurable. They are: Revs. Bemis, Randall, Haskins, Chad- 
wick, Conwell, Colby, Clark, Call, Newland, E. F. Crane, R. A. Washburn, 
Wilson, Shotwell, F. F. Sherer, P. M. McLeod, J. J. White, Smith, Taylor 
Crum, Charles Smith, S. Child, L. C. Davis, Wayne Brewster. 

M. E. Church.— The first class of the M. E. Church in the township was 
held in a log schoolhouse at Shoemaker's Corners (Elm Valley) in 1833. The 
class was organized by Rev. G. W. Vaughan, of the Amity circuit. Rev. 
Gleason Fillmore was presiding elder. The members were: Stephen Tan- 
ner, classleader, Hannah Tanner, Joseph, Sarah and Celeste Baker, James, 
Lois and Permelia Cole, Elizabeth, Sarah and John Pixley, Eliza Ann Hen- 
derson, Nancy Carson and Eunice Adams. In May, 1840, Jason Hunt was 
converted and marched forth, a mail-clad warrior, battling for " the faith 
delivered to the saints." The formation of the M. E. Class of Andover 
Corners, of which he was the first leader, occurred in that year. On the 
pages of the class-book for 1840 are found the names of Jason, Ebenezer, 
Sophia, Gratie and Mrs. Hunt, William and Mary Hardy, John and Cynthia 



Andover. 583 

Baker, Judah Hawkins and wife. Jason Hunt had charo-e of the ckiss until 
he became local preacher. The M. E. Society of Andover was organized by 
Rev. Alvin Torrey, wife and sister, Rev. Samuel Nichols, preacher in charge, 
Jason Hunt, William Hardy and Barnabas Eddy. The Congregational so- 
ciety had raised and inclosed their house of worship, and in that incomplete 
and unfurnished building the Methodists organized and held their first meet- 
ing. In the same year, mainly through the efforts of Jason Hunt and J. S. 
Martin, the first meeting house of the society was built at a cost of $750, and 
paid for before its dedication in 1846. That building was sold to Hale Davis, 
and, in 1862, a second edifice was erected at a cost of about $12,500, and was 
dedicated. This building is now the house of worship of the Seventh Day 
Baptist church of Andover. The present handsome brick church of the 
M. E. Society was erected in 1874-5, the expense of building and furnishing 
approximating $14,000. The present value of church property is about 
$12,000. The membership is 225. The Sunday school, under the conduct 
of Erwin D. Baker, numbers 170, including 20 officers and teachers. The 
Epworth League, of v/hich Raymond E. Smith is president, numbers 90 and 
is a valuable auxiliary to the work of the church, as also is the Junior League 
numbering 50, under the direction of Miss Fannie Spaulding. 

Tlie Seventh-day Baptist Church was organized Oct. 7, 1871. The wide- 
spread religious awakening of the winter of 1870-71, which added largely to 
the membership of all the Protestant religious societies of the town, had 
extended to not a few persons of Sabbath-keeping views or proclivities. 
Under the ministry of Rev. A. H. Lewis (to whom and his people both the 
Baptist and Methodist societies had given kindly welcome in their res]3ect- 
ive houses of worship) these persons of the Seventh-day Baptist faith entered 
into covenant bonds: W. W. Crandall, Euphemia E. Crandall, Wm. B. Clarke, 
Relief A. Clarke, Clara C. Livermore, Grace A. Everett, Welcome B. Bur- 
dick, Anna L. Ware, Oliver D. Burdick, Varnum G. Hall, T. A. Burdick, 
Permelia Burdick, Agnes E. Burdick, Annis Z. Langworthy, Daniel L. Lang- 
worthy, Frances Langworthy, Nathan Lanphear, Susan Lanphear, Mary J. 
Lanphear, Jonathan Lanphear, Esther Lanphear, N. Mortimer Lanphear, 
Ellen G. Lanphear. Jason M. Beebe, Clarissa Beebe, Nathan L. Beebe, Clark 
Burdick, Phebe Burdick, Edward Green, Tacy Green, Maxson A. Green, 
Ellen A. Green, Olivia Green, Russell P. Green, Harriet Green, Samuel Lee 
Burdick, Elsie Davis. Leroy C. Davis, Lucy Davis, Nora L. Green, Mary A. 
Cook and Geo. E. Cook. The present church edifice was purchased from 
the M. E. Society for $3,000, the present value of the property. The mem- 
bership is 'JO. The pastors have been: Revs. A. H. Lewis, T. L. Gardiner, 
T. R. Williams. Jared Kenyon, E. A. Witter, E. H. Socwell, Joshua Clarke 
and L. A. Platts. The Sabbath-school, D. L. Langworthy superintendent, 
has 4 teachers and 30 members. 

St. John's {Rcmian Catholic) Church was formed in 1852. The original 
members were: John McCarthy, Edward Welsh, David Magner, John Mag- 
ner. Patrick Harrington. Wm. Daly, Anthony, Dean Patrick Dean, Richard 



584 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

McAndrew, John Tulis, Hugh Doran, Peter Garvin, Francis McGinty, 
Thomas O'Donnell, Michael Lynch, John Pardon, Patrick Pardon, John 
Padden, Michael Cannon, Patrick Lavelle, Anthony Dixon and their families, 
reaching in round numbers 150 persons. The first church building was 
erected in 1855. The original cost of the church was $600. During its 
occupation by the society about $1,200 more were expended in improve- 
ments. With the growth of the population of the village and the settlement 
in the parish (notably on South Hill) of adherents of the Roman Catholic 
faith, came urgent need of a more commodious and convenient house of 
worship; and the Rev. D. Walsh, the energetic and zealous clergyman in 
charge of the parish, undertook to supply the need. Fertile in the establish- 
ment of resources, untiring in effort, eminently public-spirited and enjoying 
the hearty co-operation and support of his congregation, he planned and 
erected the present beautiful brick structure known as the Church of the 
Blessed Sacrament. The corner stone was laid in 1885, and the building 
was dedicated Nov. 8, 1886. The original cost of the church was $12,000. 
The clergyman's residence and other property are valued at $5,000. 
The number of members is 425. The parish priest is Rev. T. A. Murray. 

Oil and Gas. — No event in the history of Andover has contributed more 
to its material advancement than the discovery of natural gas and oil, the 
result of a "wildcat" venture. The first production was in the neighbor- 
ing town of Greenwood, which constitutes a part of " the Andover oil field. "^ 
Late in December, 1888, gas was struck at a depth of 648 feet and the oil 
sand, 28 feet in depth, at 718 feet. When first drilled this well gave a gas- 
pressure of 400 pounds. The outcome of this venture stimulated effort and 
other operators were soon drilling with varying degrees of success, but 
generally the results were sufficiently remunerative to advance production 
and make it an important factor in the town. * The Mutual Gas Company^ 
Limited, capital stock $50,000, was incorporated Feb. 2, 1889. The officers 
were: President, W. J. Penny, Cuba; vice-president, E. C. Bradley, Wells- 
sville; treasurer, J. B. Bradley, Bolivar; secretary, A. W. Smith, Cuba. In 
the spring of 1889 gas was introduced into the village. The Mutual Gas 
Company now owns, within the town lines of Andover, three wells on Ellery 
Updyke's (lot 115), three on J. J. Warfield's (lot 115), one on Eugene War- 
field's (lot 115), one on P. Hyland's and three on the Wm. Hunt farm. The 
National Transit and United Pipe Lines have established a pump station on 
the Josej)h Crosby farm (lot 115) for the reception of the oil from these wells. 
The company holds leases of 7,000 acres in one body. The oil of this field is 
a very superior article, having a gravity of 42^, a quality heretofore 
unequaled in the Allegany field, and the gas (under favorable circumstances) 
is also a very superior article. The oil sand averages 30 feet in thickness. 
It is chocolate colored and is similar in appearance to the oil sand of 
AUentown. 

* At the time of going to press the Andover oil field has been ascertained to cover a large pool under the 
surface of not only Andover and Greenwood but of portions of Independence, Willing and Wellsville. 



Andover. 585 

Elm Valley Cheese Factory was built in 1868 by Sylvester Hamilton, in 
1881 U. W. Stratton purchased it, enlarged it in 1883. He uses the milk of 
about 600 cows, and in 1893 made 179,000 lbs. of cheese. 

Andover Cheese Factory, located at Andover, has been owned and oper- 
ated by William T. Snyder since 1888. The milk of 500 cows is used. 

South Andover Cheese Factory located in the south part of the town, was 
built in 1891 by the Coyle Brothers, J. L., F. H. & P. B. Coyle. The latter 
is the present owner. The milk of 260 cows can be used, and in 1894, 85,000 
lbs. of cheese were made. 

Union Soldiers. — When the war-cloud burst over the nation in i86i, when party lines for 
the time disappeared and the North rose as one man and marched out to battle for the old flag 
with all its stars, no town in the county furnished more men in proportion to its population for 
the Union armies than Andover. It is utterly impossible to obtain the names of all who went 
from this town to uphold the honor of the flag of the free heart's only home, but among 
them were these : Edward L. Seaman, Jesse C. Green, Thomas R. Adams, Elisha A. 
Baker, Ira Baker, George«H. Brown, John H. Barker, John C. Burdick, Francis M. Deming, 
Marshall B. Davis, Alonzo B. Green, Elan Green, William Hardy, Daniel Hall, Daniel H. 
Kemp, John Letts, William H. Lewis, George Porter, Bradley W. Smith, George Skinner, 
Philetus Studor, Samuel Wheaton, Perry G. Wells, Ebenezer Youngs, Joseph Bradley, 
Fulton Bundy, Lucien W. Brundage, Clark Boyd, Co. H. 85th N. Y. V.; Charlts F. Davis, 
Henry G. Davis, Co. C, 85th N. Y. V.; Homer D. Perry, Robert R. Parshall, Andrew Lovell, 
James Woolhiser, Co. C, 57th N. Y. V.; Eldon H. Chase, B. C. Smith, Oscar Remington. 
Levi Baker, John Howe, Roswin Hardy, LeRoy Greene, Robert Ware, Myron Tanner, 
Loren Cole, George L. Morgan, Levi W. Dodge, William E. Callen, Lorenzo D. Henderson, 
Benjamin Smith, Daniel W. Green, Jared Deming, Daniel T. Graves, Erwin D. Beebe, 
Jason B. Kaple, Theodore Livermore, Francis Marion Wood. Jonathan W. Houghtaling, 
Co. E, 1st N. Y. Dragoons; Thomas N. Boyd, 141st N. Y. V.; William Jones, John Williams, 
Samuel Hunt, Edward Jones, James Jones, Joseph Jones, Nelson Burdick, John BuUard, Co. I, 
i6oth N. Y. v.; Abraham Hamilton, Restin Kemp, Co. H, i6oth N. Y. V.; Almond Crandall, 
Co. B, 189th N. Y. v.; Edwin M. Livermore, Co. C, 170th N. Y. V.; William P. Beebe, Amos 
Raplee, Louis Hulser, Stephen A. Davis, Co. E, 93d N. Y. V.; Chauncey Baham, 5th N. Y. H. A. 

Andover Village is located on Dike creek in the central part of the 
town. It was settled in 1807 by Alpheus Baker. Thaddeus Baker very soon 
thereafter (probably in the same year), located on lands now embraced in 
the north end of the village; and the hamlet which was the chrysalis of the 
present handsome and thriving place Avas, in an early day, locally known as 
Bakertown. The first schoolhouse in the town was a log structure, " rolled 
up " in 1822. Within what are now the corporate limits there were at that 
date but four dwellings, only one frame building, the property of Asa S. 
Allen, Andover's first merchant and an early pastor of the Congregational 
church. There was little to hasten the growth of the village during the first 
half of the century. The products of the sawmills were necessarily drawn 
by horse teams long distances to market or to streams sufficiently large to 
admit of rafting the lumber to large towns. With the construction of the 
Erie Railway the village began to look up somewhat; but until within the last 
thirty years it made slow growth, when it assumed considerable importance 
as a shipping point for hay and potatoes and as the center of quite extensive 



586 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

manufacturing industries, notably those of cheese and leather. In 1866, fire 
destroyed thirteen buildings, including the Presbyterian church, two hotels, 
one manufactory and several stores. With the rebuilding of the burned 
district came a better class of buildings, and the first mansard roof in the 
village covered Andover's first noteworthy public hall, in the Ellis block on 
the corner of Main and Greenwood streets. The infusion of new blood into 
the mercantile body and the advent of progressive manufacturers — immedi- 
ately following the fire — gave an impetus to the growth and prosperity of 
the village, the momentum of which, under favorable financial and commer- 
cial conditions, has since met with no retardation. 

The lines of the corporation inclose one square mile having a poj^ulation 
approximating 1,000. The assessed valuation is $217,510. One of the best 
water works «systems in Western New York, supplying pure water from 
never -failing 'Springs, for household purposes and affording adequate protec" 
tion against loss by fire is the property of the village. It was constructed 
in 1893, at a cost of $20,000. The streets, many of which are shaded by well- 
grown trees, intersect each other at right angles and are lighted by natural 
gas from the plant of the Mutual Gas Company. Natural gas is also, in great 
measure, the fuel of the villagers, and the churches, stores and many resi- 
dences are lighted by it. 

The village contains the depot of the Erie Railroad, offices of the West- 
ern Union Telegraph, Postal Telegraph, and New York and Pennsylvania 
Telephone companies, two banks, three insurance agencies, five churches, 
two hotels, two boarding houses, one opera house, one printing house, one 
foundry, one machine shop, one tannery, three sawmills, two gristmills, three 
lumber and builders' material yards, two hardware and agricultural imple 
ment houses, two furniture and undertaking stores, two harness-makers' 
stores, one jewelry store, five dry goods stores, eight groceries, three fruit 
stores and restaurants, one merchant tailor, one clothing house, one bakery, 
four millinery stores, four drug stores, two variety stores, one laundry, two 
wagon manufactories, one cheese factory, one wholesale cheese house (em- 
bracing commodious cold storage), one grain and feed store, three livery 
stables, draying outfits, three markets, one greenhouse and several shoe- 
makers' and blacksmiths' shops. The promotion and advancement of the in- 
dustrial and commercial well-being of the place is earnestly sought by a 
thoroughly competent and energetic board of trade, thus officered: Presi- 
dent, E. J. Atwood; vice president, A. M. Burrows; treasurer, W. B. Bundy; 
secretary, H. A. Benedict; directors, J. Driscoll, L. C. Van Fleet, H. P. Ben- 
ton, J. C. Ross, Ward Oatley. 

The first village officers were: President, Patrick Cannon; clerk, H. C. 
Norris; treasurer, W. B. Bundy; street commissioner, Abram Slocum; col- 
lector, Calvin Slocum. The present 1895 village officers are: President, 
James Owen; clerk, H. C. Norris; treasurer, W. B. Bundy; street commis- 
sioner, Wm. F. Snyder; collector. Homer D. Perry. 



Andovek. 587 

The Union Graded School was instituted in 1869. Its first board of edu- 
cation was: President, Daniel S. Bradley; secretary, Flavius J. Baker, M. 
D.; trustees, W. W. Crandall, M. D., Alonzo Porter, B. Phinney and B. P. 
Brown. The first collector was Edwin Everett, the first treasurer H. P. 
Benton. The original cost of the school building (which since its erection 
has been enlarged and materially improved), including the site, was |3,100. 
Prom its inception the school has been prosperous and steadily progressive. 
It has had these principals: William Wright, James Hargraves, William P. 
Todd, James Sutherland, Alonzo H. Lewis, Silas G. Burdick, Clinton C. Mc- 
Dowell, Milo M. Acker, A. D. Howe, A. C. Mitchell. T. H. Armstrong and 
Burdett B. Brown. The present principal is Benjamin G, Estes. Dec. 22, 
1892, the voters of the district, by a majority of 76, passed favorably upon 
the question of placing the school under the visitation of the Regents of the 
University of the State of New York, and the board of education was author- 
ized to raise a sufficient sum of money, not exceeding $1,000 (less the value 
of books and mechanical appliances then on hand), to purchase the necessary 
apparatus. Connected with the school is an alumni association (a perma- 
nent organization incorporated under a state charter), and a well-ordered 
literary society, "The Columbian Lyceum," supported by voluntary con- 
tributions of the pupils. The academic department is well patronized by 
non-resident pui3ils. 

The Andover State Bank, incorporated Jan. 1, 1894, with a paid-in capital 
of $25,000, transacts a genei^al banking business on the most liberal terms 
consistent with conservative banking. The directors (1895) are: B. C. 
Brundage, president; James Owen, vice x^resident; J. M. Brundage, cash- 
ier; G. M. Barney, Frank S. Clark, Harrison Mourhess. The bank has a 
fine brick building (located on Main St., and completed Jan. 1, 1895), which, 
with the lot, furniture and fixtures, approximates in value $8,500. The pri- 
vate bank of A. M. Burrows, of which W. B. Bundy is cashier, was estab- 
lished in 1884 by D. S. Bradley, for years one of the leading merchants. 

Attorneys. — Van Fleet & Phillips, Crayton L. Earley. See chapter on 
" Courts and Lawyers. " 

Physicians.- — See pages 220 and 221. The present ones are E. M. Still- 
man, F. E. Comstock, Norman P. Brainard and Charles W. O'Donnell. . 

The Local Press. — The first newspaper published in the town was the 
Andover Advertiser. In the late " sixties," E. S. Barnard, of Angelica, pur- 
chased the plant of the Allegany Radical from Rev. S. B. Dickinson, of Bel- 
mont, removed to Andover and established the Advertiser. As a local journal 
and an exponent of the principles of the Republican jmrty it met with fair 
success, attaining a considerable circulation. It was published here four or 
five years and then removed to Cuba. The Ci^izenand the Express, published 
respectively by S. A. Clark and S. H. Jennings, were short-lived local 
papers. In 1887, Hamilton C. Norris and George L. Tucker came in from 
Belmont and established a book and job printing office, and on August 31st 
of that year issued the first number of the Andover News. In 1888, H. C. 



588 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Norris became sole proprietor. From the date of its first issue to the pres- 
ent day the Neivs has been closely identified with the interests of the 
town. It did not, with a grand flourish of trumpets, announce that it had 
"come to stay" — it stayed. It stood up for the town. It ably advocated 
every measure calculated to enhance the well-being of the community, to 
advance the interests of its patrons. It advocated the incorporation of the 
village, the institution of an academic department in the union school, the 
construction of water works which should be village property, the organi- 
zation of a fire department, the promotion of mercantile and manfacturing 
industries and all measures calculated to develop the healthy and progres- 
sive growth of the village and township. The News has now a weekly circu- 
lation of about 1,000 copies, nearly half of the issue being delivered at the 
home postoffice. Its advertising columns plainly evidence the appreciation 
of the business men of Andover of its merit as an advertising medium. 

Lam%)hear''s Mill at Andover was built by Walter Lamphear. It comprises 
a grist, saw and j^laning mill. The gristmill uses the roller process and the 
sawmill cuts about 500,000 feet of lumber annually. A mill was burned on 
this site. May 20, 1879, and immediately rebuilt. 

Cochrane^s Cheesebox and Barrel Factory was established by Charles 
Cochrane in 1890; the cheese box department in 1894. In 1892, 5,000 barrels 
and 15,000 cheese boxes were manufactured. 

Tlie Citizens Hose Company No. 1, was organized in December, 1893. It 
numbers 25 men. In each of the two years since its formation it has won 
the first prize in the competitive prize drills at the Allegany County Fire- 
men's Annual Convention. The ofiicers of the company are: President, C. 
W. O'Donnell; vice president, A. B. Burrows; secretary, L. A. Burrows; 
treasurer, James Pardon; auditor, Timothy Hyland; trustees, E. J. Atwood, 
P. C. Lynch, W. H. PhiUips; foreman, W. B. Bundy; assistant foreman, Rob- 
ert O'Donnell. 

Societies, etc. — Andover Lodge, No. 558, F. & A. M., held its first com- 
munication, working under dispensation, Aug. 1. 1864. The charter mem- 
bers were: A. E. V. Durand, Cyrus Clark, George W. Estabrook, Sidney 
Magee, William B. Clarke, J. T. Mourhess, Joseph L. Williams, Alonzo Por- 
ter, Jacob N. Elwell and Fernando S. Maxson. The charter bears date of 
June 16, 1865. The 1895 officers are: G. B. Proper, W. M.; Orange Smith, 
S. W.; E. F. Stearns, J. W.; H. C. Norris, Sec; Edward J. Atwood, Treas.; 
Elisha R. Carpenter, S. D.; George N. Martin, J. D.; John Swain, Chap.; 
C. B. Lever, S. M. C; E. B. Rollins, J. M. C; J. C. Cartwright, Tyler. 

Hawthorn Circle, G. L. S. C. — Miss Amy Spaulding (Mrs. A. J. Travis), 
by reading in the Chautauqua College course alone in 1882 led the forlorn 
hope in Andover of that great disseminator of culture and refinement. As an 
outgrowth, in 1883, what has since been known as Hawthorn Circle, C. L. S. 
C, was organized, and has since blessed and benefited not less than 60 per- 
sons, 35 of whom have graduated in the Chautauqua course. Mrs. H. A. 
Benedict was its president in 1895, and Mrs. W. H. Phihips its secretary. 



Andovek. 589 



Edward L. Seaman Po-sf, No. j^81, G. A. R., had as its charter members: 
H. W. Sanford, George A. Green, J. C. Green. C. H. Richardson, John C. 
Cartwright, E. R. Carpenter, D. D. Remington, T. N. Boyd, R. Hardy, L. W. 
Dodge, Seth S. Baker. N. Baker, E. H. Chase, A. C. Crandall. Geo. W. Cran- 
dall, W. J. Deming, S. A. Fosbury, N. P. Wood, Isaac Smith, John Angood, 
Levi Baker, Timothy Baker, John Howe and George W. Wescott. The char- 
ter was granted May 7, 1884. The 1895 officers are: T. N. Boyd, commander; 
J. C. Cartwright, sen. vice commander; A. C. Crandall, jun. vice command- 
er; P. Barrett, officer of the day; Jesse C. Green, quartermaster; Homer D. 
Perry, officer of the guard; Newell Baker, chaplain. 

Mutual Tent, No. IS, K. 0. T. M., was organized Nov. 4, 1885. The char- 
ter members were: A. W. Coon, Hiram D. Smith, George B. Herrick, Wil- 
liam H. Phillips, Lewis C. Gonter. Stephen P. Robinson, Charles W. O'Don- 
nell, Peter M. Swink, John Benson, Montel W. Davis, Anthony O'Donnell, 
Samuel C. Kemp, Charles E. Baker, Charles Cochrane, B. C. Cole, John A. 
Travis. The 1895 officers are: T. Hyland, commander; O. E. Vars, lieut. 
commander; A. O'Donnell, record keej)er; J. J. Wariield, chaplain; C. W. 
O'Donnell. physician; P. M. Swink, sergeant; D. P. Regan, master at arms; 
L. Brundage, 1st master of guard; Frank P. Cole, 2d master of guard; 
George Rogers, picket. 

The Euterpe Club, a double male quartet instituted in June, 1893, is a 
vocal organization of rare merit and is wellknown in Allegany and adjoining 
counties. It is composed of the following named young men: James P. Can- 
non, leader; Arthur B. Burrows, business manager; T. K. Regan, Frank 
W. Burrows, John E. Cannon, Miles H. Herrick, William C. Cannon and E. 
A. Richardson. 

Tlie Excelsior Band was organized as it now exists in December, 1895. 
It is one of the best brass bands in the county and is liberally patronized. 
Its officers are: President, Ernest Smith; leader, Frank Bloss; secretary, 
Henry Carr; treasurer, Alvin Clark; business manager, Arthur L. Jones. 



Early and Later Settlers. — Hiram P. Benton, son of Eden, was born in Franklin- 
ville, June 9, 1830. When he was 4 years old his father moved to Livonia, and Hiram resided 
there until 1852. when he located in Oramel and made his home there until 1864. Then he 
came to Andover to establish himself as a druggist and continued in trade until 1875, when 
his health becoming impaired, he was obliged to relinquish active business until 1884, when he 
became a dealer in coal and lumber. Mr. Benton married in i860 Hannah B. Spaulding. She 
died in 1887, and he married second, Ann E. B ddwin. He has been a member of the school 
board several years, served as town. clerk and highway commissioner for a term of years, and 's 
a member of Andover Lodge No. 558 F. & A. M. 

Robert R. Boyd, born Sept. 23. 181 7, was son of Robert R., a native of Orange county, 
who came to Andover in 1819 and made the tirst clearing on the farm on lot 40 still owned by 
his son, cutting his road from Elm Valley through the woods. Robert R. Boyd, Jr., has al- 
ways lived Oil the old farm, and married in 1842 Delana A. Green (now dec), daughter of 
George, and had 7 children, and was highway commissioner, several years. 

Thomas N. Boyd, son of Robert R., was born in March, 1844. He was a soldier of the 
Union Army during the war of the Rebellion, enlisted in Co. F, 141st N. Y. Inf., and served in 
the 1st Brig., 1st Div., 20th Corps, and marched with Sherman to the sea. He saw the destruc- 
tion of the city of Atlanta and took part in the campaign of the Carolinas. He married Fran- 



590 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

ces L. Morgan and has one child, Ethel. He has been assessor three years, justice eight years, 
supervisor four years and commander of Ed. Seaman Post, No. 481, G. A. R., for seven con- 
secutive years. He is a farmer and stock breeder and keeps a large dairy, is a fine rifle-shot, 
and especially so at the longer ranges of 600 to i ,000 yards. 

Hiram W. Boyd, oldest son of Robert R. Boyd, Sr., born at Duanesburg, N. Y., in 1805, 
came here with his father, married Mary N. Younglove, eldest daughter of Timothy, and was 
13 years supervisor and justice of the peace 21 years. He died Oct. 4, 1876, leaving one son 
and six daughters, Sylvia I., who died at Los Angeles, Cal.; Clark Y., unmarried ; Esther C. 
married in 1854 John B. Martindale, who was born March 5, 1827, in Homer, N. Y., and came 
to Andover in 1852; Angehne (Mrs. John C. Cartwright); Mrs. Eunice Barber, of Decatur, 
Mich. ; Electa (Mrs. Bilhngs Hall) ; Theoda E. (Mrs. J. C. Greene) ; all except Mrs. Barber res- 
idents of Andover. 

Daniel S. Bradley, son of Stephen, was born July 6, 1821. In early life he was a farmer 
and, in 1848, married Emily Stenson, by whom he has two children, Roxie E. (Mrs. A. M. 
Burrows), and Mary B. (Mrs. W. W. Miller). In 1855 he came to Andover, rented a farm for 
three years, and in 1859 engaged in merchandising which he pursued many years. Later with 
his sons-in-law he established a bank. Mr. Bradley was for a long time deacon of the Baptist 
church. He died Feb. 23, 1888. 

Geo. E. Brown, son of Edmond Brown, was born in Independence, March 2, 1846. His 
father was a farmer, and George lived on the farm until he was 22 years old. He married 
Martha J. Updyke and settled in West Union, where he lived about 12 years, when he moved 
to Andover, purchased a cheese factory, and was in cheese manufacturing for 5 years. He 
then bought a grist and sawmill, and built a new sawmill. These buildings were destroyed by 
fire, March 26, 1893, and he rebuilt them the same year. Mr. Brown is a Freemason, and the 
family are members of the M. E. church. His children are Frank, Eddie and Lottie. 

Fulton Bundy, son of Albro, was born in Andover in 1843. In November, 1861, he enlisted 
in Co. H, 85th Regt. N. Y. S. V., and was corporal. He was nearly ten months and a half in 
rebel prisons, and was reduced to a skeleton. He was discharged April 21, 1865. He married 
Phebe Burrows, their children were Bessie and William. Mr. Bundy was clerk of Alpena 
county, Mich, for several years. He died in 1873, his widow survives him. William B. Bundy, 
son of Fulton, was born Dec. 12, 1866. When he was 15 years old he entered the employ of 
the First National Bank of Wellsville, remained 3 years and a half then came to Andover, and 
when 19 years of age was made cashier of D. S. Bradley & Co. 's Bank, and has been there 
since. Mr. Bundy married Margaret, daughter of Delos Leonard. He was the first treasurer 
of Andover village, and was re-elected treasurer of the village in 1894 and 1895. 

William H. Burrows, born in 1 846, son of Periam Burrows, married Ella Van Sickle, daughter 
of Peter Van Sickle. He was engaged in merchandising for several years. His death occurred 
April 30, 1887. His wife died Jan. 13, 1887. They had one son, Lowell A. Burrows, who was 
born Feb. 8, 1868. He was educated at the Andover Union School, was graduated from the 
New York College of Pharmacy in 1889, and in 1890 established himself as a druggist in An- 
dover. He married Frances, daughter of Stephen and Harriet (Deming) Robinson. 

Augustus M. Burrows, son of Periam and Sophia (Cook) Burrows, was born Nov. 27, 1848, 
in Andover. His father, son of Aaron, a native of New Jersey, came here about 1840, bought 
and rebuilt the gristmill which he conducted for years. He was a civil engineer, did much sur- 
veying all through this part of the county, and was a justice for many years. He and two of 
his sons died within six weeks of typhoid fever in 1858. Augustus was ten years old at his 
father's death, and when 15 left school for a clerkship in Dr. Hammond's store. Four years 
later he changed this position for a clerkship in Daniel Bradley's store which he held ten years, 
then was partner for two years. In 1879 with W. W. Miller he formed the mercantile house of 
Burrows & Miller, and continued in trade until 1884, when with Daniel S. Bradley they engaged 
in banking as D. S. Bradley & Co. In 1889 Mr. Burrows purchased Mr. Miller's interests in 
store and bank, and from that time he has conducted both establishments. His wife was 
Roxana Bradley. They have two sons, Arthur and Frank. 

Patrick Cannon was born in County Leitrim, Ireland, March 4, 1833. Losing his parents 
when very young he came to America in 1849, lived two years at East Hamburgh, N. Y., 
learned the tanner's and currier's trade. He afterwards worked for Aaron Rumsey in Buffalo, 
then in tanneries in Cleveland, Lockport, Medina, Rochester, Chicago, etc., pursuing this voca- 
tion 20 years. In 1855 ^'^^ came to Almond, worked for the Richardsons in their tannery until 
1865, being its foreman eight years. Coming to Andover in 1865, he worked at his trade a few 
years, then kept a restaurant until 1888, when, in company with his sons John and James, he 
engaged in merchandising, which he still continues. He was the first president of Andover 
village, and was for 12 years member of the school board. He married Mary Delaney in 1866. 
They have five children : John, appointed postmaster at Andover in 1894 ; James, now in busi- 



Andover. • ^ 591 

ness with his father ; William, a graduate of Alfred in 1894, now professor of physics and 
chemistry in Seton Hall Colleg-e, South Orange, N. J.; Mary and Frank. 

Hazard P. Clarke, son of Stephen, born in Rhode Island in 1784, came to Brookfield, N. Y., 
with his parents in 1794, attained his majority in Brookfield and married Phebe Whitford. In 
1 82 1 he came to Andover, bought land south of the village, built a log house, made a small 
clearing, and returning to Brookfield brought his family here with a pair of oxen. In connec- 
tion with developing his farm he did custom blacksmithing in a small shop. He had 10 chil- 
dren. William B. Clarke, his oldest son, was born Nov. 14, 1807, came to Andover with his 
parents and has ever since been a resident of the town. He learned blacksmithing of his 
father, and worked at the trade over 60 years, retiring in 1892 when he was 85 years old. He 
has often been in office, was county superintendent of the poor two terms, has been county 
excise commissioner and constable, road commissioner, and justice of the peace. He married 
Relief A. Woodcock of Swanzey, N. H. One child, Whitford, who died in infancy. The 
family are Seventh-day Baptists. 

Samuel B. Clark came from Madison county in 1825, bought land in the south part of 
town, and had previously married Tacy Maxson. Their son Jeremiah, who was six weeks old 
when the family came to Andover, has always been a resident of the town. He has a farm of 
400 acres, is a large breeder of Holstein cattle, and it is said brought the first registered cattle 
of that breed to Allegany county. 

Frank S. Clark, son of Decatur M. and Jane (Sherman) Clark, was born in Independence, 
Aug. 18, i860. He worked with his father manufacturing cheese, and in 1882 settled in An- 
dover and went into merchandising under the firm-name of D. M. Clark & Son. In 1885 he 
purchased his father's interest and continued the business until 1891 when he sold out. From 
1883 he had been engaged with Jesse Snyder in the cheese trade under firm-name of Snyder & 
Clark, and since 1891 he has given his whole attention to that business. He was supervisor in 
1889 and 1890. He married Lillian, daughter of Welcome and Sarah (Vaughan) Burdick 
Sept. 29, 1885. 

Martin L. Comstock was born in Mayville in 181 8. He learned the wagon maker's trade 
in Otsego county. In 1840 he settled in Andover, and carried on the wagon making business 
until his death in 1883. He married Naomi Adams Whittemore, widow of Thomas Whitte- 
more. They had 10 children. D. James Comstock, son of Martin L., was born in Andover, 
Aug. 10, 1848. He married Emma L. Brownwright, widow of H. T. Brownwright. Mr. Com- 
stock learned his trade of his father, and was a partner with him, and has continued the busi- 
ness since his death. He is a member of Lodge No. 558 F. & A. M., and the family belong to 
the M. E. church. Thomas M. Comstock, son of Martin L., was born Dec. 7, 1845, in Andover, 
and learned the trade of tanner and currier at which he worked for 18 years, but since 1886 he 
has been engaged in farming. He married, first, Elmira J., daughter of Francis Nichols. Chil- 
dren : Flora E., now (1895) clerk in Chicago post-office, and Jennie. Mrs. Comstock died in 
1878, and Mr. Comstock married, second, the widow of Edwin Baker. Francis E. Comstock, 
son of Martin L. See page 221. 

Nelson Ray Crandall, son of Russell, born in Rhode Island in 181 1, came from Madison 
county about 1825 to Andover, and married in 1836 Laura Clark, daughter of Hazard P., and 
settled on the farm now owned by Maxson A. Crandall his son. He bought 50 acres and 
added to it till he owned 585 acres, was a farmer and veterinary surgeon, and died February, 
1889; his wife February, 1890. Children : Aurelia A., Ellen, Clarissa A., Sherman G., William 
R., Maxson A. Sherman G. Crandall was born Feb. 20, 1845. Attending Alfred University, 
he engaged in teaching. In 1870 he married Leonore G., daughter of Benj. F. Wood, and 
located on his present farm. He is a veterinary surgeon and farmer, and a deacon of the 
Seventh-day Baptist church of Independence. Maxson A. Crandall was born March 17, 1851. 
In 1872 he married Mary S., daughter of E. R. Crandall of Genesee. 

Rev. Jonathan Crandall, son of Cary, born in Rhode Island Jan. 18, 1788, married Betsey 
Burdick born in 1791, and became a Methodist minister. They first settled at Pharsalia, N. Y., 
and in 1820 came to Almond, where he preached, made spinning wheels, furniture and shoes 
and did blacksmithing. He died in November, 1836, his wife Oct. 15, 1866. Oliver P. Cran- 
dall, youngest son of Rev. Jonathan's seven children, was born Nov. 29, 1832 in Almond, mar- 
ried in 1856, Emily M. Dunning, of Belmont. Two children : Ella (Mrs. Marsh Bundy), and 
Carrie E. (Mrs. Dr. E. J. Laughlin), who lives in South Dakota. Mr. Crandall, after clerking 
some years in Alfred, in 1855 opened a store there. During his first year of mercantile life his 
store was burglarized and over $10,000 worth of goods (all the property he owned) was stolen. 
Borrowing money he successfully continued trade for 12 years, selling out in 1868. He then 
opened a store in Andover and conducted it six years. In 1875 ;he bought a stone quarry at 
Mainsburg, Pa., and has since been engaged in taking contracts for laying stone walks with the 
stone produced by his quarry. He has done elegant work for the best citizens in many places 



592 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

in Western New York, Westfield, Dunkirk and Fredonia being among the number. He has 
been town clerk and is a member of Andover Lodge No. 558, F. & A. M. 

Jonathan Davis came from Brookfield, N. Y., to Allegany county in 1822, bought a farm 
in what is now the town of Independence and cleared the land. He was a blacksmith by trade. 
His son, Leroy C. Davis, was born July 10, 181 3. In 1835 he married Lucy Allis. They had 2 
sons, Uriah and Charles F. Davis and settled in Andover where they have since resided. Uriah 
Davis was born Nov. 30, 1837, on the farm he now owns in Andover. Charles F. Davis was 
born Oct. 18, 1839, in Andover. He married Augusta A., daughter of Charles E. Campbell 
and made his home with his father. In 1861 he enlisted in Co. C, 85th Regt. N. Y. V., was 
taken prisoner April 27, 1864, held in Andersonvilie prison 163 days then taken to Florence 
S. C, whence he escaped Sept. 15, 1864, and for 15 days and nights lived upon raw greencorn 
and sweet potatoes. He arrived at Newberne, N. C, Oct. ist, and was discharged in November, 
1864. He lost one finger in battle. His children are Myrta A., Hattie B., and Charles F., Jr. 
Mr. Davis is road commissioner and a member of Ed Seaman Post No. 481, G. A. R. 

Abram Frisbey, father of Sidney, was born near Boston, Mass,, married Nelly Gallien in 
Springfield, Vt., and settled in Dalton, N. H., on the Connecticut river. He was long a resident 
of the Upper Connecticut valley. Sidney Frisbey, born in Dalton, N. H., married Mrs. Tirzah 
Smith in Grorham, N. Y., July 4, 1822, and located on a new farm of 150 acres in Independence, 
now Andover, one mile northeast of Andover village, which was then a roadless forest. He built 
a log house in the forest into which he moved in September, 1823, Abram Frisbey bought 50 
acres adjoining his son and lived there Sidney attended at the first town meeting of Andover 
and voted to give it the name. He had natural ability, became self-educated, was supervisor of 
Andover 5 years, justice of the peace 16 years, captain of militia, helped to organize the first 
Baptist church of the town and was its deacon many years, later joining the M. E. church. He 
helped build the first gristmill in Andover village. In 1842 he moved to Hornellsville and was 
justice there. His land was soon set off into the new town of Hartsville where he was town 
clerk several terms and held other offices. In 1865 he moved to Wellsville, bought a house and 
lot on Harrison St., where he made his home, and his wife died Oct. 17, 1867. Three of their 
nine children attaining maturity settled in this county ; the oldest daughter, Mrs. M. A. Howell, 
lives in Lansing, Mich Mr. Frisbey married, second, Ann Craig, Feb. 16, 1869. He died June 
I, 1890. aged 90. A. O. Frisbey, son of Sidney, born in Andover, Oct. 2, 1837, in 1859 married 
Mary A. Sherwood, of Yates county, sister of A. W. Sherwood, captain of Co. I, 86th N. Y. 
Vols, in the Civil War. He settled in Alfred in 1861, engaged in merchandising in Andover as 
one of the firm of Cole & Frisbey in 1873. Three years later he was in trade alone, continuing 
so until 1889. He was long a member of the school board, several times its president, post- 
master of Andover utider Pres. Cleveland's first term, and in 1883-4 was elected supervisor as a 
Democrat with 1215 Republican majority to overcome. He has one child, Delia (Mrs. A. A. 
Porter). Howard L. Frisbey was son of Sidney (see Wellsville). Sidney Frisbey, son of Sid- 
ney, born in Hornellsville, April 20, 1842, married Miss M. J. Vickars, Dec, 31, 1863. She died 
March 3, 1866, and he married, second, Eliza J. Stearns, March 22, 1871. He was a merchant 
of Wellsville for years, retiring from trade in December, 1886, H^, occupies one of Wellsville's 
model homes built on the Harrison street lot where his father resided. He and his wife are 
members of the Wellsville Congregational church, They have one child, Oracle. 

Jesse C. Green, son of Henry and Louisa (Conrad) Green, was born in Hinsdale, Dec, 5, 
1839. He came to Andover in 1858, and worked in a railroad shop. Sept. 2, 1861, he enlisted 
in Co. H, 85th New York. April 20, 1864, he was taken prisoner at Plymouth, N. C, and was 
in Andersonvilie, Charleston and Florence prisons for 10 months and 9 days. He was honora- 
bly discharged April 11, 1865. When Mr. Green entered the service he weighed 180 pounds, 
and when he was released from prison his weight was scarcely 100 pounds. He is a member 
of the E. Seaman Post, No. 481, G. A. R., and a Freemason. After his return to Andover, he 
worked at blacksmithing and trucking, and later was 12 years the Erie baggage master. He 
served 3 years as highway commissioner, and in July, 1889, was appointed postmaster at Andover. 
He married Theoda E., daughter of Hiram W. Boyd. They have one son, Hiram Sidney Green. 
The family are members of the Presbyterian church. 

Stephen K. Hale was born in Burleigh. When t6 years of age he went to Hornellsville 
and was a clerk in his brothers, David J. Hale's, store. In 1840 he came to Andover, bought 
alarm and was engaged in farming many years, and taught school winters. In 1855 he re- 
moved to Allegany, where he was a farmer and in trade until 1868. He then located in Olean, 
and was in merchandising until 1893 when he retired from business and returned to Andover. 
In 1846 Mr. Hale married Esther M. Pettibone. Edwin A., a salesman in New Orleans is the 
only survivor of their 3 children. His wife died in 1890, and he married second, Mrs. Eliza A., 
widow of Dr, J. J. Harman. Mrs. Hale died in the spring of 1895. Miles H. Harman, son of 



Andover. 593 

Dr. John J., and Eliza A. (Clark) Harman was born 1845, was 20 years a partner with his father 
in merchandising and succeeded to the business at his death. 

Jacob Hann was son of Michael, who came to America from Holland in 1754 to avoid 
service in the army. He however served here in the French War and was in General Wolfe's 
command. He served through the Revolution in the Continental Army, was at Ticonderoga 
with Ethan Allen, and at the battle of Monmouth. After eight years of military life he settled 
in Oxford, Conn. Jacob was born in 1774, married Emily Holbert, in 18 16 brought his family 
to Otego, N. Y., from there in 1839 to Andover where he resided until his death. Of his 13 
children Michael H. Hann was born March 16, 1821, and came to Andover m 1838 to work for 
his brother James, who came here in 1836 and owned a sawmill. In 1844 Michael married 
Ann, daughter .of Wm. Swain. He taught school over 30 years, was also a farmer, and heid 
numerous oflfices, was justice of the peace 12 years, deputy sheriff 3 years, inspector of schools 
five years, etc. He joined the M. E. church of Andover in 1852 and was a teacher of Bible 
class and Sunday school superintendent. His son, Edward James Hann who died in 1881 at 
Montgomery, Ala., was chief dispatcher of the Southern Division of the Louisville and Nash- 
ville railroad. He married Elizabeth Owens, of Cardiff, Wales; one child Clara A. Simeon 
Hann, son of Jacob, born 181 1, at Oxford, Conn., came to Andover in 1837 with $300 and 
bought a sawmill. He did a large business and at his death in 1876 owned 600 acres of land 
and was worth $60,000. He married Rachel Adams and had 10 children. Mr. Michael H. 
Hann died Dec. 3, 1895. 

William Hardy was born Feb. 10, 1784, in Lincolnshire, England, emigrated to America 
about the year 1830, and settled on a farm in Andover. He married Mary F. Kingsbury. Their 
five children were Mary F., Hannah E., Roswin, J. Newland and Julia M. Hardy. Roswin 
Hardy was born Jan. 24, 1839. In 1862 he enlisted in Co. E, 130th Regt. N. Y. S. V., which 
regiment was afterwards put into the cavalry service and was known as the ist N. Y. Dragoons; 
Mr. Hardy participated with his regiment in the battles of Trevillian Station, Cold Harbor, Deep 
Bottom, Winchester, Fisher Hill, Cedar Creek and many other lesser engagements and was 
honorably discharged June 30, 1865. He is a member of Edward Seaman Post, No. 481, De- 
partment of N. Y. In 1868 he married Georgianna, daughter of Mansur Dyer. They have a 
family of six children. Dr. P. B. Hardy, now of Britton, Mich., Edward D., Helen L., Grace, 
Sylvia J. and Raymond Hardy. Mr. Hardy is a farmer and resides upon the " ancestral acres." 

Mansur Dyer was born June 24. 1801, in Norwich, Conn. When 19 years of age he settled 
in Independence, bought a farm and made the first clearing and built his log house. He mar- 
ried Eliza Heseltine, five children were given them. His second wife was Sallie A. Stout, three 
children was the result of the union only one of whom is living. Mr. Dyer was the first justice 
of the peace in Independence and married the first couple in that town. About the year 1849 
he removed to Andover where he resided until his death Nov. 9, 1872. He was a deacon of 
the Presbyterian church for many years. He was a large farmer, owning 500 acres of land, and 
one of the leading dairymen in this section of the county. He was a very benevolent man and 
much respected. 

Mrs. Rosanna Joyce, the proprietress of the American House, is a daughter of James and 
Catharine (Bines) Joyce, and was born in New York City, She came to Andover when a child, 
married Harry Joyce and has 6 children : Kate C, Harry W., Mary C, Rosa, Samie and Edie. 
The American House has been conducted for years, first by her parents and afterwards by Mrs. 
Joyce, whose husband's business takes him from home most of the year. 

Nathan Lanphere came from Berlin, N. Y., m 181 7, and settled in Alfred where he pur- 
chased land, and cleared and cultivated it. He married first, Eunice Satterlee, they had 4 chil- 
dren. His second wife was Susan Green, she had 2 children. Jonathan Lanphere, son of 
Nathan, was born in January, 1818. He married Esther Beebe. Two of their 3 children sur- 
vive, Walter and Ella (Mrs. Oliver E. Vars). Jonathan died Dec. 30, 1879. His widow resides 
in Andover. Walter Lanphere, son of Jonathan, was born in 1845, married Frances Davis and 
resides in Andover. He built and conducted the mills at Andover which bear his name. 

Michael Linch, Jr., son of Michael and Nellie (O'Byle) Lynch, was born March 13, 1861. 
His education was obtained at the common schools and at the Andover High School. His life 
until he attained his majority was passed on the farm. He has been an oil producer, is now 
drilling oil wells, and has drilled 10 wildcat wells. For two years he has been a dealer and 
shipper of produce at Andover. 

James McTighe was born in Ireland in November, 1823. When about 20 years of age he 
came to America, made his home in New London, Ct., for 8 years, where he kept a meat mar- 
ket. He married Mary Howe. They had 8 children. In 1856 he moved to Andover, lived on 
a farm for a few years then came to the village, built a store and was in merchandising until 
his death in October, 1 891. His wife died in April, 1888. His children are : Kate, who was 
clerk in her father's store for 13 years, Ann (widow of John Delaney, resides at Andover), 



594 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

James (of Salamanca, baggage-master of the Erie railroad), Michael (a resident of Binghamton), 
John (a salesman in Chicago), Ella (Mrs. Daniel Collins of Toledo, O.), Rose (died in 1893), 
and Thomas (of Hornellsville, a commercial traveler). The family are members of the Catho- 
lic church. 

Rev. Thomas A. Murray was born at Elkland, Pa., July i, 1858. He studied in Buffalo at 
St. Joseph's College, and St. Bonaventure College at Allegany, and was graduated in June, 
1880. He then passed 5 years at Genoa, Italy. In 1885 he was established at Elmira as 
assistant at St. Patrick's church, where he remained nearly 5 years, when he was transferred to 
St. Mary's Church of Our Lady of Angels at Olean. He was there 3 years and 2 months ; 8 
months he had full charge, the remainder of the time he was assistant. In 1893 he came to 
Andover and has since had charge of the Church of the Blessed Sacrament. 

Francis Nichols, a native of Herkimer Co., came to Angelica in 1836, and in 1844 bought 
a farm in Alfred three miles north of Andover village where he died March 20, 1853. His wife 
Almira Davis died in 1881. They had six children, of whom John C. Nichols was two years 
old when his parents came to Angelica. He married Abby J., daughter of Dyer K. Youngs and 
has been a farmer of Andover for many years. Dyer K. Youngs, born in Vermont, came to 
Andover in 1848. He married Livonia Davis, born 1826, and died Feb. 27, 1889; his widow 
lives in Andover. They have five surviving children, Derwent E. and John V. (who constitute 
the firm of Youngs Bros., at Denver, Colo.), Mrs. Charles Hann, Ebenezer (a farmer in Almond), 
Abby J. (Mrs. J. C. Nichols). Ebenezer Davis was born in Concord, N. H. He married Eliza- 
beth Kenniston and came to Andover from Auburn, N. Y., about 1840. He was a farmer and 
had a large family. 

Hamilton C. Norris was born in Angelica, Sept. 15, 1869. He was the only son of P. S. 
and Ann M. Norris. From 1877 to 1880 he was employed in the office of the Genesee Valley 
Free Press, published at Belmont by Hon. A. N. Cole, From 1884 to 1887 he was one of the 
editors of the Genesee Valley Post at Belmont. In 1887 he established the Andover News, and 
has been editor and publisher of that paper to the present time. Mr. Norris married in 1884 
Miss Ella Russell of Belmont. 

Ward Oatley was born in Howard, N. Y., Jan. 15, 1845. When he was 18 years old he 
learned the carpenter's trade. For four years he was engaged in farming in Burns. In 1889 
he settled in Andover, where he carries on the business of contracting and building, is a general 
contractor, employing from 6 to 12 men. Mr. Oatley is a member of Morning Star Lodge No. 
65, F. & A. M. of Canisteo. He married Anna P., daughter of William P. Brown, and has 4 
children. 

Anthony O'Donnell was born Nov. i, 1830, in Mayo, Ireland. In 1847 he emigrated to 
Canada, worked in a bakery for a year, then came to Rochester, but remained but a few months. 
Dec. I, 1858, he went to Oakland, learned the molder's trade. In April, 1856, became to 
Alfred and worked with his father, Dominick O'Donnell, until 1861 when he settled in Andover, 
built a small foundry, and made the first casting Sept. 30, 1862. Mr. O'Donnell voted for 
Myron H. Clark in 1854, for Fremont in 1856, and has ever since been an active worker in the 
Republican party. He married, in 1854, Susan Laughlin and has 4 sons, Jesse A., Clarence, 
Dr. Charles W. and Robert. Mrs. and Mrs. O'Donnell are members of the M. E. church. 
Dominick O'Donnell came to America in 1847, to Andover where he was a farmer in 1851, 
moved to Alfred in 1856, returned to Andover in 1869 and resided with his son Anthony until 
his death June 12, 1876. His wife died March 8, 1874. 

William Owen was born in Scotland July 4, 1822. He married Elizabeth Hickey. Of 
their 7 children but 3 are living, John in Scotland, William and James, who reside in Andover. 
William Owen and his wife came to America in 1887 and settled at Andover. James Owen, 
son of William, was born in Ayr, Scotland, in 1845, where he served 5 years as an apprentice to 
learn the tanner's trade m Ayr, Scotland. In 1872 he emigrated to America, located at Angola 
for 4 years, and from there went to Rutherford, N. C. where he built a tannery for a company 
and conducted it for 2 years. He then bought a tannery at Gowanda which he ran 6 years. 
May I, 1886, he purchased the Richardson tannery at Andover where he employs a number of 
men. In March, 1877, Mr. Owen married Jennie Gilmore, of York, Livingston county, and has 
one daughter, Elizabeth. He was one of the first trustees of Andover and in 1894 was elected 
president of the village. 

Stephen Potter came to Andover and took up 100 acres of land of which Eugene Clark is 
now the owner. He married Annis Coats. They both died in town. Their children were 
Stephen, Martha, Joseph, Mary J. and Perry, who is the only one living. He was born in An- 
dover, married Sally M. Wells and settled on the farm where he now resides. Mr. and Mrs. 
Perry Potter are members of the Seventh Day Baptist church. Two of their 5 children are liv- 
ing, Fred S. on the homestead, and Frank W. Potter, who was born August 12, 1850, and mar- 
ried Ella M. Benton. He is a farmer, proprietor of a meat market and a dealer in produce. 



Andover. 595 

John Prest, son of John and Catharine (Vreeland) Prest, was born in Pendleton, N. Y., 
May 27, 1827. When he was six years old, his father, a native of New Jersey, came from 
Niagara county, and settled on a farm about one mile west of Andover, where he raised 7 chil- 
dren and resided till his death March 24, 1843. John, Jr., worked on the farm until he was 24, 
when, learning the carpenter's trade, he engaged in furniture making and undertaking, and con- 
tracting and buildmg. He erected the Union School and Academy building and the Methodist 
Episcopal church in Wellsville, a large block in Painted Post, the M. E. church and many other 
buildings in Andover, where he built the Prest opera house. Elected justice in i860 he was 
kept in office 24 consecutive years. He has also been constable, collector and supervisor, 
and member of Andover Lodge of Freemasons for many years. Four of his five children are 
living. 

Augustus B. Richardson, son of Charles H. Richardson, and grandson of Charles, was born 
in Wellsville, Mav 6, 1868. He was educated at Andover. In 1887 he held the position of bag- 
gage master at Andover, and in 1891 was appointed station agent there. He married Ada, 
daughter of Dr. E. M. Stillman. Charles Richardson, son of Silas, was born in Greene, Me., in 
1808, married Olive A. Miller of East Union, Me., later came to Western New York, and in 1851 
to Wellsville and was an agent for the Church family in their lumber business. Mr. Richardson 
had made lumbering his life work. He built the first steam sawmill on the Kennebec river. He 
had 3 sons and 2 daughters. He died in 1865 and his wife in 1887. Charles H., his son, was 
born July i, 1841, in Gardiner, Me., came to this county with his father and in 1865 married 
Marion Palmer. Their children are Augustus B. and Reita. In 1858 he entered the employ of 
the Erie Railroad, as clerk, was station agent at Andover for 14 years, and has since been clerk 
of the freight department, and is now located at Wellsville. In 1862 Mr. Richardson enlisted 
in Co. F, 5th N. Y. Cav. and served 3 years. He is a member of the Andover Lodge of F. & 
A. M. and of E. Seaman Grand Army Post. 

Uriah Stratton, son of S. C. Stratton, was born in Wayland, N. Y., Dec. 2, 1839. In 1850 
his family moved to Bolivar and his father died there in February, 1889. His mother died in 
February, 1895. Uriah W. Stratton enlisted Sept. 27, 1861, in the 85th N. Y., and was discharged 
June 6th, 1862, on account of sickness. July 11, 1863, he was drafted and joined Co. H, 109th 
N. Y., and served until the close of the war. He was in all the battles in which his regiment 
was engaged, and was wounded at Petersburg June 18, 1864. In April, 1865, he was made as- 
sistant quartermaster under Gen. Hines and transferred to the 51st N. Y. He was honorably 
discharged Aug. 9, 1865. He is a member of E. Seaman Post, No. 481, G. A. R. of Andover. 
In 1865 Mr. Stratton married Doroleski, daughter of Prentice Beebe, and has three children, 
Lottie, Mary and Belle. Mary was graduated from Alfred University in drawing and painting 
in June, 1893. ^^- Stratton is one of the pioneers in cheesemaking. In 1866 he established a 
cheese factory at Wirt and has been in the business ever since and now operates one factory in 
Andover and one in Wellsville. 

William F. Snyder was born in i860 in Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany, and came with his 
father, William, to this country in 1868, and the family located on the place where William F. 
now lives. He has been proprietor of the Andover cheese factory since 1888, in which year he 
married Ella Swartz. They have 3 children, Raymond O., Leo S. and Edna Darken. 

Daniel B. Spaulding was born Sept. 4, 1820, in New Marlboro, Mass. His father was a 
farmer and Daniel was conversant with farm life in his early years. In 1850 he married Phebe 
Barton. Their children are Owen B., who died in 1882, Fannie E., and Amy, wife of Capt. 
John A.Travis, who resides in Washington, D. C. In 1851, Mr. Spaulding came to New 
Hudson, and for two years was engaged in lumbering. He then settled in Oramel, and made 
his residence there until 1867, when he moved to Andover where he now resides. From 1867 
to 1875 he was engaged in various kinds of business, then he opened a drugstore and continued 
in trade until May, 1892. 

John Swain, son of William and Mary (Parr) Swain, was born in Lincolnshire, England, 
Nov. 9, 1827. He was 9 years old when his father, who was born in 1806, came to America. 
They were 8 weeks out of sight of land. William after 3 years' residence in Pittsford came to 
Andover in 1839, with only $1.50 in his pocket, and located 6 miles west of the village (then in 
Andover but now in Wellsville), and by industry and shrewdness, honesty and ability, became 
a large farmer. After a few years he settled 2 miles from Ar.dover village. His wife's maiden 
name was Mary Parr. They had 7 children. He died March 24, 1869, his wife June 8, 1877. 
They were members of the M. E. Church from 1842. John Swain married Philena, daughter 
of Seth Baker. She died April 27, 1893. They had 8 children. All his life Mr. Swain has 
been a farmer, and has endeavored to carry into his daily life the practical teachings of his 
parents' example. He has been a member of the Presbyterian church since 1850. He was 
assessor of Ward 6 years, superintendent of Bundy's sawmill several years, and is a Freemason, 
holding membership in Andover Lodge. 



596 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Jacob Swink was born in Hamilton, Pa., in 1809, and came with his father, John, to An- 
dover in 1823, and has resided since 1836 on the farm purchased by his father and which he 
assisted in clearing. He married first, in 1834, Mary Pratt, second, Mary Wood, who died 
April 21, 1891. Jesse A. Swink, son of Peter and nephew of Jacob, was born Jan. 23, 1853, 
and married Mary L., daughter of Lyman Bayard. They live on their fine farm of over 200 
acres and have two children, Ethel and Germain. Mr. Swink is a member of Forest Home 
Lodge, F. & A. M. Peter Swmk, son of John, was born in Andover in 1824. He married Oct. 
26, 1850, Maria J. Dake of Almond. Three children : Maria E, (Mrs. Volney Bess) of Hornells- 
ville, Jesse A. and Peter M. In 1848 he opened a store m Andover and was burned out in 
October, i860. Then building the Swink Hotel he conducted it until his death Oct, 14, 1874. 

Rial Wescott came to Alfred about 1833 and was a permanent settler. He married Mercy 
N. Shaw. All of their 7 children were boys. His son, George W. Wescott was born in Alfred, 
April 14, 1834, married Celestia J., daughter of Joseph L. Baker, and had one son Emery O. 
Mr. Wescott enlisted Aug. 13, 1862, in Co. H, 130th N. Y. Inf., and was discharged in 1863 for 
disability. He is a member of Edward Seaman Post, G. A. R. Emery O. Wescott was born 
in Andover, Sept. 10, 1854. With the exception of 2>^ years passed in Nebraska he has always 
lived in town. He married Ella Hall. Children : Maude G. (Mrs. Ernest French lives in Cali- 
fornia), and Jennie M. Mr. Wescott is engaged in livery business. 

Joseph L.Baker, son of William, was born at Geneva, N. Y., in 1793. Coming to Andover 
a young man, he married Sarah, daughter of Joseph Baker and was a farmer and prominent 
Methodist. They had 4 sons and 4 daughters. He died Sept. 15, 1865, his wife June 5, 1873. 
Their surviving child is Celestia (Mrs. George W. Wescott). Mrs. Baker was. the first person 
in town to join the Methodist church, which she did at 13 years of age. She contributed 
towards the building ot three M. E. churches in Andover. John S. Baker, son of William, was 
born in Otsego, Co., Nov. i, 1792. He came to Andover about 1820, purchased a tract of wild 
land which by painstaking industry and thrift he developed into a productive farm. He was a 
man of good judgment and was often chosen assessor. He married Sarah Olds. Of their 4 
children the sole survivor is Angelina. Two of the children died in early infancy, one son, 
Delos Baker, lived to mature age and died Dec. 24, 1886. Mr. Baker died May 26, 1877. his 
wife Jan. 11, 1884. 

Peleg Wood, a native of Rhode Island, a sailor and a shoemaker, in 1823 settled in the 
north part of Independence on a farm of 100 acres which he developed from the wilderness, 
He married Rebecca Miller, had 8 children, of whom Nelson P. Wood is the only son living. 
He was born in Fairfield, N. Y., Nov. 3, 1822, and was consequently but one year old when his 
father came to Independence. He learned the painter's trade and worked at it for years. In 
1861 he enlisted in the regimental band of the 85th N. Y. Inf. and served until all regimental 
bands were mustered out by order of the War Department, and is a member of E. Seaman 
Post, G. A. R. Mr. Wood married in 1851 Mary J. Ryan, and 5 of their 7 children are living. 



Independence. 597 



IMDEPE/N-DE/^CE. 

CHAPTER LIII. 



BY S. S. WHITE. 



TNDEPENDENCE was formed from Alfred, March 16, 1821. Andover was 
1 taken off Jan. 28, 1824, and a part of Willing, Nov. 19, 1851. The town 
lies in the southeast corner of tiie county in tlie Phelps & Gorham purchase, 
and contains about 21,572 acres. The surface is a mountainous upland, 
broken by deep, narrow valleys. The highest summits are 800 to 1,200 feet 
above the valleys. It is drained by Cryder Creek in the south, and Che- 
nunda Creek in the north part, and is abundantly Avatered by numerous 
springs. The soil is principally a gravelly loam with sections of sand. 
The people are mostly engaged in farming. Dairying is carried on quite 
extensively. Large quantities of potatoes are raised and shipped to market 
annually. The population in 1892 was 1,203, a gain of four since 1860. The 
first town meeting was held April 10, 1821, at the house of Luther Strong. 
The first town officers were. Supervisor, Luther Strong; town clerk, 
Joseph Clark; assessors, Simeon Adams, Luther Green, Nathaniel Covell; 
highway commissioners, Isaac Stanbro, Timothy Younglove, Samuel S. 
White; collector, Alfred Holmes; overseers of the poor, Thaddeus Baker, 
Shubael Spicer; constables, Alvin Holmes, Roswell Adams, Joseph Pixley; 
school commissioners, William W. Reynolds, Isaiah W. Green, Amherst 
Kingsbury; school inspectors, Willett Larrabee, Edmund Perry, Amherst 
Kingsbury. 

John Cryder was the first " squatter " but did not become a permanent 
settler. He located on what is known as Cryder Creek in 1798, built a house, 
and a sawmill and cleared and cultivated some land. The second settler, 
first actual settler according to tradition, history, etc., was Oliver Babcock, 
who " took up " his land in the north part of the town in 1818 and remained 
here several years. The third settler was John Teater and sons, John and 
Peter from Batches s county. On their way they stopped for a time on the 
east shore of Cayuga lake, then located in Alfred, and in 1819 came to Inde- 
pendence where Mr. Teater was made a local land agent. He was enter- 
prising and in a few years had taken for his own use 400 acres of land, in a 
body, on the hills north of Cryder Creek. His son John settled within the 
limits of Whitesville, and lived there until his death, his sons, Peter and 
Andrew, live in town. Peter settled on the hills. 

The first framed dwelling was built by Isaiah Green in the north part, 
and Luther Green is said to have been the first postmaster. The first 
framed building was a barn built by David Wilson in the summer of 1821, 
and here Mary Wilson taught the first school. David Wilson also built the 



598 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

■first blacksmith shop (a log one), the first summer after he came here and 
David Wilson, Jr., was the pioneer blacksmith. He had no anvil and borrowed 
one of a Mr. Burdick of Andover, also a pair of tongs which he kept till late 
in the fall, when Robert and David Wilson returned to Massachusetts for 
the winter, and in the spring brought an anvil back with them. Some years 
later they put up a " still " w^hich they run for several years. Wm. Reynolds 
and Col. Wm. W. Reynolds, his son, built a tannery on their farm in the 
south part of the town in 1824, and later added a shoeshop. Colonel Rey- 
nolds was the first settler south of Cryder Creek. Some authorities claim 
this to be the first tannery in the town, while others claim that Beriah and 
Almon Crandall built the first one on lot 81 in 1822. 

The first store was kept by Josiah W. Green in 1822 at Green's Corners, 
now called Independence. The first schoolhouse, a log structure, was built 
on lot 50, on lands now owned by Paul M. Burdick, in the fall of 1823, and 
the first school in a regular schoolhouse was taught here in the summer of 
1824 by Miss Deborah Covil with seven pupils. The first permanent saw- 
mill was built at Whitesville by Nathaniel Covil and Tower Stetson in the 
springof 1820, which Covil run till thespringof 1828, when he took as partner,, 
Avery Rice, who had a carding-machine, which they put in the mill. Mr. 
Covil commenced the erection of a gristmill at Whitesville in the summer of 
1824, completed it early in the fall. James Maxwell built one at Spring 
Mills about the same time but got his in operation first, if so this was the 
first gristmill in town. However authorities difller as to the date of its 
erection, it being ascribed to each of the years from 1820 to 1823. The first 
birth was that of Dugald C. White, son of Samuel White, October 23, 1819. 
(See White family). The first female child born was Eliza Ann, daughter of 
Stephen Boyce, April 15, 1821. She resides in town. 

Daniel Remington of this town and Eliza Eaton of Andover were married 
Jan. 1, 1824, the first marriage here. It was reported that the land agent 
had promised 100 acres of land to the first married couple, and they were 
privately married before morning as they understood another couple were 
to be married the next afternoon. The first death was that of Samuel W. 
Goodridge, Jan. 27, 1822. The first religious service was held at the house 
of Samuel S. White, Jan. 1, 1820, by Rev. Daniel Babcock, a Seventh Day 
Baptist. The first hotel at Whitesville was built by Mr. White in 1826, and 
his was the first framed dwelling house there. 

The New York and Pennsylvania railroad, an extension of the O. O. & 
E. R.R. of Pennsylvania, enters Independence near the southwest corner of 
the town and follows up the valley of Cryder Creek through Whitesville 
leaving the town at the eastern boundary near Rexville in Steuben county. 
Several of the citizens of the town are largely interested in this great im- 
provement which was opened for traffic in 1895. There are four railroad 
stations in the town, White's, Goodridge, Whitesville, Wildman's Mill. 

Whitesville village contains 400 inhabitants, is situated in the east- 
ern part of the town in a beautiful valley, through which flows the Cryder 



Independence. 599 



Creek. The village derives its name from Samuel S. White, who settled 
here in 1819. It contains 3 churches, 2 schools, 2 hotels, 2 general stores, 2 
drugstores, 1 grocery, 1 hardware store. 1 harness shop, 1 meatmarket, 1 
wagonshop, 3 blacksmith shops, 2 saw and planing mills, 1 planing and 
matchingmill, 1 gristmill. 1 shingle and feedmill, 1 cheesefactory and cider- 
mill. 1 beehive manufactory, 1 foundry, 1 gasfitting establishment, 1 photo- 
graph gallery, 1 millinery store, 1 undertaking establishment, a public hall 
and lodge room and 100 dwellings. The News, a small six column folio, was 
first issued at Whitesville by Fortner & Dexter, in April, 1895. Wliitesvilleis 
bountifully suppHed with water, coming from a large spring high up on the 
hillside, both for family use and for fire purposes, also it is supplied with 
natural gas from Greenwood, Steuben Co. The village contains an excellent 
half-mile driving park. Since the advent of the New York and Pennsylvania 
railroad, which gives the town rajjid communication with all sections of the 
country and splendid shipping facilities, the village has taken on new life and 
greater activity, and other forms of business adventure are being developed. 
The freight business at Whitesville station averages $250 monthly. 

Manufactories. — Wildman & Bassett's sawmill was built in 1833 by Jo- 
seph R. Wildman, who came from Cortland Co., and returned the same year. 
His son Horatio came in 1834 and ran the mill until he sold it to his son Tol- 
bert and B. S. Bassett, the present owners. About 1865 it was changed to 
a circular sawmill. It produces 6,000 feet per day. 

M. W. Reynolds' steam sawmill was built in 1888 by P. M. Reynolds and 
George H. McKee. The present owner purchased McKee's interest in 1890 
and became sole owner in 1894. A planer is connected. Six to 8,000 feet 
produced daily, employing 4 men. Bartlett Bros., steam sawmill was built 
in 1874 by L. H.. J. C. and C. L. Bartlett, capacity 10,000 feet daily. 

The first cheese factory was built here by Pranklin Porsyth in 1864. The 
milk was then measured instead of being weighed as is the custom now. The 
Wildman cheese factory was built in 1887 by Chas. Wildman, is operated by 
John H.Wood. 300 cows, product 75,000 lbs., in 1893. Charles Wildman 
came from Cortland Co. in 1844 to Whitesville, married Clarissa Clark and 
about 1846 with his brother. Stephen, engaged in the furniture and under- 
taking business. Since 1862 he has been sole owner. He is the oldest un- 
dertaker in the county, has been justice and deputy sheriff. 

Sawyer Post, No. 833, G. A. R., was organized at Whitesville Jan. 17, 
1883, with these charter members: Eugene Tadder, Sidney Crandall, James 
Livermore, Albert Halsey. Jason H. Popple, A. P. Gustin, J. C. Bartlett, T. 
Richardson, J. L. Crittenden, O. G. Clark, Nelson Underwood, Ransom 
Pish, B. B. Slade. James Atwell, Prank M. Chase, J. G. Horton, Wm. R. 
Deake. P. K. Millspaugh, Milo Walters, C. J. Mather, Wm. McDonough, J. 
L. Ains worth, W. W. Crandall, Parmer Warfield, J. L. Chase. Present 
officers of Post: P. C, J. D. Jacobs; S. V. C, Ransom Fish; J. V. C, Ehas 
Ketcham; Adj., Albertus Burr; Q. M., J. L. Chase; Surg., Duane Gray; 
Chap., C. J. Mather: O. D.. N. C. Cowen; O. G., J. P. Remington; S. M., 



600 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



John Spearman; Q. M. S., P. K. Millspaugh. Present membership in good 
standing, 46. 

Saivyer Relief Corps, No. 67, was organized at Whitesville Feb. 3, 1886, 
with these members: Mrs. Mary Horton, Mrs. Augusta Forsyth, Mrs. Julia 
Ainsworth, Mrs. Cora White, Mrs. EmeUne Livermore, Mrs. Anna Brown. 
Mrs. Julia Pickett, Mrs. Emma Wildman, Mrs. Elvira Furbeck, Mrs. Melissa 
Crittenden, Mrs. Clara Crandall, Miss May Horton, Miss Anna Ainsworth, 
Miss May Mather, Miss Laura Brown, Mrs. Susan Sherman, Mrs. Antoin- 
ette Dexter, Mrs. Hattie Heseltine, Mrs. Clara Chase, Mrs. Sophrona 
Mather. The present officers are: Pres., AlviraFerbeck; Senior Vice-Pres., 
Lena Bartlett; Junior V. P., Mrs. Remington; Chap., Mrs. Millspaugh; 
Sec, Mrs. Ketchum; Treas., Mrs. Clara Chase; Con., Mrs. Titus; Ass't 
Con., Mrs. Fish; Guard, Mrs. Gray; Ass't Guard, Mrs. Payne. Present 
membership about 35. 

Whitesville Tent No. 51, K. 0. T. M., was organized Nov. 10, 1887, with 
16 members. First officers: P. C, A. J. Remington; Com., E. R. Allen; 
Lt. Com., D. W. Collins; R. K., F. M. Reynolds; F. K., A. W. Allen; Chap., 
E. J. Maynard; S., W. J. Stevens; Phys., A. J. Remington; M. of A., C. F. 
Casey; 1st M. of G., E. J. Kies; 2d M. of G., L. O. Wilson; Sen., A. Halsey; 
P., G. Woodcock. Present membership 200. Officers for 1895: P. C, L. H. 
Fortner; Com.. Chas. Armstrong; Lt. Com., V. E. Heseltine; R. K., I. L. 
Chase; F. K., A. S. Heseltine; Chap., Frank Clark; Phys., M. B. Titus; S., 
V. V. Beagle; M. of A., G. E. Lamphier; 1st M. of G., A. McAUister; 2d M.. 
of G., Fred Stebbins; Sen., Geo. Willmot; P., W. Langdon. 

May Queen Hive, No. 11, L. 0. T. M., Whitesville, was organized June 
15, 1891, with about 20 members. First officers: P. C, Mrs. Lena Bartlett^ 
Com., Mrs. Vine Reynolds; Lt. Com., Mrs. Vania White; R. K.; Mrs. Minie 
Howe; F. K., Mrs. Nellie Remington; Prelate, Mrs. Clara Chase; Phys., Dr. 
A. J. Remington; Sergeant, Mrs. Robetta Maynard; M. of A., Mrs. Mate 
Baker; Sen., Mrs. Martha Langdon; P., Miss Celia Wilson. Officers for 
1895: P. C, Mrs. Lena Bartlett; Com., Mrs. Carrie Howe; Lt. Com., Mrs. 
Vine Reynolds; R. C, Mrs. Lois Wildman; F. K., Mrs. G. Casey; Prelate^ 
Mrs. Kies; S.. Mrs. Tencia Bassett; M. of A., Mrs. Ella Brown; 1st M. of 
G., Mrs. Metta Vanderbeck, 2d M. of G., Mrs. Celia Ostrander; Sen., Mrs 
Libbie Bledsoe; P., Mrs. McAllister. Present membership about 60. 

Gryder Union, No. 767, E. A. U., was organized at Whitesville, Sept. 27, 
1889, with 15 members. First officers: Chan., Wilbur Wilson; Pres. M. B. 
Titus; V. P., Mrs. Laura Richardson; Aux., Mrs. Violetta Rose; Adv., Mrs. 
H. B. Lament; Sec. Ed. E. Lament; Acct., G. W. Rose; Chap., Rev. N. North; 
Warden, F. M. Reynolds; Sen., M. W. Reynolds; W., M. B. Riley. Pres- 
ent membership 30. Officers for 1895: Chan., J. H. Rose; Pres.. Rev. 
T. L. Perry; V. P., Mrs. Emma Wildman; Acct., G. W. Rose; Sec, Mrs. M. 
L. Reynolds; Treas. Mrs. Violetta Rose; Chap., Mrs. Julia McKee; Warden, 
Mrs. Tryphena White; Adv., Mrs. Jane Wilson; Sen., Charles Wildman;. 
W., Charles Wildman. 



Independence. 601 



FaDuers' Alliance and Industrial Union, No. 09, Whitesville, was organized 
Oct. 6, 1890, with about 20 members. First officers: Pres., Nelson Rice; V. 
P., B. B. Edwards; Sec, A. D. Howe; Treas., W. C. White; Chap., W. O. 
Shepard; Lee, V. M. Allen; S., V. E. Heseltine. Present officers: Pres., 
D. M. Rollins; V. P., Mrs. Lotta Teater; Sec, A. W. Barney; Treas., Mrs. 
Emma Kelley; Chap.. Mrs. Lois Weldman; Lect.. Mrs. Sarah Snow. Pres- 
ent membership 50. 

Whitesville Lodge, I. 0. G. T., Whitesville, was organized Feb. 15, 1895, 
with about 30 members. First officers: C. T. , Harvey Leach; ViceT., Bertha 
Wildman; Chap., Rev. H. Vosburg; P. C. T., Ella Chase; Sec, Carrie Snow; 
F. Sec. Sarah Chase; Treas., Geo. Wilson; M., Harvey Richmond; D. M., 
Clara Bowers; Lodge Dep., A. D. Howe. 

Spring Mills so named from the many springs in its vicinity, is 
situated in the southeast corner of the town, contains Spring Mills post- 
office, a church, a school, 8 stores, a cheese factory, a blacksmith shop, a 
hotel and about 18 dweUings. It has been a center of trade since the first 
quarter of this century, as the first merchant, Mr. Hammond, located here 
in 1826, and Samuel Maxwell soon became his competitor in the same line. 
The most prominent citizens of the place are Theodore and William Cobb, 
sons of Hon. William Cobb, deceased. 

Spring Mills Cheese Factory was built by Hale Young, who after several 
years sold to William Cobb, Sr., who was succeeded in its ownership by his 
son William. It is operated by Chas. H. Austin, who uses the milk of 500 
cows. From 150,000 to 175,000 lbs. of cheese is made each season. 

Green's Corners, in the north part of the town, contains a postoffice 
(Independence P. O.), a school, 2 general stores, a blacksmith shop, a wagon 
shop, a cheese factory and about 20 dwellings. Isaiah W. Green (son of 
Edward, son of Josiah, son of John, son of Benjamin, son of John, the En- 
glish emigrant in 1665) born in Berlin, N. Y., came to Alfred in 1818. In 
1823 he settled as one of the earliest merchants at the place that bears his 
name. Green's Corners, and located 150 acres of land. He was one of the 
founders of the Seventh-day Baptist church here. In 1841 he moved to 
Alfred, was a merchant seven years and returned to follow merchandising 
at Green's Corners until his death Oct. 18, 1864. He married Betsey Bassett 
from Vermont, and was a soldier of 1812, and a supervisor of Alfred. 

Independence cheese factory at Green's Corners was started in 1870 by 
Decatur M. Clark. In 1889 Charles F. Potter became owner, 350 cows. In 
1898 102,000 lbs. of cheese was made. 

Cryder Creek feed and shingle mill was built as a shingle mill in 1844 by 
Stephen Partello and Timothy Stiles. In 1872 it was sold to James Wilcox, 
Jr., who added a feed mill. Cryder Creek cheese factory was built about 
1884 by Clark White. It is now owned by L. C. Hakes and B. F. Boyce, is 
supplied by nearly 200 cows and made 45,000 lbs. of cheese in 1898. 

Fulmer's Valley, a little hamlet in the northwest corner of the town, 
lies in a beautiful valley, and its postoffice bears the name of Joseph Fulmer. 



602 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

born of German parents in 1770 on board of ship while immigrating to 
Northampton Co., Pa. He came to Independence in 1819 from Tompkins 
county, locating on lot 111. He married Charlotte Brown, had 8 children, 
and died in 1852. William, his son, born in 1800, married Zeruviah Parker, 
settled on lot 132, was an extensive farmer with a wide range of acquaint- 
ance. He died in 1875, his wife in 1880. Children: Adaline, Wm. H., King 
H., Zeruviah, Ellery M. [See page 387.] 

Early Settlers.* — Col. William W. Reynolds, son of William, born in Rhode Island, 
came from Plainfield, N. Y., in 1819 or 1820, located land, married Mary Wilson, daughter of 
David, and settled where his sons, N. M. and E. W., now own. He was very prominent, was 
colonel of militia, and died in 1859. William Reynolds came soon after his son and took up 
land adjoining his. He had a tannery on his farm, married Lydia Church, and passed his life 
here. Abraham Lewis and son Caleb came with Col. Reynolds and took up land. Mansur 
Dyer was born in Norwich, Conn., in 1801, settled in Independence when 19 years old, bought 
a farm and made the first clearing and built his log house. He married first Eliza Heseltine 
and had 5 children. His second wife was Sallie A. Stout. They had 3 children, only one is 
living, Georgianna, who married Roswin Hardy of Andover. Mr. Dyer was deacon of the 
Presbyterian church for many years. He was a large farmer, owned 500 acres and was the 
leading dairyman in this section of the county. He was the first justice of the peace in Independ- 
ence and married the first couple in that town. In 1849 he removed to Andover. 
Stephen Boyce came every early from New Hampshire and took up 80 acres, the site of 
part of Whitesville, married Sarah Tallman, of Troy, N. H. Their first child, Eliza A., was 
the first female child born in the town. She married Benjamin Wood, son of Alvah. Alvah 
Wood, son of Benjamin, born in Woodstock, Vt., came early. He was supervisor, justice of 
the peace, etc., conducted farming and lumbering. He married Mary Covell, daughter of 
James. His son Benjamin was a farmer and drover, supervisor, "justice," etc. Nathaniel and 
Eben Covell came early from Ontario county. John C. Bassett, born in Brattleboro, Vt., a 
cloth dyer, was one of the first settlers. He married Martha St. John and had 14 children. 
He used to go to Almond every Monday on horseback through the forests and work during the 
week. He cleared a farm of 150 acres and died in 1859. Aaron Burrows was among the early 
settlers. He owned a gristmill at Whitesville, and also owned one at Greenville where he lived 
for a time but returned to Whitesville and died in January, 1859. Ebenezer Richmond, son of 
Peleg, came from Columbia county to Wayne, Steuben county about 1817, and in 1822 to the 
place now owned by his son, Henry A. To reach it he had to cut a road for a mile and a half. 
When he raised his log house every man in town was at the " raising." He was a Universalist 
and died in 1859. His 1 1 children settled in this vicinity. Philip Heseltine came early from 
New Hampshire, married Betsy Stevens. Has descendants in town, but ot his 6 children only 
Samuel survives. Archelaus Putnam came from Woodstock, Vt., to Whitesville in 1827. On 
his lot of 50 acres he built the first brick house in town where the brick hotel now stands. He 
was a cloth dresser, married Nancy Wood. Nathan Babcock, born in Rhode Island, Feb. 29, 

1796, married Abbie, daughter of William Dexter, and moved from Ontario county March 24. 
1824, to lot 90 in Independence, where he developed a farm on the 100 acre lot he bought. 
Daniel Briggs from Madison county was an early settler on the farm now owned by W. A. 
Bishop. Noel Jones from Oneida county, a watch and clock maker, located in 1824 where Mrs. 
Adolphus Jones now lives. His son Noel is said to have carried the first daily mail between 
Wellsville and Whitesville. Horace C. Jones, son of Ebenezer, born in Cortland county in 

1797, came in 1824, built a log house on lot 53, returned to Freeville and married Anna M. 
Meecham. His log house stood on the site of A. Howe's house. He built a mill for coloring 
and finishing cloth and sold it to Silas Crandall. In 1836 he removed to lot 39, and worked 
near his house at cloth dressing. He died in 1870. Ebenezer Parker, son of Ebenezer, a native 
of Vermont, came from Yates county in 1824, took up 50 acres of wild land. 

Thomas Collver, born in New Jersey, was a descendant of John of England, early of New 
London, Conn. His son, John, it is said, married Sarah Winthrop, a granddaughter of Gov. 
Winthrop, and that from him descended the Whitesville family. Thomas came here in 1827, 
with Hale and Amos Perry built a sawmill, was a blacksmith and farmer, married Silence, 
daughter of Joseph Perry, and died in 1892. William S. Livermore came from Madison county 
in 1824 when 16 years old with Samuel, his father. He married Amanda, daughter of Haz- 
ard P. Clark. Mr. Livermore has been deacon of the Seventh Day Baptist church for 60 years. 
Briggs B. Livermore, son of Samuel, born in 18 14, married first, Mary, daughter of Erastus 
* Information given by residents. 



Independence. 603 



Eaton, second. Selucia Clark, daughter of Hazard P. Joseph Hull came from Conn, to Her- 
kimer county, from there in 1825 and settled on lot 46. His sole capital was an ox and what 
little clothing he carried in a handkerchief He developed a good farm by his industry. He 
died in 1880. Lewis B. Fish came from Cortland county to Whitesville in 1827. He married 
Fanny Remington and 10 of their 12 children are living. Charles Chapin came in 1825 from 
Massachusetts, took up and cleared 100 acres of the C. C. Richardson farm, and was a farmer 
and blacksmith. George K. Lee, son of John H., born in Whitehall, N. Y., in 1809, came in 
1833, with wife, Silence Chapin, and settled in Independence. Of his surviving children are 
Erwin D. of Whitesville, Charles S. of Wellsville and Mrs. Laura D. Richardson. David Rob- 
insc 1, son of Clark, came to Marcellus, N. Y., from Connecticut in 1812, in 1825 located too 
acre^ in this town and cleared a farm, married Mercy Burley and died in 1861, his wife in 1867. 
William A. Jacobs from Vermont, came about 1827, married Mary Sanford, lived some years 
in the west part of town and moved to Michigan where he died. John Hill came from Tomp- 
kins county about 1824, located 100 acres and finally owned 400 acres. He married Betsey 
Hiles. 

Smith Dexter, son of William, was born in Herkimer county March 2, 1797. In or near 
1828 he came to Independence, married Charlotte, daughter of Ebenezer Parker, and took up a 
lot of wild land which O. T, Perkins now owns, building a log house and commenced to clear, 
but findmg his title worthless he took up 100 acres now the property of J. O. Barney, and later 
occupied a farm which his son Walter owns. He died March 10, 1890. Calvin Hall, son of 
William, came to Independence in 1824. He took up 100 acres which Ed. Casey owns, and in 
1838 built the hotel where Mrs. Lucinda Hall lives, and gave name to Hallsport where he was 
postmaster. His wife was Charlotte E. Dexter. Conrad Minges, a Pennsylvanian, came from 
Steuben county in 1823 and made his home where Henry and Charles Minges live. He sold to 
his son John some years since and left town. Barney Crandall, a shoemaker, came to Independ- 
ence in 1830. He followed cloth-dressing in the Whitesville woolen mills. His wife was Eliza 
Warriner. They have descendants here. Russell Wood, son of Isaac, born in Herkimer 
county married Martha Perkins, came here in 1838, and cleared up the farm where E. Liver- 
more resides, where he passed his life. 

Dorus Burr came in 1830 to Andover, took up land and made improvements, married Eliz- 
abeth Corey in Tompkins county in 1832, and resided five years in Andover when he moved to 
Whitesville, where he was first a carpenter, then a wagon maker. He died in 1890. Charles 
C. Allen came to Whitesville about 1840, was a blacksmith. He later purchased the Hiram 
Alley foundry and commenced to make plows. His trade increased until he employed ten men. 
He married Nancy, daughter of Silas Crandall, and died in 1881. Franklin Forsyth came early 
from Norway, N. Y., took up 400 acres (the present farm of George Richmond is part of it) 
and before his death owned 1,000 acres. He filled prominent local offices. 

William Crandall, son of Stennett, born in Berlin, N. Y., came early to Spring Mills, then, 
marrying Rachel Tallman, daughter of William, he located at Whitesville, was many years a 
shoemaker, and a deputy sheriff. Joel Crandall, son of Stennett, was an early settler, and 
worked with his brother Silas in the woolen mill. Joseph S., his son, was merchant and post- 
master. William R. Crandall, son of Nelson R., born July 12, 1847, married Emily J., daughter 
of Samuel Benjamin. William Tallman, Sr., an early settler, lived many years on the Andrew 
W. Teater place, was deacon, a farmer and shoemaker. 

The Seventh Day Baptist Church. Previous to the organization of 
this church in town, several of the members of the First Seventh Day Bap- 
tist church of Alfred were living in Independence and were desirous that a 
church of their own faith be established in their own town. A council con- 
sisting of the members of the Alfred church was called, which met at the 
house of Isaiah W. Green in Independence, March 21, 1834, for church or- 
ganization. A church of 18 members was then organized, the members 
being increased to 21 the next day. Several of these members are yet living. 
Rev. Stillman Coon was the first pastor, although several others rendered 
ministerial labor before the organization. He was succeeded by Rev. S. S. 
Griswold. In 1848 Rev. T. E. Burdick became pastor and served until 1856 
when he resigned, and the same year Rev. Jared Kenyon became pastor, and 
faithfully served the church until 1880, Rev. I. L. Cottrell then was pastor 



604 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

until 1883, when he was succeeded by Rev. G. H.F. Randolph. In 1885 Rev. 

E. N. Backus entered upon a pastorate of two years. Rev. H. D. Clarke then 
became pastor until 1893, when the present pastor, Rev. M. Harry, com- 
menced his labors. 

Nathan Merritt was the first deacon. Daniel S. Remington and Wm. S, 
Livermore were soon after ordained to the office. Archibald G. Coon was or- 
dained in 1857. A. C. Burdick was elected deacon here, but was ordained 
elsewhere. In 1870, S. G. Crandall was chosen, and in 1894 D. E. Liver- 
more. The present membership is about 124. Many once members of this 
church have united with other churches of like faith. About 1844 a church 
building was erected at a cost of $800, which was replaced in 1875 by one 
costing $3,000. In January, 1884, this was burned, and the same year, the 
present house was erected on the same site at a cost of $2,500. For many 
years a Sabbath school has been maintained, w-hich has been a great aid to 
the church and a means of doing much good. There are now about 120 
scholars enrolled. 

The First Methodist Church of Whitesville was organized in Sep- 
tember, 1831, with 25 members. A church building was erected eight years 
later at a cost of $1,100 including a parsonage. Still later the church was re- 
modeled and enlarged and a more commodious parsonage was added. The 
church has a seating capacity of 200 and the property is valued at $8,000. 
The membership was 75. Among the pastors have been J. D. McKenney, 
William Madison, William Bronson, Rev. Gilford, Isaac Everett, Rev. Sweet, 
M. H. Davis, Joseph Criswell, C. J. Lowell, R. Canfield, Anson West, J. F. 
Brown, S. D. Pickett, N. North, P. P. Somers, E. S. Remington, and H. Vos- 
burg, the present pastor. 

The First Baptist Church of Whitesville was organized in July, 
1838, with 11 members. The first pastor was the Rev. John B. Chase. The 
house of worship, which will seat about 200, was erected in 1840 at a cost of 
$2,500. The church membership is about 60. The following have served 
the church as regular pastors, John B. Chase, John Kitchell, Benjamin 
Capron, Henry Robertson, Cyranus Ainsworth, J. E. Howd, Albert Jessop, 

F. A. Vanderburg, and Thomas L. Perry, the present pastor. 

The First Universalist Society of Independence was organized 
May 25, 1844. On the first board of trustees were Aholiab Sawyer and 
Thomas Collver. Until 1859 meetings were held alternately at the Collver 
schoolhouse, on Cryder creek, the Spicer schoolhouse and the schoolhouse 
at Hallsport (Willing). In the fall of 1858, Thomas Collver, Guy Forsyth and 
Willet Wilson were chosen a committee to let the contract for and to super- 
intend the erection of a church edifice at Whitesville. The church was 
dedicated in 1860. The seating capacity is about 300 and its cost about 
$1,500. Rev. Jason Lewis was the first pastor. He was succeeded by Linus 
Payne, Rev. Wisner, Isaac George, O. B. Clark, Joel Sawyer, S. E. Darrow, 
I. B. Sharp. E. W. Fuller, F. M. Alvoid, Rev. Holt, Rev. Brocfae, W. H. Mc- 
Laughhn, E. C. Rice, Emma Bailey and Rev. Dodge. Membership in 1895, 46. 



Independence. 605 



Soldiers of the Civil War residents of the town: Richard J. Fosbury, 
William H. Comstock, Fredrick A. Comstock, Judson D. Jacobs, Sidney 
Crandall, George Parker, Dauj^hin Dexter, Cyrenus A. Larabee, Lyman P. 
Carver, William T. Collins, Albert Heseltine, Newell Brown, Wilson Wood, 
Henry Bier man, James Parker, William Truesdale, John G. Barker, Patrick 
Riley, Selic A. Sawyer, George A. Green, Orville S. Barney, Frank M. Bas- 
sett, Orville Clark, William Barney, Francis M. Fish, Ransom Fish, Alburtus 
Burr, James L. Crittenden, George Coats, Jared L. Ainsworth, Charles J. 
Mather, Adelbert S. Brown, Aurelius H. Cobb, Theodorus Barker, Elias 
Horton, Orson C. Kenyon, Jesse B. Holbert, Heber D. Coats, Alburn Cran- 
dall, Benona Parker, Smith Dexter, Wayne A. Bishop, Warren Kenyon, 
Gustavus Nelson, Chauncy W. Ellsworth, Henry Stillman, Samuel G. Cham- 
berlain, Oscar F. Burdick, Harrison P. Dutcher, James M. Coats, Orville N. 
Richardson, Patrick Lowe, Le"\vis Diar, Leonard Briggs, Addison Atwater, 
Horace C. Jones, Royal Segar, Jonathan G. Horton, Asa M. Graves, Oliver 
H. Campbell, John H. Chase, Alvah L. Horton, Asa G. Wheat, James L. 
Chase, Warren Segar, Anthony B. Graves, William H. Lewis, Francis M. 
Wood, Leroy D. McCurdy, Oscar Dana, Lester Stone, George W. Richmond, 
Milo Walters, Newton Dexter, Alonzo Curtis, William Parker, Melvin Wilson, 
Rodney Rice, Murray L. Richmond, George B. Langdon, Elias Ketchum. 
Soldiers who were not residents: Lucias Campbell, Erwin L. Bloss, John 
Downey, John Aiken, Horatio Darling, John Beagle, Benjamin Tubbs, 
George W. Rogers, William C. Ellsworth. Merritt Teal, Charles A. Elliott, 
Delos F. Leonard, Vine Johnson. Noyce Snyder, Edward Brown, William H. 
Donihi, Joseph B. Johnson, Edgar B. King, Morris Snyder, Charles H. 
Barnes, Albert Robbins, William W. Tadder, Lester Stone, Charles Miller, 
William R. Ransford, Alexander Simpkins. 

The 1895 town officers are: Theodore Cobb, supervisor; C. S. Arm- 
strong, town clerk; A. L. Chase, J. D. Jacobs, B. H. Robbins, H. D. Clarke, 
justices; E. W. Reynolds, H. K. Bassett, E. D. Lee, assessors; Oscar 
Potter, highway commissioner; N. P. Collins, collector; N. Blair, overseer 
of poor. 

Supervisors.— 1821, Luther Strong; 1822, '23, '24, '25, '26, '47, Nathaniel 
Covell; 1827, '28, '29, John P. Livermore; 1830, '32, '33, Alvah Wood; 1831, 
Alexander Rice; 1834, '39, Silas Crandall; 1835, '36, '40, '41, '48, '49, '53, '58, 
Samuel S. White; 1837, Isaiah W. Green; 1838, Gaylord C. Calvin; 1842, '43, 
Hercules Darhng; 1844, Franklin Forsyth; 1845, '46, '52, '72, '73, '74, '75, 
William Cobb; 1850, '55, '56, Dugald C. White; 1851, Morris S. Chase; 1854, 
Samuel Y. Schofield; 1857, Ehsha B. Green; 1859, '60, Anthony Barney; 
1861, Daniel B. Harrigan; 1862, '63, Benjamin F. Wood; 1864, '65, A. M. 
Parker; 1866, L. D. Brown; 1867, E. J. Shepard; 1868, '69, Walter Leonard; 
1870, '71, John C. Green; 1876, '77, Morris S. Chase; 1878, Clark White; 
1879, '80, William Stout; 1881, '82, Walter Leonard; 1883, '84, M. F. Forsyth; 
1885, '86, William Cobb, Jr.; 1887, '88, S. S. White; 1889, F. M. Bassett; 1890, 
'91, A. J. Remington; 1892, '93, '94, "95, Theodore Cobb. 



606 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Something About Some of the People. — Charles H. Austin, son of William H. 
Austin, was born in New Scotland, Albany county. He in 1867 came with his father to this 
county. In 1875 he commenced to make cheese in which he has had success. He has con- 
ducted the factory at Spring Mills for many years. He married Clara J. Stillman, and has 
children, Herman and Luella. Mrs. Austin is a daughter of Ephraim U. and granddaughter 
of Nathan Stillman, who was son of Nathan, and born in Rhode Island in 1790, came in 1796 
to Brookfield, Madison Co., N. Y., with his parents. He married Thankful Kenyon, and set- 
tled in Alfred very early. About 1820 he came to this town settling on the place now owned by 
E. D. Potter, which he developed from its forest state into a fruitful farm. He had 4 children, 
Hannah (Mrs. D. A. Tooker), Henry, Ephraim D., Sarah (Mrs. Wm. Bosard). Ephraim D. 
Stillman was born Dec. 19, 1821, in Independence and is a farmer. Nov. 22, 1847, he married 
Lorany Wood, daughter of Peleg, and made his home in town. His wife died Sept. 13, 1890. 
Children, Livonia D. (Mrs. J. B, Holcomb), Alpheus G., Clara J. (Mrs. Charles H. Austin), 
Owen R. 

Dr. Anthony Barney was born Feb. 18, 1801, in North Swansea, Mass., a descendant of 
Jacob Barney, the English emigrant, who landed at Salem, Mass., May 14, 1634, whose son 
IDaniel married Rachel Bowen in 1757. Jonathan, the second of their 8 children, married 
Elizabeth Mason. Dr. Anthony Barney was the loth child and 6th son of their 11 children. 
Jonathan was a ship builder, was also a strong Federalist and sold a large ship receiving Con- 
tinental currency in payment which soon became worthless. About 1806 he settled in Newport, 
Herkimer county, and died about 181 3, leaving his large family in poor circumstances, and 
Anthony early learned to work. When about 1 5 his attention was called to medicine by a 
wonderful cure effected on himself by the famous Dr. White of Cherry Valley and he worked, 
saved, studied, taught school, all to acquire medical knowledge. He attended Willoughby 
College at Fairfield, and was aided by his brother Mason Barney to finish his medical education 
and received his degree March i. 1825, and March 22, 1825, located at Independence. Nov. 
18, 1825, he married Roxy, daughter of Charles Chapin. She died Jan. 23, 1838, leaving 4 sons 
and 3 daughters. June 30, 1838, he married Henrietta Horton. They had six children. He 
was in an extended and active medical practice for 50 years, dying in West Union Aug. 12, 
1886, of apoplexy, aged 85 years, 5 months, 20 days. He was very prominent in affairs, brigade 
surgeon of militia, and in the Civil War was offered the same position in the Union Army. He 
held various offices with ability, was a strong Republican, a Royal Arch Mason and an Uni- 
yersalist and contributed the site of the church of that society in Whitesville. He was liberal 
in his charities and public spirited and generous to all worthy objects of public or private con- 
cern. His ride extended from Alfred so;uh to the state line and from Scio to Greenwood and 
Jasper, and at his death a leading figure of the county passed away. Among his sons are 
Hon. Alvin C. Barney of West Union, who was born in 1833, moved to his present home, (where 
he married Mary, daughter of David and Minerva (Horton) Sherman) in 1857. He has been 
prominent in town and in Steuben county, serving as member of assembly and in other re- 
sponsible places of trust. Dr. H. A. Barney of Belmont is his son. 

Jonathan O. Barney, son of Dr. Anthony and Henrietta Horton Barney, after attending Al- 
fred University, married Nov. 28. 1872, Lenora L., daughter of Daniel and Angeline (Briggs) Dex- 
ter, and settled where he now lives. Children : Benjamin A., now attending Medical College in 
New York City, Pauline T., at Geneseo College, Angle M., at Andover Academy. Mrs. Bar- 
ney died Nov. i, 1880, and Mr. Barney married for his second wife Lillie E., daughter of 
Henry and Susan (Coon) Clarke. Children : Edith S., Bertha A., Harold C. Mr. Barney is a 
farmer and has held numerous offices. 

John C. Bassett, a native of Brattleboro, Vt., in 1827 moved to Independence, and settled 
in the east part of the town on a farm where there was a small clearing made and a log house 
built. He married Martha St. John. 12 of their 14 children attained maturity. He was a 
cloth dresser. He died in 1859. John C. Bassett, Jr., was born in Brattleboro, Vt., Jan. 26, 
1826. In 1850 he married Elizabeth Reading and has 4 children. He has held the office of 
assessor 6 years, and been collector several years. 

Michael Bloss came to town very early, settled on a lot of wild land where he built a log 
house and cleared up the farm now owned by William Forsyth and died. Jacob Bloss, one of 
his children, came here with his father. He married Sophronia, daughter of Ebenezer Parker, 
and was a lifelong and upright citizen of the town. His wife died in 1876, and he in 1884. Of 
their 10 children, two live in town, Hiram and Elisha W. (born July 12, 1835. married Lucinda, 
daughter of Edmund and Mary Spicer Brown. He settled in town in 1869, was assessor three 
years). He had four children of whom one, Charles S., is living. 

William Briggs, son of Garner, born in Rhode Island, was a soldier in the War of 1812, in 
1822 came to this town and settled on the farm now owned by his son Jesse G., on lot 107, tak- 
ing up 100 acres of wild land where he built a log house, cleared up a farm and developed a 



Independence. 607 



good home. He married Eunice Vaughn, had 4 children, of whom Jesse G, is the sole survivor, 
and died in 1866. Jesse G. Briggs was born March 17, 1828. In 1851 he married Mellisa Sax- 
ton, daughter of Israel, and settled on the old farm. They have two children Erwin, (married 
Myrtie Brown; daughter of Charles E. and Betsey A. Culver Brown), and Wallace. 

David S. Briggs, son of Job, was born in Dutchess county Feb. 24, 1794, and married 
Fanny Taylor of ^Madison county. June 14, 1818. They came to Independence in March, 1823, 
and took up land in the south part where they developed a good farm from the wilderness. 
Mr. Briggs died Sept. 28, 1861, and Mrs. Briggs in 1874. Their children were : Betsey A. 
(Mrs. Robert McCurdy), dec, Isaac H., dec, Irene A. (Mrs. H. J. Stone), Elisha T., dec, and 
Ransom L. The latter was born March 9, 1840, married. May 14, 1865, Fannie M., daughter 
of James Martin, and succeeded to the homestead where he is an active farmer. Their children 
are : Edith M. (Mrs. John Wood) and Fred M., who died Nov. 8, 1881. 

Jay J. Brown, son of Charles E. and Betsey A. Culver Brown, was born Feb. 25, 1867. 
From 1887 to 1889 he was engaged in farming in Almond, N. Y., then came to Independence, 
N. Y., where he and his father conducted merchandising. In 1893 he purchased his father's 
interest and is now in trade. He was commissioned postmaster in 1894. He is a grandson of 
Edmund and Mary Spicer Brown and Thomas and Silence Culver. They were early settlers of 
the town of Independence. 

Hon. Morris S. Chase, son of Rev. John B. Chase, a Baptist minister, was born in Yates 
county, in 1822 and came to Independence in 1837 with his father. In 1842, when he married 
Mianda, daughter of Ezra and Sally (Nash) Winship, his capital ^yas $50. He then studied law 
with Hon. A. G. Chatfield of Addison and was admitted to the bar but soon engaged in mer- 
chandising, which he has successfully continued to the present, and is now in company with his 
son, Amos L., in an extensive mercantile, loan and collection business. He has been four 
times supervisor, once member of assembly, several years loan commissioner, and has had much 
practice in surrogate's courts. He largely aided in establishing the graded union school in 
Whitesville, has been president of the board of education for 1 5 years, and is a director and 
auditor of the O. O. & E. railroad, and was largely instrumental in building the road. Mrs. 
Chase died March 5, 1887. Their surviving children are: Lydia A. (Mrs. W. W. Crandall), 
Isabel M. (Mrs. B. B. Slade), Theron M., Amos L. 

Peleg Clark, son of John and Jemima Clark, was born in Petersburgh, Rens. county, in 
1798. In 1822 settled on the Wm. Forsyth farm in this town, locating 200 acres. He made 
improvements, etc, but in 1829 he returned to Rensselaer county. Nine years later he returne(f 
and lived the rest of his life here. Pie married Ro.xalana Parker in 1824. Children : John H. 
and Jemima, died Aug. 29, 1853. Mr. Clark died March 22, 1892. his wife Nov. 23, 1890. 
John H. Clark is a physician. [See Medical Chapter.] 

Decatur M. Clarke, son of Samuel, was born in 18 16 and came when a mere lad with his 
parents to Independence, where he resided till his death in 1889. In 1841 he married Maria, 
daughter of Isaiah W. Green Cwho died in 1843), and for ten years conducted merchandising at 
Independence with Mr. Green. Selling his store he followed farming and stock breeding until 
1870 when he built a cheese factory and conducted it until his death. He was a man well 
known, supervisor, postmaster, etc. Orville G. Clarke, son of Decatur, born July 20, 1843, 
enlisted in 1862 in Co. E, 130th New York Vols., and served until discharged in July, 1865. In 
1870 he married Alice M., daughter of Johnson and Caroline (Stout) Briggs, and has since 
resided at Independence. Children : George M., Carrie M., Floyd C. He is a member of 
Sawyer Post, G. A. R., No. 333. 

Hon. William Cobb, son of Daniel and Lucy (Stevens) Cobb, born April 2, 181 5, in Ver- 
mont, came when eighteen to Spring Mills, married Nov., 1838, Eliza, daughter of William 
Churchill. Children : Emma, Angie, Theodore and William. Mr. Cobb was elected assembly- 
man in 1847 and in 1859, was seven times chosen supervisor, was an early and prominent Re- 
publican, one of Allegany's leading and wealthiest business men, and a man of honor and 
integritv. He died Feb. 19, 1893, Mrs. Cobb died Nov. 9, 1895. Theodore Cobb, son of Wil- 
liam, Sf., born Feb. 8, 1843, attended Spring Mills academy, married July 13, 1864, Margaret 
P., daughter of Wm. M. and Parmelia (Cooledge) Metzger, and settled at Spring Mills. Chil- 
dren : William H., Howard, Ahrling, Churchill F., Mary A., and Claire (dec). Mr. Cobb has 
been supervisor several years, has extensive business relations and stands high in community. 
William Cobb, son of William, born Aug. 23. 1847, graduated in 1869 from Mansfield, Pa., 
Normal School, in 1870 married Delia, daughter of Willett and Jemima (Pratt) Lawrence, suc- 
ceeded to the homestead farm where he resides, has been supervisor several terms, and held 
satisfactorily other offices of trust. Children : Fordyce A., Emma E., Lera L., Camilla A., 
Herbert L. 

Daniel Collins was born in Rhode Island. He came to this town very early and worked 
for Franklin Forsyth by the month. He married Rebecca, daughter of Peleg Wood, and in a 



608 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

few years moved to Willing where he died. Daniel W. Collins was born Feb. 22, 1848. In 
1833 he married Esther J., daughter of John Riley of Willing. Children : Ella F., Mary G., 
Leroy D. and Rita E. 

Nathan C. Cowen, son of William, son of John, was born in Candor, N. Y., June 29, 1842. 
In April, 1861, he unlisted in Co. K, 26th New York from Candor. He was in numerous 
bloody engagements, first and second Bull Run, Cedar Mountain, Chantilly, South Mountain, 
Antietam, Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville among them. Discharged May 28, 1863, he 
re-enlisted in Co. Y, 123d N. Y., and joined m Sherman's " march to the sea." Mustered out 
May II, 1865, he returned to Carrollton, Cattaraugus Co., and in 1887 moved to Whitesville, 
his present residence. He is rhember of Sawyer Post, No. 333, G. A. R. He married Phebe 
Dennis, daughter of Jacob, son of Aaron. Children : Eva B. and Bertha D. 

Silas S. Crandall, son of Stennett, was born in March, 1793, in Rhode Island, and married 
Nov. 6, 1814, Polly Freeborn at Cazenovia, N. Y. Eleven of their fourteen children attained 
maturity. Mr. Crandall settled at Spring Mills in 1825. He took up wild land, built a log 
house and made a home. In 1835 he moved to Whitesville, and with his brother Joel built a 
woolen factory. Some years later he bought his brother's interest and had his brother Barney 
with him for a few years after which he conducted it alone until 1848 when he erected a new 
factory building and formed a partnership with W. C. Reynolds, and retired in 1854. He died 
in 1870. He was an active Baptist and much respected and prominent in town affairs, being 
supervisor and justice of the peace for years. Jairus A. Crandall, son of Silas S., born May 
2, 1827, married Arethusa Brown, daughter of Solomon, in 1850, and located at Whitesville as 
a carpenter. He also was a school teacher and taught singing schools. For some years he was 
a merchant, now conducts insurance business. His second wife was Martha A. Carpenter. 
Wilford W. Crandall, son of Silas S., was born in Independence June 3, 1833. In 1861 he en- 
listed in Co. F, 4th Iowa Regt, as a private. For 12^'^ months he was a prisoner at Anderson- 
ville ; once made his escape, but was recaptured three weeks later. He was mustered out May 
20, 1865, as sergeant. In 1868 he married Lydia A., daughter of M. S. Chase, and for twelve 
years he has lived in Whitesville, engaged in manufacturing proprietary medicines. He has an 
adopted son, Wilford B. 

Aaron Crittenden, a native of Vermont, early carried on wagon making in York and Bethel, 
N. Y. He married Caroline Lempert of Yates Co., and in 1848 settled at Hallsport for 6 years, 
when he removed to this town living on the farm now owned by his son James L., where he 
died. His second wife was Martha Wheeler of Yates Co. He had 4 children by first wife, and 
3 by second. James L. Crittenden, son of Aaron, was born Feb. 16, 1836. He married March 
5, i860, Melissa, daughter of John Cline, and resided on the old homestead. In 1862 he en- 
listed in Co E, 130th New York, was promoted to corporal, sergeant and second lieutenant, 
and wounded August 29, 1864, at Smithfield, Va., and was discharged Dec. 5th. Since then he 
has been a farmer here, has been for 6 years assessor, justice of the peace and justice of the 
sessions, and is a director of Allegany County Farmers' Co-operative Insurance Co. Children : 
May, Aaron G.. John C, Clarence L., Charles E., James A., Robert C. and Martha R. 

LaBert Davie, son of Chester and Lydia Davie, was born at Bolivar Feb. 28, 1867. He 
was educated at Bolivar Academy, and in 1882 entered the printing business. May 13, 1891, he 
married Hattie J. Ortz, and removed to Buffalo in 1892. He came to Whitesville and with Mr. 
Fortner started the Whitesville News, April 3, 1895. 

George Forsyth, son of Franklin, was born in Herkimer county, and came with his father 
in 1834 to Independence, and except for two years always lived in town. He married Susan 
Blackman, was a farmer and died Jan. 1 1, 1891. Children, Franklin A. and Guy C. The latter 
was born Aug. 19^ i860. In 1882 he married Chloe A. daughter of Wellman and Nancy 
Richmond Wilson and located in town as a farmer. In company with W. A. Teater he deals 
extensively in hay, grain, potatoes, etc. He has one son George. Guy C. Forsyth, son of 
William, born in Massachusetts, came from Herkimer, N. Y., to this town about 1832, took up 
100 acres of wild land where he made his home, and developed the farm now owned by Chester 
J. Forsyth and Oscar A. Potter, and died Sept. 28, 1871, He was a prominent man in affairs, 
active in the Universalist church and was known to all as " Uncle Guy." He married Nancy, 
daughter of Charles Chapin. Children, Henry (dec), Daniel C. Laverna D. (Mrs. John La 
More), Maria N. (Mrs. J. D. Jacobs). Henry Forsyth married Caroline, daughter of Christopher 
and Wilhelmine H. Heinemann, was a carpenter by trade, and occupied the old homestead. 
Children, Cora T. (Mrs. G. W. Alvord). Louise W. (Mrs. O. A. Potter), Mary H. and Chester. 

Oscar A. Potter, son of Joseph C. and Susan (LaForge) Potter, was born May 8, 1864, in 
Andover. In 1883 he married Louise W. Forsyth and lived in Andover until 1889 when he 
moved to this town. He is road commissioner. They have one child Linford. 



Independence. 609 



Asaph Goodridge born in Fitchburg, Mass., Dec. 8, 1774, married Margaret, daughter of 
John Teater (who was one of the town's first settlers) on Jan. 19, 1806. He was in the war of 
18 1 2, and came from Canisteo to Independence in April, 1821, and took up the tract of land 
now the farm of Luther Goodridge. Occupying the first winter a log house on another lot, he 
built one on his own land, and made it his home. He was a hard working and respected 
citizen, built an ashery, made pearlash and also the first brick made in the town. His wife 
died Nov. 3, 1850, and he Sept. 12, 1854. Children, Hannah, John, Sewall, married Miss Betsy 
Perry, Samuel (died Jan. 27, 1822, the first death in town), Levi S., James B., married Miss 
Amanda Thorp, Luther, Samuel W., married Miss Martha Seeley, Peter T., Harriet R. (Mrs. 
John Longwell), Nancy M. (Mrs. Seth A. Spicer). 

Rev. Jared Kenyon was born in Petersburgh, N. Y., March 30, 181 9, and was the son of 
Potter and Martha Armsbury Kenyon. He united with the Seventh Day Baptist church of 
Petersburgh before he was 12 years old. The winter preceding his twentieth birthday, while 
attending school, he preached one evening, and when 23 years of age he was licensed to preach. 
He married Clarissa Brown April 1 1, 1839, who, to quote his words, " was my guiding star and 
strong supporter in my ministry." At the age of 26, his health failing, he came to Alfred 
Centre, and attended school and with his wife's help and working vacations he was able to 
support his family. Before leaving school the second Alfred church called him to their pastorate 
in which he continued 6 years. During this time he taught school 5 months, and for 4 years he 
was the town superintendent of the common schools. He then came to Independence and for 
25 years was pastor of a church here. October 16,1882, Mrs. Kenyon " was called to go up 
higher." Rev. Mr. Kenyon has lived a long life of usefulness. He has attended over 1,200 
funerals, and has had " the privilege of presenting Christ and heaven to a large number of 
people." 

Walter Leonard was born of New England parents in Smyrna, Chenango Co., N. Y., 
March 4, 1828, and when 8 years old moved with his parents to Westfield, Tioga Co., Pa. He 
was educated in the common schools and what was then Alfred Academy, and for a number 
of years was engaged in teaching district schools of the vicinity. He married Dec. 25, 1853, 
Dorcas M. Churchill, and settled in what is now Elmer, Potter Co., Pa. For 25 years he was 
engaged in general merchandise and produce trade. He represented his town on the board of 
supervisors in 1868, 1869, 1878, 1879. His children are Fred C. Leonard of Coudersport, Pa., 
member of congress from his district, Luman W. Leonard of the Empire Novelty Company, 
Wellsville, and Myra E. Leonard, kindergarten teacher. His wife died April 5, 1889, and he 
married second, Mrs. Elizabeth Montanye, Feb. 18, 1891. In March. 1895, Mr. Leonard moved 
to the village of Spring Mills. 

John P. Livermore, son of Samuel, was born in Wilmington, Vt., in 1798. He came to 
Green's Corners from Madison Co.. in 182 1 ; in 1822 was appointed justice of the peace and 
held the office 28 years. He was supervisor in 1830, 1832, 1833, was assessor and served in the 
War of 1 81 2. He married Annis Green, who died Feb. 25, 1879. and he July 17, 1889. He was 
an upright man and good citizen. He had three adopted children, Edmund D. Potter, and two 
daughters. Edmund D. Potter, son of William and Sally (Livermore) Potter, was born Feb. 
12, 1833, in Brookfield, Madison Co. In 1842 his uncle adopted him. and he has since lived at 
Green's Corners. He is a farmer and blacksmith, and has been justice of the peace 8 vears. 
He married in 1859 Antoinnette Enos, daughter of Henry of Nile. Children . Edmund H., 
Henry C, William J., Sarah A. (Mrs. Omer Barney). Mrs.'Potter died Dec. 27, 1892. Edmund 
Livermore, son of Samuel, born in 1806, came with his father to Independence, married in 1826 
a daughter of Patten Fitch, and lived many years on the farm now owned by Wm. R. Crandall. 
He now lives in Alfred. Three children, P, P. of Los Angeles, Cal., Mrs. Albert Hazelton, and 
Rev. L. E. Livermore, of Plainfield, N. J. 

lackson O'Dell, son of Jackson and Mary (King) O'Dell, was born in Paris, France, March 
27, 1840, and came to New Jersey with his parents in 1841. In 1857 he enlisted in Co. K, 4th 
U. S. Heavy Artillery for five years, was discharged in 1862, and soon enlisted in Co. A, 4th 
Minn. Cavalry, served three years, and in 1865 enlisted in Co. G, 151st Ind. Infantry, and was 
discharged June 19, 1865, for disability. He served in many important battles, Nashville, Mur- 
freesboro, Tallahoma, Knoxville, Chattanooga among them, and in several engagements with 
Indians. His father, mother, three sisters and two brothers were massacred August 18, 1862, 
at New Ulm, Brown Co., Minn., by the Indians. In 1865 he came to Andover where he mar- 
ried Mary J., daughter of Urial Williams. In 1855 he moved to this town where he now lives. 
He has 4 children, and is a member of Sawyer Post, G. A. R. 

Ebenezer Parker, son of Ebenezer Parker, was born in Vermont, and came from Yates Co. 
to Independence in 1824 and took up 50 acres on the farm where Silas Seeley lives, built a log 
house and made a home. He married Joanna Hall and has numerous descendants. Mrs, Parker 
died in 1850 and he in 1861, Luther H. Parker, one of the 1 1 children of Ebenezer and Joanna 



610 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



(Hall) Parker, was born Nov. 8, 1820. He married Fidelia, daughter of Jonathan Richardson, 
Oct. 4, 1846, and settled on the farm where he has ever since resided. The children of this 
worthy pair are Mrs. Melvin Minges, Ardeen and Mrs. Emmett Chandler of Port Allegany, Pa. 
Benoni Parker, son of Harvey and Charlotte (Fulmer) Parker was born in 1833. In 1862 
he enlisted in Co. H, i6oth New York Regt., was wounded at Port Hudson, June 14, 1863, by- 
gun shots in the head and right leg, and was discharged from David's Island, N. Y. in 1864. 
He is a member of Rolfe Post, G. A. R. 

Rev. Thos. L. Perry, son of Thomas and Sarah Perry of Linton, was born in Herefordshire, 
Eng., was ordained a Baptist minister in Bromyard in that country. He came to America in 1878, 
was pastor at Ulysses until 1884, at Henrietta, N. Y., from 1884 till 1889 when he came to 
Whitesville, where he is now pastor. He married Ann Bird, and has three children now living. 
He buried four in England and two in America. 

Joseph N. Remington, an English emigrant to Rhode Island, served in the Revolution seven 
years, and came to this town very early, a pioneer, and took wild land on the farm now owned 
by W. Crandall. His son, Daniel S., born in 1801, came with his father, and his was the first 
marriage in the town. His wife was Eliza, daughter of Erastus Eaton. Their home was on the 
homestead taken by his father. He was a farmer, a deacon of the Seventh Day Baptist church, 
and passed most of his life in town, dying in Andover in 1887. Of his six children, Jerome P. 
Remington, born May 30, 1831, married Aurilla Bloss in 1852, and located in town. His wife 
dying in 1853, he married Mary, daughter of Lewis B, Fish in 1856, and settled at Green's Cor- 
ners as a wagon maker. In 1862 he enlisted in Co. E, 130th New York, and served with his reg- 
iment until discharged in July, 1865, except four months in hospital. From 1865 to 1890 he was 
a carpenter and a farmer. His wife died in 1889, and he married Selina Green. In 1890 he 
became a merchant at Green's Corners. He has 3 children by second wife, Cora M., Fanny A. 
and Lenna E. Mr. Remington is a loyal citizen and belongs to Sawyer Post, G. A. R. 

Jonathan Richardson, son of Jonathan, a native of Brattleboro, Vt., came to Independence 
from Livonia, N. Y., in 1839, and settled in the west part of the town as a farmer. He married 
Miranda Moore; of their 11 children 9 survive. Thompson Richardson, son of above, was 
born Oct. 28, 1833, and married, Dec. 5, 1859, Almira, daughter of Silas Clark, and made his 
home in town. Removing to Almond in 1861, Dec. 10, 1863, he enlisted in Co. F, 109th N. Y. 
Vols., and was with the regiment in its numerous battles. He took part in the Wilderness 
fight, Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor, Falls Church, Weldon railroad, etc., and was discharged 
June 17, 1865. He has since lived in Whitesville, and is a member of Sawyer Post, No. 333, 
G. A. R. Children, Belle (Mrs. Frank Bloss) and Cora (Mrs. Mason Richardson). 

Joseph Sackettcame to Independence about 1814. He was a pensioner of the war of 1812. 
His son, Merrill C, born in Rochester about 1802, learned the carpenter's trade of his 
father and married Sarah E., daughter of Alexander Rice, had 9 children, and died in March, 
1886, his wife in October, 1893. Their son, Volney D. Sackett, was born in Whitesville, June 
5, 1844. He was a carpenter until September, 1861, when he enlisted in Co. G, 46th Penn. 
He was in the battle of Winchester, Aug. 9, 1862, was wounded on the knee at Cedar Mount- 
ain, had his leg amputated, was prisoner in Libby prison 64 days, paroled, and discharged Nov. 
7, 1862. 

Norris Seger born Feb. 20, 1799, in New Hartford, Conn., moved to Independence in 
1840. He married Amanda Mix, and settled on the farm where his son Orville now lives, taking 
up 100 acres, building a primitive loghouse and developed a fine farm. He died in 1887, his wife 
in 1892. Children. James W., Royal W., Adeline (Mrs. R. S. Langdon), Orville C. James W. 
Seger, son of Norris, born Nov. 13, 1826, married Nancy E. Bunnell, daughter of David, and 
settled on the old homestead. Aug. 9, 1864, he enlisted in Co. I, 189th N. Y, Regt., accom- 
panied the regiment to the Welden railroad, where he was sick and taken to the hospital and 
discharged Jan. 17, 1865. He was a farmer ever after, a member of Sawyer Post, G. A. R., 
and died Nov. 9, 1886. His son. Homer F., died young. Royal W. Seger, son of Norris, born 
Nov. 9, 1829, married Ruth B. Fish, daughter of Lewis. Aug. 9, 1864, he enlisted in Co. I, 
189th N. Y. Regt., and was discharged May 30, 1865. He then settled in West Union, where 
he now lives. Belongs to Sawyer Post, G. A. R. Has children living, Jennie A., Martha A., 
Fred W. 

Joseph Selden, born in 1804 of English ancestry, came to Allegany county in 1828. He 
marjried his third wife in 1842 and had 8 children. He enlisted in the 104th N. Y. in Novem- 
ber, 1 861, and was buried at Fredericksburg, Jan. 8, 1863. His oldest son, William, enlisted 
from Livingston county at the first "three month's call," re-enlisted in 1862 in the 136th N. Y. 
for 3 years and served the full time. He was wounded at Gettysburg. His second son, Willard 
M., enlisted in 1861 in the 85th N. Y. and was killed May 31, 1862, at Seven Pines, Va., where 
he was buried. His third son, Oscar B. Selden, enlisted in the 85th N. Y. in 1861, served 3 



Independence. 611 



years and enlisted for 3 more, and was imprisoned 8 months in the prisons of the South, came 
home a cripple and receives $14 a month pension. 

Gordon Stout, a native of New Jersey, came from Tompkins county. May i, 1822, to this 
town, took up 137 acres where is now the farm of F. M. Bassett, cleared and developed a good 
farm besides working at his trade of saddler and was road commissioner for years. He mar- 
ried Margaret Nye. Of their 7 children 4 are livmg. William Stout, son of Gordon, was born 
Jan. 15, 1825. He married Adeline, daughter of William Fulmer, Sept. 25, 1848, and made his 
home where he now resides. He has been a farmer, supervisor 2 years, assessor 6 years, and 
road commissioner and justice of the peace several years. Mrs. Stout died March 3, 1863. 
Children : Merville G., Andrew A., Delphine Z., Margaret M. (dec ) 

Samuel S. White, born Oct. 17, 1796, in Hopkinton, R. I., removed with his father to Afred, 
married Nancy Teater and came to Independence in 1819, settled on lot 50 where he remained 
until his death, Sep. 4, i860. Mrs. White died Jan. 25, 1863. Mr. White built the first hotel in 
Whitesville. conducted it and a store for several years, was a large dealer in cattle, an extensive 
farmer and and owner. His was the first framed house in Whitesville. He was postmaster, 
town clerk and supervisor. It is said, that when he came here, he had an axe and $2.50. His 
children were Dugald C. the first child born in the town, Clark, Serena. Cynthia, Sophia, George 
S., Minerva and Samuel E. 4 survive, 3 live near the place of their birth. Dugald C. White, 
born Oct. 23, 1819, was married to Lydia Crandall, Dec. 26, 1842, by the Rev. John B. Chase, 
and resided within a few rods of where he was born until his death Sep. 26, 1879. Five of his 
six children are living. Mrs. J. M. Parker of Oakland, Samuel S., Willis C, Arthur L., and 
Mary S. Heseltine live within a mile of the old homestead. Samuel S. White, son of Dugald 
C, was born Feb. 24, 1850. He married Sylvania, daughter of Seth A. Spicer. Children are 
Fred C, Gertrude M., Don C, Rebea L. He resides in the house where he was born. He is 
a farmer and has been supervisor and assessor. 

Clark White, born Jan. 4. 1822, married in 1846, Lovina, daughter of Stephen Boyce, con- 
ducted farming on the old homestead, was a merchant for 13 years, supervisor in 1878, justice 
of the peace 4 years, assessor two terms and town clerk for years. Mrs. White died Jan. 25, 
1852. Mr. White married second Tryphena Covell. Three children by first wife, four by 
second ; five now living, Mrs. Nancy Newman of Bradford, Pa., Burton C. White of Ubet, 
Mont., Mrs. Cora Emerson of Oswayo, Pa., Florence and Grace White of Whitesville. Mr. 
White has always been a farmer whose good judgment and sterling worth have been factors in 
the conduct of the town's affairs. Serena C. White, born April 17, 1824. married IraSayles, A. 
M.. Ph. D., April 13, 1845. Their surviving children are Clifton D. and Sherman. Mr. Sayles 
was a captain in the 130th Regt. N. Y. S. V. He died in June, 1894, at Chase City, Va., where 
Mrs. Sayles and her sons reside. Mr. and Mrs. Sayles were at one time successful teachers at 
Alfred University. Cynthia Sophia White, born in May, 1827, married Dr. Hartson in March, 
1849, and died July 3, 1856. Dr. Hartson died June 12, 1871. Their daughter is Mrs. A. S. 
Brown of Hornellsville. George S. White, born April 12, 1830, married first, Amanda Long- 
well, who died Sep. 30, 1858; second, Marilla Larrabee, she died Dec. 22, 1858; third, Anna 
Longwell. Mr. White's surviving children are Mrs. Frank Smith of Petrolia, Archer C, of Fort 
Dodge, Iowa, and V. Lament White. Mr. White has always been a farmer. Minerva White, 
born July i, 1832, married Valencia C. Baker, she died Feb. 11. 1875. Mr. Baker died May 21, 
1875. None of their children survive, but a grandson, Robert Baker, resides in Elmira. Samuel 
E. White, born Sep. 15, 1834, married Malona Richardson who died March 14, 1863. He mar- 
ried second Lydia P. Cobb. His 3 surviving children are Aurelius C, Mrs. Mark Williams of 
Petrolia and Mrs. Wm. Satterlee of Hornellsville. Mr. White has always " tilled the soil." 

David Wilson with wife Diodama Gray, and 7 children, David, (the first blacksmith in 
town) Robert W.. Lawson, Mary, Miner, Angeline and Calvin, in 181 8 settled on the farm now 
owned by Delos Allen, where he took up 300 acres. Here he built the first frame barn in town. 
His son Matthew and daughter Diodama (Mrs. Abel Trask) came in 1820. Matthew married 
Lucy Barker, settled on the farm now owned by Jesse Barker, was town clerk and assessor, 
justice of the peace and lieutenant of militia. Robert Wilson, son of David, born in Massa- 
chusetts in 1797, came with his father, married Nancy Sherwood and located and always lived 
on land adjoining his father's, now owned by A. White. He was a blacksmith and a farmer. 
Lawson Wilson, son of David, was born Feb. 6, 1802, married Amanda M., daughter of Wm. 
and Lydia (Church) Reynolds and succeeded to the homestead of his father, an early settler, 
and was a farmer, dying Nov. 28, 1849, ^nd his wife in 1889. Children : Lawson (dec), Malvin 
N. (killed at Spottsylvania, Va.), Ransom (dec), Newton M., Levi O., Melvina L. (Mrs. F. M. 
Reynolds). Newton M. Wilson, son of Lawson, was born March 14, 1838. He married, Aug. 
I, i860, Lavinia S., daughter of Eliza and Mary (Conant) Seely. His wife died Jan. 28, 1892, 
Of their 9 children are living : Lawson G., Delavan R., Rosa B., Celia A., Julius G. (a teacher), 
John K., George H., Ola M., Mabel K. (Mrs. H. L. Lyon) is deceased. 



612 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

David Woodcock, son of Levi, born in Swanzey, Cheshire Co., N. H.. in 1791, came with 
his wife Patty Osgood and 3 children to Almond about 1819, in 1820 took up 200 acres in this 
town, now owned by F. G. Forsyth. He had to cut his road from the David Wilson farm, two 
miles. He built a log house and cleared his farm. He sowed the first apple seeds in the town. 
From his nursery he furnished trees for his own and neighbors' orchards. He moved to Halls- 
port in 1850 or 1851 and died in i860 and his widow in 1864. He was a cooper and made 
many sap-buckets, and was assessor and road commissioner. Of his 1 1 children 5 are livmg : 
Rev. Harry E., Rachel (Mrs. John Cline), J. Q. A., H. H., E. T., Lucy A. (dec), a graduate of 
Oberlin, was a missionary in Jamaica, W. I., for 21 years. J. Q. A. Woodcock, born July 25, 
1824, married Jan. 13, 1847, Clarinda Sherwood, and located on lot 188 in Willing, and was a 
farmer and carpenter. He was assessor and road commissioner of Willing. In 1884 he moved 
to Whitesville, the same year was elected justice of the peace and continued in office 4 years. 
His wife died Aug. 27, 1885. Their children were Leman, Lannessa (Mrs. Levi Wilson), 
George M., Lamont D. Mr. Woodcock's second wife was Clemma Winter of Niles, Cayuga 
Co., married April 10, 1886. 

Luther Green, born in Rhode Island in 1796, was here very early, was elected assessor at 
the first town meeting, and was the town's first postmaster. He resided here from 1820 until 
his death in 1892. His oldest son, Elisha B., was also a resident here until his death in 1887. 
He was entrusted with many places of trust and enjoyed the highest confidence of his towns- 
men. He married Maria C. Bassett who died in 1861. Their oldest son, George A. Green, is 
a veteran of the Civil War, a prominent citizen of the county and the present popular county 
clerk. (See Amity.) 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

DANIEL DEXTER. 



Daniel Dexter died in Elmira Sep. 21, 1891. He was born at German 
Flats in Herkimer county, N. Y., Feb. 3, 1806. His father, William Dexter, 
was a descendant of Rev. Gregory Dexter who came from England as one of 
the co-workers with Sir Roger Williams in the founding of the Providence 
Plantations colony. His mother was a Drew and of Scotch descent. Daniel 
was the seventh son of nine children, the oldest and youngest of whom were 
daughters. Of the seven sons, five grew to manhood and four became 
marked and conspicuous characters in the communities where they lived. 
All lived to a well advanced age, Chauncey died youngest, aged sixty-three; 
Smith died aged ninety-three Their mother died when Daniel was but seven 
years old, and the oldest daughter, Abigail, kept the house until he was 
twelve when she married, and from that time he took care of himself. Their 
father once was the owner of a farm, but became impoverished, and while 
Daniel was a boy was ppor. This poverty stung him to the heart as a mere 
lad, and, as he often expressed it. he resolved then to " dig out of poverty." 
Until about seventeen years of age he lived at German Flats, working for 
farmers in summer and during the winter going to school, doing chores for 
his board. He was anxious to secure as much education as his circumstan- 
ces permitted, but a defect in his eyesight seriously impeded his efforts, and 
he made no progress beyond reading, writing, spelling and the rudiments of 
arithmetic. Two of his brothers living in Utica, he went, when about sev- 




^Xl^toIjiX Q.^j^!:^OiA^ 



Independence. 613 



enteen years of a^e to work for Mr. Parker, then connected with the famous 
stage route running from Albany to Buffalo. He remained in Utica about 
seven years, working for six years in the home of Henry Seymour, father of 
Horatio Seymour. Horatio was not far from his age and took much interest 
in him. He made him a partner in a real estate transaction, and during his 
life evinced great interest in his welfare. When about eighteen years of age 
he obtained his first pair of glasses, which overcame his defect in sight and 
he was able to see as others saw. He saved his money from the time he be- 
gan to earn any and when twenty-four had accumulated quite a sum. He 
then went west intending to settle there, going as far as Michigan. He 
found everybody sick with fever and ague, and became fearful lest he might 
be sick, and retracing his steps, came to Independence, where his sister 
Abigail, who seemed to him almost a mother, had recently settled. He soon 
purchased a farm upon which some clearings had been made. He then went 
to East Bloomfield, near Canandaigua, and worked for a farmer five years, 
and with his earnings hired the farm he had purchased cleared up. When 
his farm was paid for, cleared up and he had money enough to build the log 
house and stock the farm, he returned to it and married Angeline, daughter 
of William Briggs, one of the pioneers of Independence, and lived adjoining 
his farm. At the time of their marriage he was thirty-four and she twenty- 
four years of age. She died in August, 1891. They lived on this farm until the 
spring of 1889, when, owing to the infirmities of age, they removed to Elmira 
to be near their son. Four children were born to them, the oldest, Seymour, 
in March, 1841 (see page 275); Wallace, in 1842, died at the age of four; Theo- 
docia, in 1846, died while away at school in 1863; Lenora, in 1852, died in 
1880, leaving four children. He, was known as the hardest working and 
best farmer in all his vicinity, added to his farm until it consisted of 300 
acres, and amassed sufficient property to assure him against want in his old 
age. He was a man of unusual characteristics. He was not large, being 
only five feet, five and one-half inches in height, in his prime weighing about 
145 pounds. His hair and eyes were dark. In his youth few men could 
handle him and none endure more physical fatigue. He was never ill, ex- 
cept one short attack of sciatica when he was about sixty-five, until a paralyt- 
ic attack at the age of eighty-two years. This was so severe that none sup- 
posed he could survive and the physician said there was no use of his com- 
ing again, but his vigor was such that within a week he was sitting up. He 
recovered quite fully physically from the attack, but his mind never recov. 
ered its clearness, and until his death there was a steady decline in body 
and mind. At the age of seventy-six he became blind with cataracts. A 
successful operation was performed, his sight was restored and he was able 
to read as long as his mind remained. In strict honor and integrity no man 
was ever his superior. During all his life his word was as goocf as his bond 
among men who knew him. He was vigorous in his exaction that whoever 
owed him should pay in full, and to him it was a sincere pleasure to pay to 
the last cent. He was as scrupulous to fulfill to the letter a bad bargain as 



614 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

a good one, counting his honor and integrity above gold. In intellect he was 
far above the average man. In texture his mind was that of the philosopher. 
In light or frivolous conversation he never indulged except in a joke or 
jest. He was always arguing and philosophizing when he found any one who 
would talk with him in that strain. If he had had the advantages of a liberal 
education he would have taken high rank among the thinkers of his genera- 
tion. He was a great reader when he could find time to read, but while 
there was any work to be done, that claimed his first attention. He was 
without ambition save to improve his farm, make money, educate his family 
liberally and rear them to habits of thrift and industry, and cultivate in 
their minds a love of honesty and a desire to be useful members of society. 
He never held or desired to hold an office above " iDath master, " and he only 
held that office to make the roads better. He had a will of iron and no man 
with such strong impulses and passions was ever more self -poised and self- 
controlled. Living during his young manhood in the city of Utica, enjoying 
by nature genial companionship, no allurement or temptation could turn him 
aside from the mark he had set before him when a lad, viz.: to " dig out of 
poverty and get a home of his own. " No movement of popular feeling or 
clamor ever swayed him for a moment from his own convictions, and his 
convictions were always based upon reasoning which he could give you.. 
By nature he was affectionate and generous, but the rough side of the world, 
which he met in his younger years, did much to dull and prevent the growth 
and development of these impulses. He had little sympathy for those who 
were poor by reason of indolence, prodigality or bad management. He 
maintained that all men of sound bodies and minds in this land ought to get 
along and have a home of their own. By his religious neighbors he was 
sometimes counted an infidel, but he had profound faith in God as his divine 
Father and in whose wisdom and fatherly love he had perfect confidence. 
That faith was his constant comfort as he neared the "valley of shadows.'^ 
Over and over he said during the last years of his life that ' ' dying to me is 
but going home. It is time for me to go, and I want to go." While a young 
man his reason rebelled against the current theological dogmas of eternal 
punishment and vicarious atonement, and he could not believe them. 
Whether there was a life hereafter, in his middle life he neither affirmed nor 
denied, he simply said he did not know. In his advancing years a faith de- 
veloped that he should live hereafter, but whether with or without a recol- 
lection of this life, his faith developed no clear lines. His reasoning could 
bring him to no solid foundations for a faith in that regard. He was so 
made that he could not profess to believe what he did not believe, and he 
cared nothing about what others thought of his belief. The remembrance of 
a dream when he was a boy and fighting the battle of life alone, was ever a 
comfort to feim. He dreamed that his older brothers had run away and left 
him alone and he was crying when God came and took him in his arms and 
said, " Daniel, I will take care of you," It is certain that the work of his 
hand always prospered. 



Burns. 615 

CHAPTER LIV. . 

BY W. H. BARNUM, ESQ. 

BURNS WAS formed from Ossian March 17, 1826. Ossian was formed 
from Angelica March 11, 1808, and was in ADegany county until an- 
nexed to Livingston in 1856. Burns was named in honor of the Scottish 
lyric poet Robert Burns. It is a part of the Morris Reserve. It is the north- 
-east town of the county, and contains 15,482 acres. The surface is hilly and 
broken and well suited for dairying. Canaseraga Creek, flowing north and 
northeast through the central j^art of the town, and its branches, South 
Valley and Slader creeks, flow through beautiful little valleys from 400 to 
700 feet below the tops of the hills. The population has been 1860, 1,064; 
1870, 1,340; 1880, 1,671; 1890, 1,506; 1892, 1,513. 

The first settlement was made on Canaseraga Creek in 1805 by Moses 
and Jeremiah Gregory, Samuel Rodman and John Gaddis. The same year 
William Hopkins came from Pennsylvania and settled in South Valley, a 
mile south of where the village of Canaseraga is now located. His son, 
John Hopkins, who died in 1873, came at the same time. Samuel Boylan. a 
native of New Jersey, came in 1806, accompanied by his son, James H. Boy- 
lan, then nine years old. They arrived early in the spring, bringing with 
them, on their backs, as much substantial food, as, with the aid of such 
^ame as they could kill, they thought would last them while they were chop- 
ping the trees on a few acres of land. Mr. Boylan took up 160 acres of lot 
No. 99, where a part of the village of Canaseraga now is. Thomas Quick, 
Elias Van Scoter, Elias and Daniel Abbott and Wm. Carroll came in 1806. 
They were all from Pennsylvania. Quick and Van Scoter settled in the 
■eastern part of the town. The Abbotts settled at DeWitt's Valley (now 
Burns village) and Carroll on lot No. 40, a little south of the center of the 
town. He was a man well versed in the experiences of a hard life, having 
been a soldier in the war for independence, and subsequently for some time 
a sailor. He had a wife, five sons and three daughters. He lived on the 
place where he located until his death. John, his son, died at the age of 
.seventy-eight, on the same farm. He was about eight years old when his 
father settled here. 

Among others who came at an early date were Nathaniel Summers, who 
settled in the northeast part of the town, James Crooks in the northern 
part, west of Canaseraga, and a man named Pry near Burns village. John 
Ryan, a native of Herkimer county, was one of the first settlers. He came 
when the town was a wilderness and bought and cleared a farm. After a 
few years moved to Livingston county. He died in 1852. The Sladers, 



616 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Wilsons and McCurdys were of the early settlers, and among those who 
came a little later were the Carpenters and Whitneys. The latter located on 
Canaseraga Creek. In 1809 Henry Leonard came from Towanda, Pa., with 
his wife, three boys and two girls, and settled at Canaseraga. His son Jo- 
seph lived on the farm his -father took up till his death in 1876, at the age of 
74. Joseph held the office of justice of the peace continuously for nearly 45 
years His widow still resides in the town. His son, Elijah B. Leonard, 
also held the office of magistrate for a number of years. He was instantly 
killed at the raising of a mill in 1888. William Miller settled in the town in 
1818, coming from Avon, N. Y. He was born in Massachusetts in 1783. His 
death occurred in 1863. Joseph Miller came with his father in 1818, when 
but four years old. He is still a resident here. Samuel Carter built a stone 
house in the central part of the town in 1832. It is mentioned by old resi- 
dents that on the winter previous, Mr. Carter's sons drew together the stone 
for the house, working steadily and wading through the snow barefooted. 

Canaseraga has held the distinction of being the principal village in 
the town since about 1840. Previous to that time Burns village carried on 
a larger mercantile business, and was the polling place for the township. 
Canaseraga is an Indian word meaning "among the elms. " Canaseraga 
Creek winds along the valley in which the village is mainly built and pur- 
sues its course through Livingston county and empties into the Genesee 
river. Two flourishing gristmiUs are located at the falls, on the stream a 
mile below the village. The present population is about 1,000. 

Fires in Canaseraga. — In the winter of 1872, a row of wooden stores 
and other buildings on Church street, and extending around to corner of 
Main street, as far as and including the '• old Roup house," burned, and the 
next season a block of eight brick stores was erected in its place. In March, 
1878, another fire swept the opposite side of Church street, and around the 
corner of Main. The same ground was soon covered by buildings better 
than those destroyed. A few years later the Newton and Bowen stores 
were again burned. In 1892 the Hotel Lackawanna, near the railroad sta- 
tions, was reduced to ashes. March 28, 1895, witnessed Canaseraga's great 
fire, in which 25 stores, 2 hotels, Union Hall, bank, newspaper office, T. G. 
Wooster Manufacturing Co. 's Furniture establishment, 34 homes, etc., were 
completely destroyed with nearly all of their contents. The alarm was 
given at about 1 o'clock A. M., and in two hours, the flames driven by a gale 
of wind, had swept completely the business portion of the place and left 
nearly one-third of the population homeless on the street. Before daylight 
telegraphic orders were sent out for necessary articles, food, etc. , tempora- 
ry business places were improvised, and the homeless ones were distributed 
among their more fortunate neighbors. A few days later business, to a 
considerable extent, had been resumed in buildings of a temporary nature 
erected for the occasion. During the summer of the same year half a dozen 
large brick blocks and many fine residences were added to the list of sub- 
stantial structures in the village. 



Burns. 617 

Canaseraga was incorporated as a village in 1892. The 1895 officers are: 
James Craig, president; F. O. Jones, clerk; Wm. Scott, Asa Helm and S. 
P. Wilcox, trustees. 

Local Press. — The first'paper in Canaseraga was started in 1869, by 
W. H. Harris, called the Monthly Advertiser. Afterwards it was changed to 
a bi-monthly and then to a weekly, which was run until 1872, when H. C. 
Scott established the Tinie.s. He run the same until 1877, when he was suc- 
ceeded by W. H. Barnum. April 1, 1885, F. S. Miller purchased the plant, 
and has since conducted the paper. 

Canaseraga Creamery Co. was organized in 1894, with a capital stock of 
$3,750. S. M. Bennett, president ; C. N. Manley, treasurer ; F. H. Blue- 
stone, secretary. It uses milk of about 250 cows. 

Canaseraga Water Works Co., organized July, 1895. J. A. Bailey, presi- 
dent; A. T. Peabody, secretary; S. J. Craig, treasurer. Issued bonds for 
$14,000, owned by the village of Canaseraga. 

James Campbell's steam sawmill was built in 1851. Mr. Campbell pur- 
chased it in 1865. It cuts from 300,000 to 400,000 feet of lumber per year. 

Canaseraga Lodge, No. 781, F. & A. M.- — Charter was granted in 1878. 
John Whiting was first master. The first master elected was E. P. Green, 
who filled the office 10 years. The present (1895) master is Robert Ben- 
nett ; Lloyd Miller, senior warden ; Geo. Miner, junior warden. The char- 
ter and lodge rooms were burned March 28, 1895. 

Churches. — Trinity Episcopal Church was organized July 22, 1857. The 
meeting for organization was attended by Stephen Mundy, John N. Leman, 
Michael G. Mundy, L. L. Carter, Vespasian Whipple, Daniel Weller, Edward 
Mundy, Stephen Mundy, Jr., Geo. Yocum, Wm. B. Battin and Rev. Lloyd 
Windsor. The corner-stone of the church building was placed SejDt. 26, 
1864, and the edifice, built at a cost of $8,000, was dedicated Dec. 14, 1865. 
A rectory was built later at a cost of $1,500. The church has now 140 mem- 
bers, presided over by Rev. Francis Gilliat. The parish has previously 
been served by these rectors : Revs. Lloyd Windsor, Fayette Royce. J. H. 
H. DeMille, Geo. F. Plummer, Charles D. Allen, James Davies, E. E. Cham- 
berlain, S. H. Battin, John W. H. Weibel, J. D. Ferguson, George S. Teller 
(died while rector), C. J. Clauson. 

The First Presbyterian Church of Canaseraga was organized Oct. 26, 1872. 
Rev. James H. Board, its first pastor, came here from Howard, N. Y. The 
number of communicants at first was only 13, and nearly all of these had 
been members of the old Burns church. James Craig, Headley Thompson 
and I. K. Barnum were chosen the first trustees. The church has made a 
steady growth and now has 100 members. Rev. E. R. Evans, Ph. D., is the 
pastor. 

First 3Iethodist Episcopal Church.— It is claimed by members of this de- 
nomination that the Methodist was the first church organization in the town 
and that as such it received a gift of 40 acres of land from the Pulteney Es- 
tate. Certain it is that such a conveyance was made to the society at an 



618 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

early date, and a lease of the premises was subsequently effected by the 
church trustees covering a term of 99 years. At the time the lease was 
made the land was considered of small value, so that only a few dollars of 
annual rental was required. The lease will soon expire and the trustees of 
later years look forward to the time when the 99 years will have expired and 
the church again be in undisputed possession of the premises. Records 
have not been found of the church during intervening years up to 1832, 
when a lot was purchased of Lewis Rappalee on which to erect a house of 
worship. The trustees making the purchase were Jesse Pryor, John Hop- 
kins, Joseph Whipple, Firman Boylan and Stephen Mundy, and the consid- 
eration was one dollar. The deed was acknowledged before William Car- 
roll, commissioner of deeds, and recorded May 22. 1833, by J. M. Sherman, 
County Clerk. The church is now under the supervision of Rev. W. B. 
King, pastor. 

First BajJtist ChurcJi. — The commodious house of worship of the Baptist 
society of Canaseraga was erected in 1857, and was repaired in 1878 and 
again in 1893. As a church organization it had existence as early as 1818 
and some authorities say as early as 1810. The successive pastors have 
been Revs. John W. Lawton, Muriel V. Bemus, Elijah Bennett, Amos Chase, 
Jonathan Post, William Dye, J. W. Emery, Roswell C. Palmer, H. W. Brown, 
L. L. Porter, B. F. Mace, L. I. Lackey, C. Townsend, G. Crocker, James R. 
Smith, J. Rooney, Mr. DeWitt, B. W. Davis, W. Moxie, J. M. Shotwell, F. 
W. Reynolds. 

St. Marjfs Roman Catholic Clmrcli was organized over 40 years ago and 
has been served by these pastors : Rev. Father Creeden, Father McNab, 
Father Peter Donahue, Father J. McGrath, Father Morris Lee and Father 
J. Nash, D. D., the present incumbent. The church edifice was erected 
about 20 years ago. The lot on which it stands and also a plot for the ceme- 
tery was a free gift from Hon. WiUiam M. White. 

TJie First Presbyterian Chnrch of Burns was organized June 22, 1833, at a 
public meeting held at the schoolhouse in South Valley, at which Samuel 
Carter, William R. Bunnell, Gideon Osborn, Samuel McCray, Alexander 
McNett, Ebenezer Payne, were elected trustees. A copy of the proceedings 
certified to by Andrew C. Hull, first judge of the county, was recorded in 
Book A, page 470, of Miscellaneous Records, by Thompson Bell, Clerk. 
Rev. Robert Hubbard, of Dansville, preached the first sermon from Acts 11: 
22-26, July 19, 1833. During the next few years a creditable church build- 
ing was erected which was used for worship for 40 years. Its first regular 
pastor was Rev. Benjamin Russell who received here a yearly salary of |175 
and a like amount from the church at Hornellsville, and officiated on alternate 
Sundays at the two churches. He was succeeded in 1839 by Rev. S. W. 
May. Among its early members were: William McCray, Sufiria McCray, 
Harriet Bacon, Samuel and Jane McCray, William R. Bunnell, Sarah H. 
Bunnell, Gideon Osborn, Harriet Osborn, Mrs. Sarah Carter, Samuel Car- 
ter, Ebenezer Payne, Delight Payne, Louisa D. Tilden, Newton S. Carter, 



Burns. 619 

Roswell W. Carter, Thompson Bell, Susan Bell, John Coray, Cynthia Coray, 
Luin P. Kennedy, Mary Ann Kennedy, Gregory Fairbanks, William Webb, 
Sr., Sally Cooper, Catharine Abtiott, Jemima Casterline, Amanda Caster- 
line, Harriet N. Casterline, Julia Ann Casterline. Chauncey Casterline, 
Charles G. Casterline, Walter Cooper, John Van Antwerp, James Van Ant- 
werp, Dexter C. Payne, Edwin E. Payne, Lucy Ann Carter, Sarah Jane 
Wood, Roxey Wentworth, Adaline Kennedy, Emerany Howes, Isaiah Bacon, 
Jr., Augustine E. Tilden, Mills E. Carter, Mehi table Carter, Eliza Coray, 
Mary M. Coray, David J. Wood. 

Educational Facilities.— Scattered over the town at an early date 
were the primitive log schoolhouses, where, in summer, only the very young 
pupils were in attendance, but where in winter the boys and girls of larger 
growth also gathered. Spelling schools and writing schools were numerous 
and singing schools were occasionally held in winter. With the increase of 
population came the frame schoolhouses and in large rnumber. The salary 
paid to teachers also increased proportionately. During the first few 
decades of the century it was not uncommon for a lady teacher to accei^t 75 
cents per week, with board at the different houses in the district, as the sal- 
ary for a summer's work. About 1865 the old schoolhouse in Canaseraga 
was sold to the highest bidder, S. N. Bennett, and a pretentious brick school 
building was erected at a cost of $7,000. The site for the new building ac- 
companied by ii^l.OOO, was a gift to the district from Hon. William M. White. 
In 1878 the school became a Union School and was soon afterward placed 
iinder the visitation of the Regents. A steam-heating system, an extensive 
library, and ample philosophical apparatus are also acquisitions. The 1895 
Board of Education consists of James Craig, W. H. Barnum, James Campbell, 
William C. Windsor and W.I. Miher. 

Burns Village. — Although now containing only a few houses this was 
formerly the business center of the town. Its principal hotel was built by 
S. De Witt Brown in 1826, in honor of whom the settlement was named De- 
Wittsville. The name was changed to correspond with the name of the 
town about 1848. Colonel Ira Davenport, well known in Western New York 
business enterprises half a century ago, had a branch store here. An im- 
portant structure in the place was the Presbyterian church. In construct- 
ing the Erie railway through the town this village was left from its line at a 
distance of nearly a mile. As in many another similar instance, the village 
diminished in size while the station grew in importance as a shipping point 
and at one time more cars of wool, grain and potatoes were shipped from 
here than from almost any station along the Buffalo division of the Erie. 

Burns Station. — Has at present two stores, a hotel and perhaps 20 
dwellings. Philander S. Jones the postmaster, has held that office continu- 
ously for 40 years. The Burns Station Methodist Episcopal church located 
here, was organized in 1859. The church edifice was erected 1871. It has 
a seating capacity for about 200 persons. 



620 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Garwoods, a station on the Erie railroad and on the C. N. Y. & W. 
railway, is a hamlet of a dozen dwellings, postoffice (Whitney's Crossing), two 
stores and a planing mill. It is situated m the northeastern part of the 
town. For many years it has been an important shipping point of stove 
wood, many car loads of this commodity being loaded here each month. 

The Gas Springs M. E. Cliurcli, situated in the southwest part of the town, 
was organized in 1846. The church edifice was erected in 1861. A Sabbath 
school in connection with the church numbers about 80 attendants. 

Veterans of the TFar.— The town of Burns contributed its quota of men in 
the Union Army during the War of the Rebellion. The following were 
members of 130th N. Y. V. or 1st N. Y. Dragoons: Joseph N. Flint, now of 
California, Edward T. Gilbert, John K. Barager died at Old Church, Va., 
Rufus Adams, Wilhs H. Barnum now resides in the town, James C. Cook, 
died at Suffolk, Va., David Davison, died 1893, Josiah H. Flint, died at An- 
dersonville, Norman S. Fay, now (1895) supervisor of Burns, Nathaniel 
Marr, died of injuries, 1865, Orville S. Tilden, still resides in the town, 
Hiram J. Woodard, died at Andersonville, Ga., Lorenzo Bobbins, Hulcy 
Phelps and Wilson Jones, all reside in the town, James Prendergast resides 
in Canaseraga. The members of the 136th N. Y. at present residents of the 
town are: W. H. Harris, Geo. R. DoUoph, A. H. Boylan, C. C. Chappell, 
Hiram Allen, Joseph Rolls, Daniel Blank, N. V. Mundy, Isaac WithereU. 
Abel Gates and Asa Helm served in the 188th N. Y., Byron Bennett in the 
187th N. Y., Wm. M. Sparks served with Battery L, 1st Light Art., Wm. 
Mabie served in the 24th N. Y. Other veterans belonging to various com- 
mands were Wm. B. Battin, A. S. Humphrey, C. Mehlenbacher, John D. 
Beecher, A. M. Hess, D. C. Wolverton, James F. Shattuck, Zenas Baily. 

"The big elm " is the name given to a noble tree standing at the side of 
Main street bridge in the village of Canaseraga. Although its trunk is 17 
feet in circumference it is as shapely and as beautiful as it is majestic in its 
proportions. Besides being the pride of the town this ancient land mark 
counts its admirers by the thousand among those who have visited the locality. 

In the early part of this century, a mile or two east of Canaseraga a 
well was dug for water which was remarkable for its great depth. It was 
stoned up in the usual way and some years afterward it became some- 
what famous from the fact that a man tumbled into it and fell to the bottom. 
How he escaped instant death was one of the marvels of the time, but he 
was taken out alive although terribly injured. The well had become unused 
and to prevent the recurrence of a similar accident a huge boulder weigh- 
ing several tons was placed at the top over the opening. On one side of the 
boulder there remains to this day a hole where one can cast down a stone of 
considerable size. Visitors to the well enjoy throwing in stones that they 
may hear them click against the wall in their rajnd descent, the sounds be- 
coming more and more indistinct and finally inaudible. The depth is so 
great that the most practiced ear does not detect when the stone has reached 
the bottom. 



Burns. 621 

Supervisors.— 1826, Philip P. Rich; 1827-8, Oliver Carpenter; 1829-34, 
'38, William Welsh; 1835, Warner Hastings; 1836-7, '47^9, '51, Stephen 
Mundy; 1839, '40, Andrew Whitney; 1841, WiUiam Goodell; 1842 (record 
missing); 1843-4, '50, '55, '56, Alvah Cruttenden; 1845-6, Charles D. Robin- 
son; 1852-54, James K. Brace; 1857-8, William B. Brown; 1859-60, W. W. 
Wood; 1861-2, '76-7, Fay Miller; 1862-3, M. D. Dimmick; 1865-6, Daniel H. 
Halhday; 1867, Alvin Whitney; 1868-9, Edward Mundy; 1870, David H. Hig- 
gins; 1871-2, John L. Walker; 1873, '78, Stephen H. Bennett; 1874, Horace 
A. Avery; 1875, Solomon Denton; 1879, Henry Colegrove; 1880, S. N. Ben- 
nett; 1881-2, Fay Miller; 1883, T. B. R. Fitch; 1884-5, Wm. C. Windsor; 1886, 
'87, James Craig; 1888, '89. '90, D. Healy Clark; 1891, '92, '93, A. T. Bacon; 
1894, '95, N. S. Fay. 

Town Officers 1895. — Supervisor, N. S. Fay; clerk, Adolph Bluestone; 
justices of the peace, S. D. Coray, C. A. Chappell, Byron Boylan, W. H. Bar- 
num; assessors, George W. Fay, G. C. Wentworth, Asa Helm; collector, 
Henry Miller; highway commisioner, A. C. Burnside; overseer of the poor, 
S. P. Wilcox; constables, Ira Green, John Garwood, Hulcy Phelps, Eugene 
Meeks, M. G. Mundy; excise commissioners, W. M. Sparks, J. Schneck, 
H. F. Robbins. 



Personals.— Theodore S. Bacon was born Nov. 22, 1815, at Manchester, Vt., when he was 
4years old, his parents moved to Candor. Tioga Co. He married Lucinda Dunning June 13, 1835. 
They had 9 children. Mr. Bacon conducted a sawmill in Candor for 16 months then purchased 
a farm on North Almond Hill which he cleared and resided there for 9 years when he bought 
a farm in Burns, and resided in this town until his death July 19, 1885. His widow still resides in 
Canaseraga. Mr. Bacon was an active member of the Baptist church. Charles K. Bacon, son 
of Theodore Bacon, was born in Burns, June 23, 1856. He was educated at the common 
school and taught 6 terms. He opened a general store at Canaseraga in 1880, in 1885 he went 
to Grove where he established a store at Swains. In 1886, he was elected justice of the peace 
and has been continued in that position. He has also held the office of supervisor 4 terms. Mr. 
Bacon married Libbie, daughter of Stephen Coleman of Almond and had 2 children, Walter S. 
and Neva, who died May 4, 1893. 

Willis H. Barnum was born in Connecticut, April i, 1843. He came here when 4 years of 
age. He had the educational advantages of Genesee and Wyoming and Dansville seminaries. 
In 1 862 he enlisted in Co. I, 1 30th Regt. N. Y. V., and served until 1 864 when he was discharged 
on account of sickness. He is a member of the Seth H. Weed Post. In 1877, he commenced 
the publication of the Canaseraga Times and continued it for 8 years. He has been secretary 
of the school board and in 1893' was elected justice of the peace. In 1876, he married Alice V. 
Dyer, widow of James Dyer, and has 2 children, Carrie L. and D. Burr. Mr. Barnum is now 
a dealer in building material and a buyer and shipper of farm produce. 

Frank H. Bluestone, son of John and Mary Bluestone, was born in Birdsall, Sept. 23, 1866, 
and soon after removed to Canaseraga. He received his education at the public schools. 

Jonathan Bowen, son of David Bowen. was born Jan. 8, 1822, in Wayland, N. Y. His 
father died when he was but 8 years old and his education was necessarily limited. When 9 
years of age he drove 2 yoke of oxen to plow a rough stumpy field and when 14 he " raked and 
bound " and kept up with a good cradler. He cut cord wood for 25 cts. per cord, averaging 
2>^ cords a day, and his earnings had to go towards the support of the family. July 3, 1843, 
he married Maryetta Gates, and in 1845 he purchased a farm in West Almond of 97 acres, 
paying $100 down. He cut the first tree on his farm, built a log house and after a residence 
there of 24 years he removed to Canaseraga where he has since resided, and built 3 brick stores 
this year. Mrs. Bowen died Feb. 12, 1882, and Mr. Bowen married for his second wife, Mrs. 
Eliza M. Schults. He is a member of the M. E. church. 



622 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Samuel Boylan was one of the first settlers of Canaseraga. His children were : Harris, 
John, Isaac, Furman, Samuel, Christopher, Maryette and Fanny. Isaac Boylan, son of Samuel, 
was born at Canaseraga. He married Ann Howard and had a family of 4 sons and 2 daugh- 
ters. John, Laura Jane and Edgar are now living. Edgar was born Nov. 17, 1828. He mar- 
ried first, Hattie Boylan of Wisconsin. They had 3 children. His second wife was Miranda 
Leonard, who had 4 children. Mr. Boylan has held the office of highway commissioner and 
superintendent of the poor. Christopher Boylan, born in Burns, married Polly Bennett and had 
7 children. He was a farmer and died in 1877 and his wife in 1874. Amariah H. Boylan, 
youngest son of Christopher Boylan, was born March 18, 1848, in Burns. He enlisted in Co. 
B, 136th N. Y. v., served until the close of the war and held the position of corporal, and was 
several years president of the 136th N, Y. Vols. Association. He was commander of Seth H. 
Weed Post for a year. After the war he went to Chicago and for 10 years was in the employ 
of the Illinois Central railroad, the subsequent 10 years he was in Peoria and during his resi- 
dence there was a member of the Peoria board of trade, and was an extensive grain dealer. He 
married Florence Cummings of Peoria and has one son LeRoy Boylan. He returned from the 
west in 1884 and now lives upon the old homestead. 

William B. Brown, son of James Brown, was born in Hyde Park, Vt., Jan. 22, 1821. In 
1834 his father came to Burns and settled on a farm, his wife died in 1837 and James Brown 
went to Illinois where he died in 1872. In 1845 William B. Brown married Mary J. Miller; 
they had 4 children. She died in 1865. His second wife was Carrie A. Jones. In 1856 he 
was elected justice of the peace and has held the office 38 years. He has been supervisor, 
town clerk, and for several years postmaster at Burns. He was deputy sheriff 3 years in Liv- 
ingston county, and several years in Allegany. He was in merchandising many years, dealt in 
real estate and has been a large dealer in horses, and sent the first carload of horses for the 
army to Washington. He was marshal for this congressional district during the war. His 
surviving children are Frank E., born in Dansville in 1847, and Anna (Mrs. Ward Oatley of 
Andover). Florence A. (dec.) and Jennie E., who married C. S. Richmond, died in Providence, 
R. I., left one child, Jennie, who resides with her grandfather. 

Chauncey F. Clark was born at Rome, N. Y., Feb. 14, 1805. When he was a young man he 
came to Dansville and was a druggist's clerk for his uncle Dr. Clark for some time. Then 
marrying Harriet, daughter of Stephen Mundy, became a pioneer merchant at Boylan's Corners. 
He was justice of the peace many years, was postmaster and held other offices of trust, and in 
his latter days was a farmer. He died June 26, 1884. Mrs. Clark survives him and is 83 years 
old. Three of their five children are living, Charles E., a farmer in Michigan, Anna (Mrs. T. P. 
Perrin) of Illinois and Cornelia (Mrs. O. P. Taylor) of Wellsvile. 

John Coray, a native of Providence, Pa., was born June 5, 1796. He married Cynthia Webb, 
March 12, 1823, and had 4 daughters and 3 sons. He was a contractor of public works. He 
settled in South Dansville, N. Y., and died Sept. 7, 1870, his wife died June 2, 1877. The only 
son living is Stephen D. Coray, who was born June 8, 1829, in South Dansville. In 1835 his 
father moved to Burns, and here Stephen married Emeline Crane. They had 4 children. Mr. 
Coray has been elected justice of the peace 3 times, has held the offices of assessorand highway 
commissioner several terms, and was in mercantile business at Canaseraga for 8 years, and is a 
manufacturer of lumber, etc. 

James Craig, son of James T. and Elisabeth (Carney) Craig, was born March 10, 1840, at 
Sparta, Livingston Co., N. Y. He moved to Nunda in 1853, and was educated at the common 
schools. In 1859 he entered the store of W. Whitcomb in the village of Nunda as clerk, acting 
in this capacity for four years, becoming a partner in 1863 and continuing as such until 1869, 
when he opened a general store in Canaseraga where he conducts au extensive business. He 
has been supervisor of the town, was the first president of the village still holding the office, is 
president of the school board, also a trustee of the Business Men's Association. Mr. Craig is 
quite an extensive farmer, owns several farms, and is a breeder of Jersey cattle and Hambletonian 
horses. In 1872 he married Lucy, daughter of Daniel W. Bennett. Their children are Char- 
lotte C, Harry and Walter. Mr.' Craig is a member of Canaseraga Lodge of F. & A. M., and a 
leading and popular business man. 

John A. Daley was born in West Almond in October, 1858. In 1884 he married Hattie 
Harris and has ons child, Nina. Ha was engaged as clerk for 6 years in a hotel at Canaseraga, 
George Fox proprietor. In 1891 he opened the Central House which was destroyed by fire 
March 28, 1895. He then erected Hotel Glenmoreat a cost of $10,000, opened it Sept. 2, 1895, 
and now has one of the finest hotels in Allegany county. He is a member of the board of water 
commissioners. 

Norman S. Fay, son of Riley Fay, was born in Java, N. Y. His father died when he was 
5 years old and he came to Burns when but 8 years of age and made his home with Roswell 
Carter until he was 16, when he commenced work for himself as a farmer. In 1862 he enlisted 



Burns. 623 

in Co. I, 130th Regt. N. Y. V., 6 months after he re-enlisted in Battery D, 4th U. S. L. A., and 
was honorably discharged Aug. 14, 1865. He is a member of Seth H. Weed Post, 296, and was 
commander 2 years. Mr. Fay has held the office of highway commissioner 4 years, was elected 
supervisor in 1894, and is a member of Canaseraga Lodge, F. & A. M. He married Mary 
Way in 1862 and had 4 children : Elizabeth, who died in April, 1894, George, Marion and 
Myra. 

James Garwood, born in Lincolnshire, England, came to America when he was 25 years 
old and after residing tirst at Leroy settled at Canandaigua, where he was a successful farmer 
and dealer in live stock. He married Elizabeth Andrews of Canandaigua, and, in 1865, came 
to Whitney's Crossing, bought 1,600 acres of land, built two sawmills and a heading mill, and 
had as a partner Nelson Bailey, They employed over 100 hands, made annually over 1,000,000 
feet of lumber, besides staves and heading, and in compliment to Mr. Garwood the Erie rail- 
road station was called Garwood's. He was an energetic and active business man, an influential 
Republican and an Episcopalian. He died April 25, 1875, and his wife survived him until 
March 17, 1888. They had 5 sons and 2 daughters. William J. Garwood, son of James, was 
born in Canandaigua in 1859 and received the educational advantages of Geneseo Normal 
School. In 1888 he was elected sheriff and served 3 years with ability. Mr. Garwood has 
been a leading farmer and horse breeder. In 1885 he married Ollie A. Hulburt and has 5 
children. 

Frank S. Miller was born at Mt. Morris, N. Y., April 4, 1858. He was educated at the 
public schools until he was 14, but his father having died when he was 7 years old, he left 
school and was employed as a clerk until he was 18, and assisted in the support of the family. 
He then entered the office of the Mt. Morris Enterprise and learned the printer's trade. In 
1881 he went to Canisteo and was foreman of the Times office until 1885, when he purchased 
the Canaseraga Times, which he has since published. In 1888 he married a daughter of Ira 
K. Barnum. 

Lewis C. Stewart, son of John B. and Nancy TWebb) Stewart, was born June 11, 1843, in 
Dansvilie, N. Y. In 1869 his father settled on the farm which Lewis now owns. In 1866 he 
married Ellen J., daughter of Joseph Starr, who came to Burns in 1828 from Richmond, N. Y. 
His wife was Lucinda Palmer and they had 4 children. Mr. and Mrs. Stewart have one child, 
Helena E. In 1874 Mr. Stewart engaged in bee culture which pursuit he has since followed 
with marked success. In 1869 he became a member of the Free Will Baptist church of Burns, 
but withdrew from that society some years later and now meets with the Presbyterians for 
religious worship, and is one of the trustees of that church. 

Elizur C. Strickland was born in Lenox, Mass. He was educated at the common schools 
and when a young man he came to this town and engaged in surveying, which business he 
continued until his death in May, 1892. His, wife, whose maiden name was Mary E. Osborn, 
and whom he married in 1861, died in March, 1889. Their only son, Jonathan E., who was 
born March 27, 1862, married Adell Whitney and they have one child, Mary. Mr. Strickland 
is a farmer and has held the office of highway commissioner. 



.624 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



BY SILAS C. BURDICK. 

CHAPTER LV. 

The history of Alfred covers an even century. Previous to 1795 no white man is known to have hved 
■within its borders. Its high hills with their narrow valleys, which constitute the watershed between the Gene- 
see and Canisteo rivers, were covered with primitive forest. The Seneca Indians were owners and possessors 
of the land. By the triumph of the American people in the Revolution all foreign claims of ownership were ex- 
tinguished, and the power of the Indian Confederacy was broken, but New York and Massachusetts each 
claimed ownership under conflicting patents. In 1786 New York conceded the lands to Massachusetts but re- 
tained the sovereignty. In November, 1788, the ownership passed to Messrs. Phelps <& Gorham. Robert 
Morris became owner May 11. 1791, and the same year sold them to Pulteney, Hornby & Colquhoun, of Lon- 
don, England. By their agents, whose office was at Bath, Steuben county, most of the lands of Alfred were 
sold to the settlers at from $2 to $4 per acre. 

TT WAS IN THE SPRING of 1795 that Nathanael Dike (see page 301), from 
1 Tioga Point, Pa., settled at the foot of Elm Valley on Dike's Creek. Here 
he built a mill, and here, marked by rude headstones, may still be seen the 
graves of members of his family, bearing dates 1798, 1801 and 1803. 
Stephen Cole, from Tioga Point, also settled in 1795 in the same neighbor- 
hood. His son, Daniel Cole, is said to have been the first white child born 
in the county. Major Moses Van Campen, Matthew McHenry, Joseph Rath- 
bun, William Gray and Rev. Andrew Gray from Wyoming county, Pa. , set- 
tled in 1796 in McHenry and Karr valleys. John Cryder settled in 1798 
near the state line on Cryder Creek, and during the next few years Samuel 
and Benjamin Van Campen, Samuel, Joseph and Walter Karr and others 
from Wyoming Valley settled in Almond. Tarbell Whitney was a settler in 
Whitney's Valley in 1806, and Silas Stillman in 1807. Although the owners 
of these lands made strenuous efforts to attract settlers, distrust of titles, 
the density of the forest, the presence of bears, wolves and panthers, and of 
roving bands of Indians, greatly retarded settlement until after the war 
of 1812. 

Civil Organization. — In 1806, in response to a petition of the inhabi- 
tants, the legislature of New York passed an act creating the county of Alle- 
gany out of Genesee and Steuben, and constituting the town of Alfred out 
of the four southern townships of, the seyejith or western range of town- 
ships of Steuben county, specifying that the first town meeting be held at 
the dweUing of Benjamin Van Campen. This meeting w^as held on the first 
Tuesday in April, 1808, and the officers elected were: Joseph Karr, super- 
visor; Joseph A. Rathbun, town clerk; John Potman, Silas Ferry and 
Wheeler Hinman, assessors; Samuel Karr, collector; Roswell Haskin and 
Walter Karr, overseers of the poor; Elihu Knight, Benjamin Van Campen 
and William Gray, commissioners of highways; Miles Oakley, Sr., John 
Mcintosh and James Ayars, constables; Micah Haskin, Charles W. Clark, 



Alfred. 625 

Philip Doderer and Miles Oakley, Sr., overseers of highways; Benjamin Van 
Campen, pound-master; Ardon Cobb, Stephen Major and Phineas Stephens, 
fence viewers. A bounty of |4 was voted " for every wolf killed." 

AKred as organized contained about 160 square miles, an area 6 miles 
wide, extending from the state line 27 miles north along the present west 
line of Steuben county to the present northern boundary of Almond. 
March 16, 1821, Independence, which included the present Andover and 
parts of the present Willing and Wellsville was set off, also Almond, which 
included parts of West Almond and Bird sail. April 2, 1857, the western 
part of Alfred was made part of Ward. Alfred now covers a space 6 miles 
long, north and south, by 5 miles wide, about midway in the eastern range of 
the towns of the county, and contains 19,200 acres. The valuation of its real 
and personal estate in 1894 was $501,695; state tax, $1,085.98; county tax, 
$2,244.10; town tax, $1,752.43; ratio, 13.3165 mills; no bonded debt. 

Settlement. — Its Source. — The original settlers were mainly 
Seventh-day Baptists. Their first church in this country was organized by 
members who withdrew from the First Baptist church at Newport, R. I., in 
1671. This church was the sixth Baptist church organized in America, and 
they differed from their mother church only in the observance of the 
" seventh day," or Saturday, as the Sabbath. During the latter half of the 
17th century, and the whole of the 18th, this people established strong 
settlements in the southwestern part of Rhode Island, chiefly in Westerly 
and Hopkinton. Out of these by 1800 grew strong settlements and churches 
in Rensselaer, Jefferson, Madison, Cortland and other counties of this state. 
From these out-stations and from the original settlements emigration set 
westward to the "Genesee country." Mostly poor, frugal from necessity, 
strong, industrious, claiming absolute freedom of religious faith and prac- 
tice for themselves and all others, and the Bible as the only competent auth- 
ority in religious matters, they grappled cheerfully and courageously with 
the problems of their situation. Alfred was settled by them during the first 
quarter of this 19th century; the overflow passed on to Independence, 
Friendship, Amity, Genesee, and from thence to the western and southern 
states. 

The earliest settlers followed Indian trails, the chief one leading from 
Fort Niagara to and down the Canisteo, Chemung and Susquehanna rivers. 
This passed near the northeastern corner of Alfred and had become well 
worn by war parties during the Revolution. Settlers from the far east 
might come by Albany, and the Schoharie and Susquehanna valleys or by 
Schenectady, Utica, Geneva and Bath. Whatever way they chose the roads 
were mostly bridgeless and of the most primitive kind, making travel 
tedious and difficult. From Hornellsville westward for many years the only 
roads were little more than wood paths marked by " blazed trees." 

The first settlers in present Alfred came on foot in 1807, from Berlin, 
Rensselaer county. These were Clark Crandall, Nathan and Edward Greene. 
They bought 800 acres of land along the valley near the northeastern part 



626 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



of the town. Crandall's land lying below and that of the Greene's above 
Alfred Station. The Greenes were sons of Edward J. Greene, soldier of 
the Revolution, born in Charlestown, R. I., 1758. He followed his family- 
later from Brookfield, N. Y., to Alfred, where hedied March 28, 1836. His four 
sons, Edward, Nathan, Maxson and Isaiah, and his four daughters, Hannah 
(Fisk — Spicer), Tacy (Hamilton), Susanna (Maxson) and Annis (Livermore), 
all became heads of prominent families. The home of Edward J. Greene 
was on the site now covered by the hardware store of Burdick & Greene. 
Edward Greene was drowned a few years after his settlement while rafting 
lumber in the Canisteo river at Hornellsville. Edward and Nathan Greene 
and Amos Jones built the first frame house of the town. 

1808. Luke Maxson, Sr. , also from Berlin, settled on the south 100 acres 
of lot 14. He had also been a soldier of the Revolution. His sons, Luke Jr., 
and George, and his daughters Lydia (Green) and Martha (Saunders — Green), 
all became heads of families prominent throughout the history of Alfred. 
Luke Maxson, Jr., succeeded to the homestead, and his marriage with Sus- 
anna Greene was the first marriage celebrated. The old Maxson home is 
now owned by the widow of Perry P. Potter on South Main St., Alfred. 

Maxson Greene, son of Edward J., came this year from Berlin, and set- 
tled first on land taken up by his brothers, but soon after came into posses- 
sion of the farm on lot 14, now occupied by Alfred University and part of 
the south half of the village of Alfred. His home is now the home of Ira B. 
Crandall. Maxson Greene was a man of great excellence of character, one of 
the staunchest and most energetic of the early promoters of our religious 
and educational institutions. While on a visit in Wisconsin in 1850, Mr. 
Greene died of cholera July 28th, and his wife July 29th. Hannah, eldest 
daughter of Edward J. Greene, known as "Aunt Hannah," was one of the 
most notable women of early days. She became the wife of James Fisk, 
and her home was one of the first " taverns. " Being a professional accou- 
cheur, she often rode alone on horseback through the woods whenever and 
wherever duty called her, her lone journeys giving her many thrilling ex- 
periences with bears and wolves. Her husband was drafted in the war of 
1812, and died shortly after his return. She afterwards married Gideon L. 
Spicer and removed to Friendship. Edward G. Fisk was her son, and Irena, 
wife of Luke Greene, was her daughter. She died of apoplexy at Alfred in 
1848. 

Luke Greene, father of Philip S. Greene, Esq., came from Massachu- 
setts in 1808, and settled on " Sugar Hill." He removed to Illinois in 1838 
and died in 1874. Luke Greene's father. Judge Edward Greene, a veteran 
of the Revolution and of the war of 1812, and who had been the first judge 
of Madison county, accompanied his other sons, Paris and Jeremy, to Alfred 
in 1816. 

Deacon George Stillman of Berlin took up the land next west of the Fisk 
farm, and his family became another of our chief families. The heirs of his 
nephew, Phineas C. Stillman, now own the farm. His sons, George, Jr. and 



Alfred. 627 

David M., early removed to Hebron, Pa. His daughter, Sylvia, became the 
wife of Elisha Coon. Margaret married Jonathan Palmiter, Esther was the 
wife of Jared Coon, another daughter married Edward Burdick, another 
married Gardner Hall, Abby married Silas Stillman, and Lucy, Amasa L. 
Jones. Rebecca Stillman was the first white child born in the town. 

1809. William Saunders from Berlin. N. Y., took up the farm south of 
Alfred now owned by Hon. B. P. Langworthy. He returned to Berlin and 
married Martha, daughter of Luke Maxson, Sr. Mr. Saunders was drafted 
in the war of 1812, served two years, and died three weeks after his return. 
His widow sold the farm to Jonathan Palmiter, Jr. She later became the 
second wife of Nathan Greene. Her son, William M. Saunders, one of the 
very few survivors of the first settlers, is now living at Alfred. Her daughter 
Susan married Deacon Charles D. Langworthy, and her daughter Lydia 
was the wife of Deacon George Allen. John Teater from Oneida county 
took up the farm below Alfred village, now owned by Charles Stillman 
where one of the earliest " taverns " was kept. His daughter, Nancy Teater, 
who married Samuel White of Whitesville in 1817, was the town's first 
school teacher. Charles H. Clark and Peter Murphy were among the ear- 
liest settlers.* 

1813. David Satterlee born 1786, ancestor of the numerous family of 
that name in Alfred, came from Broad Albin. Conn., purchased 50 acres 
from Nathan Greene on lot 7, and afterward 50 acres adjoining, where he 
resided until abouu 1825, when he removed to Hornellsville where he died 
in 1877. Elder Amos Satterlee, a brother of David Satterlee, came about 
the same time, and was one of the earliest resident ministers of the gospel. 
The site of his home is now occupied by that of Arthur B. Greene on North 
Main street, Alfred. 

1814. James C. Burdick, father of Alexander, Alva, Russell W. and 
James T., born in Connecticut in 1771, bought 100 acres on lot 25 at |3 per 
acre. Here he died in 1848. Deacon Amos Burdick, born in Kingston, R. I. , 
in 1790, with his father, Amos Burdick, Sr., settled in "East Valley " on lot 
43. Elias Smith, Sr.. a native of Haddam, Conn., came with his family from 
Brookfield, and settled one mile west of Alfred, on 100 acres of lot 21. His 
son, Elias Smith, Jr., a soldier in the war of 1812, succeeded to the farm, 
where he died in 1837, aged 48. This farm is now owned by Albert Smith, 
son of Elias, Jr. Ashbel Smith, son of Elias Smith, Sr., and father of Joseph 
and Noel B. Smith (still residing in the town) owned the farm next east of 
his father's. Ashbel Smith was prominent in j)ublic affairs, helping to 

* The following copy of an authentic, doubtless, but nameless manuscript, showing the early condition of 
the road which became, soon after the close of the w3r of 1812, the chief thoroughfare between the East and 
" Olean Point " and the " Great West " : "In 1 809 we opened the road from Andover to Baker's Bridge. 
My father bought a barrel of salt and got Mr. Whitney (must have been Tarbel Whitney), to fetch'it to where 
the Summit now is on the railroad. The road was made on the side hill on account of the big swamp, and it 
was so sideling that it needed one man to go along with a handspike through a ring in the sleigh to keep it 
from turning over. We had no team and father being unable to get one, he and my two oldest brothers drew 
the barrel of salt home on a handsled. It was pretty tough work as the stumps and roots were all in the road." 



628 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

open the first road between Alfred and the Genesee river at Scio. He died 
aged 84. Isaac Burdick born in Rhode Island in 1763, took up 400 acres in 
the northeast corner where he built one of the earliest sawmills. He died 
in 1841 aged 78. His sons, Isaac, Palmer and Nathan, succeeded him in the 
ownership of the land. Abel Burdick from Brookfield, settled on the hill in 
the northern part of the town, and, like most of his race, lived to a ripe old 
age. His success in the manufacture of large quantities of maple sugar, 
with the most primitive conveniences, was the source of the name " Sugar 
Hill." According to Rev. Hiram P. Burdick, Abel, who did not weigh 100 
pounds, with his three sons not yet grown, in one year made 2,900 pounds 
of sugar, catching the sap in troughs made with axes from cherry and bass- 
wood trees. They gathered it with neckyoke and buckets, stored it in larger 
troughs dug out from sections of logs and "boiled it down" in five-pail 
kettles. 

Richard Hull, a maker of spinning wheels, etc., came from Berlin, and 
settled in the eastern part. Four of his five sons and one daughter became 
well-known ministers of the gospel; his son Nathan V. serving the First 
Seventh Day Baptist church of Alfred for more than 35 continuous years. 

Stephen Coon, Sr., came from Berlin, and settled his family on the 
farm now owned by Thomas Ellis. Returning to Berlin he died there. His 
sons were Stephen, Jr., Charles, George and Olive. About the same time 
time Elisha Coon also from Berlin, settled on the farm owned later by George 
Sherman. The sons were Asa, George, Lorenzo, Elisha, Stephen, Daniel 
and Orson. The daughters were Ann Janette (Main) and Roxy, who became 
the second wife of David Rose. The school district here was known as 
"Coontown," and its schoolhouse was long used for religious and business 
meetings of the town. Stephen Coon built a mill near the Withey spring 
north of the " marsh." Jesse Whitford came from Brookfield, settled on lot 
35 where he died. 

Asa Burdick, born in Rensselaer county in 1786, settled on the hill two 
miles west of Alfred on 100 acres of land where he reared a large family. 
His son, Asa C. still resides in Alfred. Asa Burdick removed to Wisconsin 
in 1852, and died in 1864. 

1815. Rodman Place, a tailor and a soldier of 1812. born in Rhode Isl- 
and in 1784, came from Rensselaer county and took up 75 acres on lot 22. 
He afterwards purchased other parcels aggregating 400 acres. He was the 
ancestor of the numerous families of that name now in the town. 

1816. Freeborn Hamilton of Brookfield, N. Y., another soldier of the 
war of 1812, married Tacy, daughter of Edward J. Greene and settled on 
the farm now owned by his son Deacon Freeborn Hamilton. He died in 
1869. This was the origin of the Hamilton family of Alfred. Nathan and 
Jonathan Lanphear, brothers, came from Berlin, N. Y. , and settled in Lan- 
phear Valley. Nathan Lanphear, was especially distinguished as a man 
of high character and lovable disposition. He was a most useful man in 
civil and religious affairs, and lived to advanced age. His son Mortimer 



Alfred. 6-29 

now owns the homestead. Seeley Monroe was a settler in the western part 
as was George Greene who came from Brookfield and bought the farm now 
owned by Samuel N. Stillman. Elias P. Burdick, born in 1786 in Rhode 
Island, settled on lot 21, two miles west of Alfred. He soon removed to 
Alfred Station engaging with his brother-in-law, Clark Crandall, in the man- 
ufacture of pails. After the burning of their factory he conducted the jew- 
elry business at that place until his death in 1867, when he was succeeded 
by his son John C. Burdick. 

This year was " the year without a summer. " Its winter was unusually 
mild, but snow fell and ice formed during every month, and vegetation was 
mainly destroyed. Great privation and suffering everywhere prevailed. 
Jabish Odell, Martin Emerson, Russell Davis and Amos Burdick came this 
year from Brookfield, N. Y. Odell settled on " Sugar Hill," Davis (died in 
1818) and Emerson in the eastern part of town. Amos Burdick came on 
foot, worked some months for Judge Clark Crandall, then took up 100 acres 
on lot 19, two miles west of Alfred, where he built a small frame house. He 
returned to Brookfield, married Anstis, daughter of John Clark, and came 
back in the spring of 1818. In 1839 he sold this farm to Isaac Fenner and 
removed to the Fisk farm at the village of Alfred, where he died in 1881, 
aged 85. He kept a public house 13 years and engaged in trade in 1862, in 
which he continued until his death. His sons, Milo, William C. and Silas C. 
have been among the business men of the town. Clark Potter, Enos P. 
Burdick, Moses Kemp, Seth Beebe, Sr., Jesse Saunders, Welcome and 
Nelson Burdick, Charles Coon, Solomon Head, David Sweet, Ambrose Coats, 
Barber Cheesebrough, Thomas Benjamin, Jabez Cartwright, Oliver Bloomer, 
Henry Young, Silas Benjamin, John Hill, Green Burdick, Oliver White, 
Orrin Turner, Levi and Nelson Sweet, Arad Wheeler and Luke Davis were 
among the settlers in the southeastern quarter of the town. Davis was a 
soldier of the warof 1812; he went west to locate a land warrant and was never 
heard from. Isaac Humphrey was an early settler two miles west of Alfred. 
George Allen from Marcellus, Onondaga county, settled in the northwest- 
ern corner of the town. Mrs. Alonzo Sisson is his daughter. 

1817. John Allen (grandfather of Pres. Jonathan Allen) brought his 
family with an ox team from Rhode Island and located on lot 11, where he 
took up 200 acres and built a log house the same year. His children were 
James, Abram, John, George W. and Catharine. All except Abram, who 
removed to Wisconsin, passed their days in Alfred. Benjamin Green, a 
soldier of the war of 1812, born in Berlin, N. Y., in 1783, came from Yates 
county to " Jackson Hill " where he died in 1864. Ray Green, born in 
Rhode Island in 1798, settled first, two miles west of Alfred village. His 
wife was Lucy, daughter of Elias Smith, Sr . Joseph Davis bought 50 acres of 
Arad Wheeler on lot 18, where he died in 1864. Stephen, Benjamin, and 
Arnold Collins, natives of Rhode Island, settled in the southwestern part of 
town. Samuel Thacher, a native of Vermont, came -from Hornellsville, 
married Ruth, widow of Edward Green and sister of Freeborn Hamilton. 



630 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Their home was west of Alfred Station, on land owned by Noel B. Smith. 
Mr. Thacher was a substantia] and much respected citizen. 

1818. Davis Lee, born in Rensselaer county in 1797, took up 200 acres 
on the '' marsh " (Tip Top Summit), where his son Francis M. Lee now re- 
sides. Joseph and John Lee also settled in this neighborhood. William 
Crandall, father of Russell, born in Rensselaer county in 1799, when a lad 
was a waiter in the army. He settled on lot 44 and died in 1877. Amos 
Crandall from Rhode Island purchased 50 acres, built a log house and made 
some improvements and went back. The next spring he and Samuel Lan- 
phear, his brother-in-law, brought their families with all their goods in a 
wagon, drawn by a yoke of oxen and one horse. A little later, Mr. Crandall 
sold out, and bought a farm near Five Corners. " Deacon " Crandall, as he 
was called, taught school four winters at $10 per month, boarding himself 
and taking his pay in produce or labor. He was one of the earliest teachers 
of singing schools in the town, and established the first Sabbath school. The 
one he organized in his school district has had existence until the present, 
nearly 75 years. It is possible that Jonathan Allen received much of his 
earliest inspiration from this good teacher, who, living to great age. was a 
kind, helpful friend to all to the end of his life. Nathan Williams was an 
early settler at Alfred Station. He was a stone mason, for many years a 
justice of the peace, and prominent in church and town. Samuel Lanphear, 
a tailor, settled on the north side of " Sugar Hill." Some years afterward 
he built a gristmill a half mile below Alfred Station which he operated suc- 
cessfully. His brother Acors followed him to Alfred. This year David 
Stillman, a saddler and harness maker, came from Berlin and bought the 
John Teater farm below Alfred village now owned by his grandson, Charles 
StiUman. David Rose, a brother-in-law of Mr. Stillman, came with him. 
Spencer Sweet, another brother-in-law, settled on the farm now owned by 
James Champlin where he reared a large family. All were prominent in the 
community. 

1819. Joseph Clair settled in the northern part of the town. Peter 
Rose, a soldier of 1812, father of Thomas Rose, took up 90 acres on " Sugar 
Hill." Twenty years later he moved west and died in 1877. Weeden Witter 
settled this year on " Sugar Hill." In 1820, Benjamin Maxson settled in the 
southern part of the town. 

1822. Bradford Champlin, born in Rhode Island in 1799, took up 100 
acres and lived to old age in town. His son. Green Cliamplin, is still a resi- 
dent. Joshua Vincent from Rhode Island settled in the valley below Alfred 
Station and engaged with Judge Crandall in the manufacture of pails and 
worked at cabinet making. He later built a sawmill a halfmile south of 
Alfred Station. He died at Farina, 111., in 1873. His son, Daniel C. Vincent, 
resided in town until his death. He was prominent' in public affairs and a 
justice. His son, Paul M. Vincent, was a school teacher and surveyor; he 
also moved west. Caleb Warren came from Rensselaer Co., in 1822 and 
located on lot 30. Elijah Woolworth, from Lewis county, and later from 



Alfred. 631 

Brookfield, settled at the head of Vandermark Creek, and Elijah Lewis from 
Brookiield. a cooper, settled on the east side of "Pine Hill." 

1823. Abner Allen from Onondaga Co., settled at the head of McHenry 
Valley, as did Col. Nathan Potter who bought 400 acres at Five Corners 
where he died two years later. Colonel Potter came from Potter Hill, R. I., 
where he had been a ship builder and manufacturer. His sons, David, Nathan 
and Elisha w^ere machinists. David built a foundry at Five Corners and 
later removed to Almond where he built a foundry and sawanill, Nathan built 
a wool carding machine at Alfred Station and Elisha for many years carried 
on successful woolcarding and cloth manufacturing and dressing in Whit- 
ney's Valley just north of the town line. Later he built a steam saw^mill at 
Alfred. Albert and Ezra, the other sons of Colonel Potter, were successful 
farmers. His daughter Cynthia married Deacon Amos Crandall. Hannah 
married Samuel Lanphear, Susan married Daniel Langw^orthy, Milly mar- 
ried Isaac Fenner. 

1824. Isaac Fenner, from Herkimer Co., settled this year in the west 
part of town. Ebenezer Allen from Onondaga Co., settled in the northwest- 
ern part. Luke Green, from Rensselaer Co., located at the "Center " first 
as a blacksmith, afterw^ards as a tanner and currier. In 1836 he engaged in 
merchandising wiiich he conducted during his lifetime. George and Asa 
Sisson, brothers, and Thomas Merritt, a brother-in-law% settled north of, 
and Hosea Barber at Five Corners. All from Rhode Island. Barber w^as a 
tanner, and currier and shoemaker. Christopher Crandall, Rowland P. and 
Samuel Thomas took up farms on " Sugar Hill. " Daniel, Nathan and Sam- 
uel Pierce, settled west of Five Corners. 

1825. Maxson Stillman, Sr., brother of George Stillman, Sr., came in 
1825 from Rensselaer Co., with his sons Maxson, Jr., Silas and Phineas C. 
This was a family of wheelwrights and artisans. Many of the mills and 
private and public buildings of Alfred and surrounding towns were built by 
them. Of the daughters of this family Susan was the wife of William Lang- 
worthy, Martha the wife of James Langworthy, Lydia first wife of Clark 
Rogers and Emma, wife of Albert Langworthy, and second wife of Clark 
Rogers. Maxson Stillman, Jr., born in 1799, is now the oldest resident of the 
town. Alw^ays prominent as a citizen, he has served on the board of trustees of 
Alfred Academy and University for more than half a century. Joseph Ed- 
w^ards, Sr., Chas. D. Langworthy and Jeremiah Burdick came in 1825. Ed- 
w^ards located on 100 acres a mile west of Five Corners. His son, Joseph Ed- 
wards, Jr., now lives in town. Langworthy was born in North Stonington, 
Conn., in 1804. In 1827 he bought 50 acres of Nathan Pierce on lot 4 and later 
added 250 more. He was a leading citizen and died in 1876. Burdick, a native of 
Rhode Island, brought his family with him with a horse team; he settled in 
Alfred, later lived in Hornellsville, then returned to Alfred. He died Oct. 1, 
1878, aged 92. His sons, Stephen C, William R., and Stillman M., have all 
been well-known business men. Thomas Benjamin from Brookfield, settled 
on lot 26 and died in 1837. Alpheus Green came from Connecticut; he was 



632 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

father of Dr. ElishaC. Green. Daniel Cook, from Massachusetts, was father 
of Washington and John H. Cook. Ezekiel R. Saunders from Westerly, R. 
I., in 1826 settled on lot 10, died 1878. George Champlin, father of James 
Champlin, born in Rhode Island in 1802, purchased 75 acres in the western 
part of town in 1827. William Davis from Madison county in 1828 settled on 
lot 27. 

1829. Thomas T. Burdick, Phineas K. and John R. Shaw came in 1829. 
Burdick, a native of Rhode Island, took up 50 acres on lot 10, lived there 
until 1865, then at Alfred village. He died in 1869. His brother Alexander 
B., from Newport, R. I., settled near him. Their brother Lee, and father^ 
Thompson Burdick, also lived in town. The Shaws were from Rensselaer 
county and settled in East Valley. Carey Burdick, Rogers Crandall and 
Barton W. Millard were settlers of this period. All near the center of the 
town. Paul Witter, from Madison county, settled in East Valley in 1834. 
John Penny, born in Johnstown, N. Y., Nov. 13, 1802, came from Ithaca, 
where he manufactured cotton goods, in 1835. He settled a mile west of 
Alfred village and was a prominent and much respected citizen. He removed 
in 1850 to Amity and died in 1861. His brother, Cyrenus Penny, was for a 
time connected with Luke Green in business. Deacon Alfred Lewis from 
Hopkinton, R. I., was a settler of this period. Jesse Hall and Wesley Kallen 
settled in the southwestern part of the town. 

1836. Rial Wescott settled in East Valley, also Orlando Kaple, who was 
from Connecticut and a Methodist preacher. During this year came George 
and Josiah Sherman, brothers, natives of Herkimer county, George, a sol- 
dier of 1812, bought 150 acres of Luke Green on lot 21. He died in 1869, aged 
77. Clark and Frederick Sherman were his sons. Josiah Sherman, father 
of Albert B. Sherman, bought 200 acres now owned by Samuel N. Stillman. 
Samuel N. Stillman, son-in-law of George Sherman, at the same time settled 
on the next farm west. Mr. Stillman is still residing in Alfred. 

A number of settlers of Alfred in its original form, outside of its present 
limits, yet who were a jDart of the community may be named. Joseph Good- 
rich settled 1819. He founded the settlement in Milton, Wis., 1839. Beriah 
Bliven. Rouse Stillman, Gardner and William Tucker, Zepheniah Wilbur 
Gardner, Lorenzo and Green* Worden, George Maxson, Stephen Powell, 
Henry Sheldon, Thomas Brandt, Nathan Austin.* 

The great cyclone of 1838 unroofed many buildings and did much dam- 
age in the town, but was not so serious here as elsewhere. 

Reminiscences by Ethan Lanphear.— My father, Samuel Lanphear, left Rhode Island 
in i8i6, the " cold season," on foot, and traveled west to Rochester ; the " Genesee river coun- 
try " being a wilderness, he followed up the river to Allegany county, passed the home of Mary 
Jemison, the " white woman," on his way. He was laid up two months with ague at Geo. Saun- 
ders' on the side hill southwest of Baker's Bridge." He returned to Rhode Island in 1819, decided 
not to remain among the rocks of Rhode Island, and he and Amos Crandall, his brother-in-law, 
with packs on their backs, started on foot for Alfred, where they selected lands on the north 
side of " Sugar Hill." Having built small log cabins they returned to Rhode Island. Father 

* The above statement must needs be incomplete and probably contains errors, but it has been prepared 
with care from the best sources of information to be reached at this time. 



Alfred. 633 

owned a house at Potter Hill. R. I., which they found burned to the ground and nearly every- 
thing with it ; but not daunted at this he bought a yoke of oxen and a large wagon, covered it 
with cotton sheets, had his oxen shod, and " breeching " attached to the yoke to favor the oxen 
in holding the load in going down hill, loaded in the wagon the goods of both families, and all 
started for Baker's Bridge or Alfred. They were accompanied for miles by friends to bid them 
farewell as they thought for the last time. They were 1 5 or 20 days on the road, stoppmg to 
rest a few days at Brookfield. They succeeded in getting through safely, camping out by the 
roadside when no log tavern could be reached. My father was a tailor, and there was not a 
regular tailor within a radius of forty miles, though Rodman Place did work at it some. It was a 
great help to " Uncle Sam," as they called father. When the news was spread abroad he was 
sent for to take his " goose " and shears and come down to Canisteo and help the families clothe 
up. Arrangements were made for Uncle Amos to look after the families and father was off. 
When he arrived there he introduced himself to Landlord Stephens, who climbed up on a large 
stump and hurrahed to his neighbors that there was a tailor in town and all that wanted clothes 
cut or made to bring their cloth. It was a harvest for father as he remained until he paid for a 
cow, four sheep, two pigs, a pair of geese, several chickens and several bushels of grain. He 
returned and found all happy, got a hand to go with him with the ox team, and went for his 
earnings, stopping at Hornell's mill at Hornellsville to have his grain ground. Father built a 
log pen for his shotes near the house to wont them, and then let them out to get their own liv- 
ing on beechnuts through the winter. One night an old bear clambered over the pen and took 
one in his arms and started for the woods. A lantern was lighted and swung in the darkness 
and some big halloaing was done until the pig was dropped. The next morning the pig was 
found back in the pen again. Not long after this neighbors were going through the wood path 
and the dog that was along treed a bear. Some stayed with the dog and watched the bear, 
while others went for Luke Green, '' Sugar Hill Luke," he being a good hunter, to come with 
his rifle. It was not long before bruin was a dead bear, and the neighbors around had a treat 
of bear meat. All were neighbors in those times and none had anything too good for his neigh- 
bor. Wild game was a great help in those early days. My father cleared up his land quite rapid- 
ly, as with his shears he could earn two or three days' work with one of his own. Men used to 
come from Bath and long distances to get him to do their work, and the custom was for people 
to bring their rolls of cloth and leave them, and when they wanted a garment cut or made, 
come and leave their measure. I think sometimes he would have a half-cord of rolls under 
his table. 

Uncle Amos used to work at shoemaking some, and rolls of leather were left with him in the 
same manner. Sometimes the shoemaker would go from house to house to shoe up the fami- 
lies. Sugar Hill took its name from the fact that it was heavily wooded with sugar maple, and 
the settlers made such large quantities of maple sugar. It was not uncommon for my father 
to make 500 or 1,000 pounds of maple sugar in a season. The first preachers I remember were 
Amos Satterlee, Richard Hull and, later, Daniel Babcock and Spencer Sweet. Richard Hull 
preached the first sermon I remember of in the schoolhouse at the " Bridge." He could scarce- 
ly read or write his name at that time. He worked at farming, and made spinning wheels — 
large and small — quill wheels, etc. He wore no coat, linen trousers, and a vest, without a shoe 
to his feet. David Stillman and my father talked the matter over that he ought to have some 
shoes. Father, after meeting, stepped out to the door, picked up a stick, and stepped back 
to the side of the preacher, stooped down, took hold of his foot and said, "Take up!" He 
measured the foot, and the next Sabbath the Elder came to church with shoes on his feet. 
Men, women and children often went to church barefooted in those days, and preachers had 
no salary. Dr. John Collins was the first physician of AKred, and a good one too, and a kind- 
hearted man. He started the first temperance society, and lectured at the " Bridge " school- 
house. I went with my mother to hear him. We both signed the pledge, and neither of us 
ever took a glass of liquor as a beverage from that day to this. Bless her memory ! I have 
seen Elders R. Hull, Daniel Babcock and Deacon Spencer Sweet, all in the pulpit together, 
when they would keep the people half an hour or more, waiting for them to agree as to which 
should preach. Men were human then as well as now. Amos Crandall, Clark Crandall and 
Maxson Stillman used to act as choristers alternately, always standing in front of the pulpit to 
lead the congregation in singing. Amos Crandall first started a .Sabbath-school or Bible- 
class in Alfred. 

Developments, Products, etc. — The first business of the settlers in 
Alfred was to make "clearings." The ashes, carefully saved from the 
burned fallows and converted into potash, was the first source of revenue.. 
The making of maple sugar supplied home requirement and the surplus. 



634 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

bartered with the merchant, helped to secure needed family supplies. 
Lumber had little value beyond the cost of making, on account of lack of 
roads and a market. Those who could hunt could in that way help supply 
themselves with food, especially if they were fortunate enough to secure the 
bounty offered for the killing of wolves. Flax was raised, jDrepared by 
hand, carded, spun, woven and converted into clothing. When it became 
possible sheep were raised and their wool formed, entirely by hand proc- 
esses, into clothing. Pew indeed were the early homes into which the cards, 
the spinning-wheel, the flax-wheel, the quill-wheel, the swifts, the warping- 
bars, and loom did not lind an early entrance. Oxen were in general use 
because considered more economical and useful than horses. The virgin 
soil, enriched by the ashes of the burned timber, was highly productive, and 
when the seasons were favorable, good crops of grain rewarded the farmer's 
toil among the roots and stumps. Year by year the clearings widened, 
orchards were JDlanted, flocks and herds increased and roads became more 
passable. Here and there a mill was built, and a few small stores were 
opened. One of the earliest ones was kept by Thos. Langworthy (as was 
one of the earliest taverns) in the house where Charles Stillman lives. 
The merchant conducted the exchanges of the people, receiving produce for 
his goods and turning the produce into cash as best he could. In summer 
the wool not needed at home was sold. In the fall fat sheep and cattle went 
to market "in droves. " In the haying and harvesting season it was custom- 
ary for such of the men as could be spared to '"go north," to the lower, 
warmer and longer-settled farms of Livingston and Genesee counties to con- 
vert their time and strength into cash, which usually went to make payments 
on the land or improvements. 

The log schoolhouse early sprang up in each neighborhood, and the dis- 
trict school, the singing-school, the spelling-school and the Sabbath-meeting 
became a part of the life of the community. As prosperity permitted, the 
large frame-barn took the place of the pole-sided, straw-shingled stable, and 
a little later the frame house, with its shaved shingle roof, much smaller 
generally than the barn, replaced the log hut as the family dwelling. The 
hide of the beef creature found its way to the local tannery, and in time, 
duly curried, was converted into boots and shoes by the shoemaker who 
perhaps went from house to house for that purpose. Clothing was gener- 
ally made at home; but if " style " was desired the services of the village 
tailor or tailoress were secured. The styles of those days were different 
from those pictured in the fashion plates of city tailors, but the clothing was 
warm and serviceable, and that was all that was desired. In summer it 
was not uncommon for people to go barefoot even to "meeting" on the 
Sabbath. A pair of calf-skin boots or shoes was a luxury to which few could 
attain. In later years when the first flush of fertility of the soil -was 
exhausted, it was found that grass, oats and potatoes was surer and more 
profitable crops than corn and wheat, so stock-raising and dairying became 
the chief business. This was doubtless brought about the earlier in this 



Alfred. 635 

town by the settlement of several thrifty families of dairymen from Herki- 
mer county, notably those of Isaac Fenner, George and Josiah Sherman and 
Samuel N. Stillman. Their skill and success was imparted from neighbor 
to neighbor until, by 1850, butter and cheese were made on nearly every 
farm. The opening of the Erie railroad in 1853 gave access to new and 
greater markets. The cheese factory and creamery came later to improve 
the quality, increase the quantity, and thereby stimulate the business, 
which, small in its beginnings, has grown to immense proportions. There 
are five cheese factories in the town at present, 1895. Butter, cheese, 
maple syrup, apples, potatoes, hay, sheep and calves are shipped in large 
quantities. 

The shale rock, and heavy underlying beds of clay of the northeastern 
part of the town, becoming of great value as material for fine brick and 
pottery, extensive terra cotta works have been established at Alfred for the 
manufacture of roofing tile, etc. These works have cost $150,000 and 
employ from 20 to 50 men. Tile of improved patterns excelling any other 
manufactured in America is shipped to every part of the country. Extensive 
pressed-brick works have also been established at Alfred Station. 

Pleasant Valley Cheese Factory located near Alfred Station, owned and 
conducted by E. P. Fenner, was erected by Harry W. Green. The milk of 
250 cows is used and 65,000 pounds of cheese manufactured annually. 

Home Cheese Factory and Creamery also located near Alfred Station 
was built by Daniel T. Burdick in 1861 and purchased in 1891 by E. P. Fen- 
ner; who operates it as a cheese and butter factory, making butter in the 
winter. The factory uses the milk of 200 cows and makes about 50,000 
pounds of cheese yearly. 

Five Corners Cheese Factory located at Five Corners was built by 
George West about 1866. The milk of 250 cows is used and the annual pro- 
duct is 65,000 pounds of cheese. E. P. Fenner Co., the owners. 

McHenry Valley Cheese Factory located in the town of Almond, was 
built by Howlet & Reed in 1875, the annual product for recent years being 
about 50,000 pounds of cheese. E. P. Fenner is the owner. 

East Valley Cheese Factory built by A. W. Langworthy in 1872, in 1883 
was purchased by T. G. Brown. The milk of 200 cows was used and 40,000 
pounds of cheese made in 1893. 

At the 1895 town meeting it was voted to complete the macadamized 
road between Alfred and Alfred Station at a cost of $8,000. It was done the 
same year. 

Population in 1830, 1,476; 1835, 1,903; 1840, 1,630; 1845, 1,625; 1850, 
2,679; 1855, 1,707; 1860, 1,367; 1865, 1,335; 1870, 1,555; 1875, 1,381; 1880, 
1,526; 1890, 1,669. 

Supervisors. — 1809, Joseph Karr ; 1810, '11, Henry McHenry; 1812, '13, '16, '17, '18, '24, '25, '26, '30, 
'44, Clark Crandall ; 1814, '15, Stephen Major; 1819, '21, '23, Jonathan Lanphear; 1820, Silas Stillman; 1827, 
Paris Green ; 1S28, '29, '31, '34, David Stillman ; 1835, '36, '40, '42, '48, '49, Samuel L. Russell ; 1837, '39, Joshua 
Vincent ; 1843, Isaiah W. Green; 1845, '46, Benjamin H. Green ; 1847, '50, John Penny ; 1851, '54, '61, Alfred 



636 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Lewis ; 1855, J. R. Hartshorn ; 1856, John N. DeWitt ; 1857, '60, '76, '77, David R. Stillman ; 1862, '63, Horace 
G. Witter; i8t)4, '65, John L. Russell ; 1866, '67 ; Ezra P. Crandall; 1868, '69, Maxson J. Green; 1870, '71, Clark 
Sherman; 1872, '73, '78, William C. Burdick; 1874, '75, Timothy R. Chase; 1879, William R. Burdick; 1880, '82, 
Almond E. Crandall ; 1883, '84, William C. Burdick ; 1885, Amos C. Lewis ; 1886, '87, Joseph W. Smith ; 
1888, '89, Silas C. Burdick; 1890, David R. Stillman ; 1891, Joseph W. Smith ; 1892, '93, Charles ChampHn ; 
1894, '95, Davids. Burdick. 

Officers for 1S95. — Supervisor, D. S. Burdick ; town clerk, Frank A. Crumb ; justices of the peace. 
Charles Stillman, Harrison Keller, J. K. Reading, Ira W. Jones ; assessors, Lorenzo D. Collins, William 
Ellis, Harley P. Sherman ; collector, T. Augustus Burdick ; overseer of the poor, Philip S. Green ; inspectors 
of election, ist district, C. B. Stillman, Milo B. Greene, William H. Bassett, L. W. Niles ; 2d district, Joseph 
Willard, O. C. Hadsell, H. W. Green, R. B. Withey ; constables, William O. Place. Frank Sisson, T. A. 
Burdick, Leroy Burdick, Ed. M. Potter. 

Roll of Honor. — The people of Alfred have not been wanting in pat- 
riotism. The first settlers were, for the most part, sons of soldiers of the 
Revolution, and themselves soldiers of the war of 1812. Alfred's sons were 
conspicuous in the border warfare in Kansas. At the opening of the Re- 
bellion they were prompt to respond to the call for volunteers. Albert R. 
CrandaU was first to enlist from this town. The names of nearly 150 of her 
boys are on her roll of honor. Four or five of the professors and hundreds 
of Alfred students fought in the Union ranks, many attaining high rank. 

Soldiers of Revolution.— (Partial list), Jonathan Palmiter, Sr., Isaiah Crandall, Sr., 
Judge Edward Greene. 

Soldiers of i8i 2.— (Partial list), Isaiah Crandall, Jr.. Amos Burdick, Thomas T. Burdick, 
Jeremiah Hall, Freeborn Hamilton, Elijah Lewis. Nathan Lanphear, Luke Maxson, Sr., Luke 
Davis, Jabish Odell, Paris Green, Rodman Place. Jonathan Palmiter, Jr., George Sherman, Will- 
iam Saunders. James Fisk, Elias Smith, Jr., Henry Sheldon, Rowland P. Thomas, Caleb War- 
ren, Peter Rose. 

Soldiers in War of Rebellion.— Gideon S. Allen, Co. D, 86th N. Y. Reg., enlisted 
Oct. 10, 1861, died Georgetown. D. C, May 8, 1862; Nathan A. Allen, Co. G, i6oth N. Y., enlisted 
Sept. 4, 1862, died New Orleans Feb. 4, 1865; John I. Adams, blacksmith, Co. H, ist N. Y. 
Dragoons, enlisted August^ 1862, served 3 years, died at Olean ; Samuel D. Butler, Co. H, ist 
N, Y. Dragoons, enlisted August, 1862, died in hospital Suffolk, Va., Jan. 24, 1863 ; Thompson 
Burdick, Co. H, ist N. Y. Dragoons, enlisted August, 1862, killed Trevellian Station, Va., June 
12, 1864; John C. Burdick, enlisted September, i86i,died Nov. 8, 1861 ; L. D. Cartwright, Co. 
G, 141st N. Y., enlisted Sept. 29, 1864, died Jeffersonville, Ind., Feb. 17. 1865 ; John Barber, Co. 
C. ist R. I., died Falmouth, Va., April 28, 1863 ; Erastus P. Burdick, died Morganza, La., Aug. 
16, 1864; Henry G. Davis, 85th N. Y., died Andersonville ; Mortimer Fowler, 5th N. Y. H. A., 
enlisted Jan. 4, 1864, died at Cuba, N. Y. ; Thomas Hull, Co. B, 5th N. Y. H. A., enlisted Jan. 
4, 1864, died Baltimore, Md., Oct. 28, 1864 ; William M. Hunt, Co. H. ist N. Y. Dragoons, en- 
listed August, 1862, died Alfred, 1882 ; Daniel B. Lee, Co. A, 179th N. Y., died Price's Factory, 
Va., Nov. 3, 1864; George I. Langworthy, Co. E, 85th N. Y., enlisted Aug. 28, 1S62. discharged 
June 25, 1865, appointed inspector of customs. New York city. May 2, 1880, died Jersey City; 
July 27, 1882; B. Frank Maxson. lieutenant, i6oth N. Y., enlisted 1862, killed Oct. 19, 1864; J. 
E. B. Maxson, Co. K, 23d N. Y., enlisted April 14, 1861, accidentally killed February, 1863, 
Rowland S. Ormsby, Co. B, 179th N. Y., killed Gettysburg July 2, 1863 ; Orson Ormsby, Co. B, 
179th N. Y., killed Petersburg, Va., June 24, 1864; Edwin S. Palmiter, died Memphis', Tenn., 
Dec. 27, 1862; Russell H. Palmiter, Co. D. 86th N. Y.. enlisted Sept. 21. 1861, died in prison, 
Columbus. Ga., March 7, 1864; B. F. T. Place, Co. H, ist N. Y. Dragoons, enlisted August, 
1862, died of wounds received, Newtown, Va.. Aug. 11, 1864; Elisha Rose, Co. H, ist N. Y. 
Dragoons, enlisted Aug. 12, 1862, died Alexandria, Va., Nov. i, 1863; Sylvester W. F. Ran- 
dolph, lost in McClellan's retreat in 1862 ; Orra L. Rogers. 85th N. Y., died Andersonville Aug. 
24, 1864; Andrew J. Satterlee, Co. H, ist N. Y. Dragoons, enlisted August, 1862, killed in rail- 
road accident May 11, 1869; Benj. J. Spencer, enlisted. 86th N. Y. Aug. 25, 1861, prom, to 2d 
lieut., wounded and taken prisoner 1864, not heard from since; Henry W. Shaw, enlisted awav 
from home, fate unknown ; Anthony V. Shaw, Co. I, i86th N. Y., enlisted Sept. 14, 1864, died 
Hatcher's Run, Va.. Feb. 17, 1864; Joseph M. Sisson, Co. I, 5th N. Y. H. A., died August, 
1873 ; William A. Saunders, 23d Ohio, May, 1861. re-enlisted 1864, served 4 years, died March 
II, 1880; William G. Thomas, Co. H, ist N. Y. Dragoons, enlisted August, 1862, died Light 



Alfred. 637 

House Landing. Va., July 12. 1864; Paulding Vincent, enlisted September, 1861, discharged, 
re-enlisted March, 1864, Co. B, 179th N. Y., died Washington, D. C, Aug. 4, 1864 ; Alvin Will- 
iams, Co. G, 1 60th N. Y., enlisted Sept. 4, 1862, died Brasher City, La., March 8, 1863 ; George 
W. Woodworth, a veteran, enlisted in Co. H, ist N. Y. Dragoons, killed Port Republic, Va., 
just one week after joining command. 

No complete list of Alfred men in the United States army during the 
Rebellion exists. Names and regiments obtainable (in addition to the fore- 
going) are: 

2yi N. v., Charles B. Estee, Mark Sheppard, Charles H. Crandall, William P. Maxson. 
Asher Williams. S6//i N. ¥., Nathan W. Burdick, James H. Cooper, George Y. Emerson, Eli- 
sha P. Fenner, William H. Rogers, Peter S. Spencer, Simpson Travis, Alburtus C. Rogers, Wm. 
A. Rose (capt.), John A. Travis, Henry L. Gerod, Horace Maxson, Oscar Monroe. 64//^ A''. K, 
Cyrenus P. Ormsby, 85///, Darwin E. Maxson, chaplain. 5//; H. A., George S. Sisson, DeLoss 
West, Martin A. Davis, Towner P. Andrews, John Lusk, Wm. D. Williams. 130//^ {\st N. Y. 
Dragoons), Henry G. West, Alonzo B. Woodard, Ira G. Travis, Harrison W. Green, Charles H. 
Barber, Lucius P. Crandall, Alanson B. Crandall, James R. Crandall, Orlo D. Emerson, Joseph 
N. Forbes, John R. Hemphill, Wm. T. Lee, Isaac M. Langworthy, John R. Millard, Nelson Pro- 
per, Wm. O. Place, Ira Sayles (captain), Richard G. Smith, Leroy Witter, George W. Wescott, 
John Brown, Henry M. Davis, Wm. H. Wells, Samuel D. Butler, William G. Thomas, Geo. M. 
Woodworth, A. Wescott, Wm. E. Callen, Clark Randall, Michael Gardner, Augustus K. Ryno. 
186/// A^. K, James W. Hoard, Anthony V. Shaw. 179/// N. K, Frank M. Beyea, Jarvis S. 
Kenyon, Wm. Huffman, EUery Cornelius, Samuel Champlin. \6oih N. V., James T. Burdick, 
Benj. F. Maxson, Stephen B. Clarke, A. Potter, Alvin A. Williams. 147M A^^, Y., Samuel Whit- 
ford. 104//; N. Y., Sylvester Allen. 109M A^. Y., Collins C. Burdick, George B. Langdon. 
\6ist N. Y., — Williams. 27//^ A^. Y., Chas. W. Berry, Amos C. Lewis. 141J/ A^. Y., Clark 
L. Hall, Eli H. Turner, Wm. Gardner. 188//; A\ Y., Marshall E. Thomas. 97/// N. Y., Alfred 
A. West. 107//-; A^. F., Isaac F. Hull, i 5//; i?;/^., Seth Curtis. 13/// ArL, John Morgan, Nathan 
J. Willis. 3d O/i/o, Wm. Albert Saunders. 4th IV. Va., Wm. H. H. Russell (col). Navy, 
John F. Langworthy, Orville M. Rogers, Daniel Lewis, William A. Rogers, Elverton Potter, 
Thomas J. Place, Adelbert Potter, Wm. R. Potter, Milton S. Babcock, Lucius C. Greene. 



CHAPTER LVI. 



CHURCHES, SCHOOLS, VILLAGES, ETC. 



THE First Seventh Day Baptist Church. — The first movement for 
church organization of Seventh Day Baptists in Allegany county was in 
March, 1812, at Alfred. Stephen Coon, Sr., called a meeting held July 4, 
1812, resulting in the adoption of articles of faith and a covenant, subscribed 
to by Stephen Coon, Sr., Nathan Green, George Lanphear. William Saun- 
ders, Luke Maxson, William Davis, Edward Green, and their wives, also 
Maxson Green, James Pisk, Rebecca Stillman. Bretty Wells, Sally Coon 
and Nancy Teater. These covenanted "to keep up meetings on the Sab- 
bath." Their numbers increased rapidly. Stephen Coon, Sr., was their 
leader; their meetings were held in the '' Coontown " schoolhouse. Besides 
a regular meeting on Sabbath days, a business meeting was held on the first 
" sixth day " of each month. The records show that these meetings were 
well attended by both sexes. David Satterlee was invited to "improve 
his gift, " as a preacher of the gospel. The church was visited in October, 1812, 



638 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



by Elder William Satterlee, from Berlin, with reference to organization and 
connection with the Seventh- day Baptist Conference. The services of Da- 
vid Satterlee as evangelist were continued. Stephen Coon, Sr., was or- 
dained deacon and Nathan Green elected standing clerk. Abel Burdick, 
George Stillman, Elisha Coon and Edward W. Burdick from the Seventh- 
day Baptist church, Berlin, and Daniel Babcock from Batavia united with 
the society in 1815. Oct. 4,1816, George Stillman. Clark Crandall, Daniel 
Babcock, Abel Burdick, Abram C. Crandall, Richard Hull and Nathan Green, 
were appointed to draft a constitution for a church organization. Oct. 18th, 
the constitution was unanimously adopted, " provided the conference saw 
lit to organize the society as a church." A council consisting of Elder Will- 
iam Satterlee and George Maxson from the Berlin church. Elder Henry Clark 
and Charles Babcock from the Brookfield church and George Stillman and 
Edward Green of the Alfred Society took into consideration on Oct. 20th 
the propriety of the organization of the Alfred society as a church and this 
was etfected. A sermon was preached by Elder William Satterlee, Elder 
Henry Clark gave the right hand of fellowship to George Stillman on behalf 
of the society. Oct. 21st, George Stillman and Daniel Babcock were ordained 
deacons and authorized to administer baptism. 

In January, 1817, the church voted to call on Abraham G. Crandall, 
Richard Hull, Clark Crandall, Stephen Coon and David Satterlee, "to come 
forward in rotation, and improve their gifts as the Lord may direct. " Dec. 
1, 1820, the church, with only one dissenting voice, called Richard Hull and 
Daniel Babcock to ordination to the ministry, and they were ordained in 
September, 1824. The first money for missionary purposes was raised 
Jan. 5, 1821. May 6, 1822, the church voted to give Amos Satterlee, Rich- 
ard Hull and Daniel Babcock, a half-bushel of wheat each a day for mission- 
ary labor in Troupsburgh and elsewhere. Clark Crandall, Stephen Coon, 
Amos Crandall, Oliver Coon, Luke Maxson, Ephraim Davis, Joseph Good- 
rich, Isaac Crandall and Samuel Yapp, also were appointed to take the lead 
in singing on Sabbath days. A resolution was presented by Nathan Pierce 
prohibiting members from joining the Masons, and " disfellowshipping " 
any one belonging to that fraternity. This was adopted May 30, 1822. 
Previous to 1836 Richard Hull and Daniel Babcock, assisted occasionally by 
Elder Amos Satterlee, Spencer Sweet and Ray Greene, supplied the church 
as preachers. Elder Alexander Campbell then was pastor for one year. 
Elder Joel Greene served in 1837 and was followed by Elder Halsey H. Baker. 
During the winter of 1838-9, Elder Stillman Coon held meetings which re- 
sulted in the conversion of many. Forty were baptized by him in one day 
in a pond near Baker's Bridge, the weather being exceedingly cold, and 
thick ice on the pond having to be broken for the occasion. 

March 3, 1839, James R. Irish, who had been principal of Alfred Acad- 
emy, was called to ordination by the church and became its first regular pas- 
tor at a salary of $300. Elder Irish's pastorate continued six years. Nov. 
1, 1840, William C. Kenyon was received by letter and Dec. 6th he was in- 



Alfred. 639 

vited to give to the church a synopsis of his religious views, after which it 
was voted that he have a letter recommending him as a lecturer on religion. 
Following Elder Irish, J. L. Scott, a licentiate, supplied for a time, and was 
succeeded by Elder Lucius Crandall of Plaintield, N. J. In 1846 Elder Nathan 
V. Hull commenced a pastorate which continued until May, 1881. Rev. C. 
M. Lewis was pastor from Nov. 6, 1881, until his death in 1883. April 29, 
1883, Rev. Wardner C. Titsworth was called, and served the church until 
Oct. 23, 1887, when he became professor of Latin in Alfred University. 
Doctor Thomas R. Williams acted as pastor until July, 1888, when Rev. W. 
C. Titsworth resumed his pastoral labors. Dr. Williams was recaUed May 
26, 1889. June 26. 1889, Boothe C. Davis was called to be pastor and com- 
menced his labors in Sept., 1892. Dr. Lewis A. Platts acting as sujDply from 
June until September. The present pastor, Rev. J. Lee Gamble, com- 
menced his labors with this church, in July, 1895. 

The deacons have been George Coon and Daniel Babcock, ordained 
October, 1816; Amos Burdick, Alvin Ayars, David Maxson and Amos Cran- 
dall, ordained March, 1831; Charles D. Langworthy, 1836; Nathan Lanphear, 
Nathan L. Maxson, 1844; George W. Allen, Josiah Witter, Alfred Lewis, 
Daniel Potter, 1850; Lyman Lewis, Benjamin F. Langworthy, Oliver D. Sher- 
man, 1864; Asa Clark Burdick, 1871; Henry C. Coon, John G. Allen, Frederick 
Place, Holly Maxson were ordained later. Formerly clerks were elected 
monthly; but among those who have served for considerable periods, have 
been Nathan Green, Charles D. Langworthy, Orra Stillman, David R. StiU- 
man, Asa C. Burdick, A. B. Kenyon, Earl P. Saunders, Frederick Place. 

The first meetinghouse was built in 1824 to 1828; a wooden building about 
36 by 50 feet, with a gallery on the sides and back end, costing $2,500, audit 
stood just west of the brick house now owned by Mrs. Lucy Barber, about 
midway between Alfred and Alfred Station. This house was then the only 
church building, and accommodated the only religious organization in the 
town, and its location was supposed to be best suited for that purpose; but 
three years later, the Second church was organized and a new house built 
for its use. Most of the members of the new Second church were dismissed 
from the mother church. 

The organization and growth of Alfred Academy and the consequent in- 
crease of the upper settlement, rendered the location of the meetinghouse in- 
convenient, and during 1854 and 1855 a new and more commodious house of 
worship was erected in the village of Alfred at a cost of 5,500. This edifice 
having been several times remodeled and enlarged is in present use. The 
membership in 1853 was 392; 1858, 395; 1863, 438; 1868, 440; 1874, 483; 1876, 
468; 1892, 583; 1893, 615; 1894, 613. The membership of many churches, since 
organized, has been largely composed of persons previously members of 
this church, notably, Second Alfred, organized 1831; Hebron, Pa., 1833; 
Friendship, 1834; Amity and Scio, 1834; Milton, Wis., 1840; Hartsville, 1847; 
Hornellsville, 1877. 



640 History of Allegany County. N. Y. 

The "Second" Church was organized Jan. 20, 1831. Its member- 
ship was composed chiefly of those members of the First Seventh-day Bap- 
tist church whose homes were in the eastern part of the town. There were 
51 constituent members. Elder Ray Greene was hcensed to preach Aug. 
23, 1832, and was pastor 8 years. Elder James Cochran succeeded him in 
1840, and, with a short intermission, continued his labors until 1848. After 
a year of irregular supplies Jared Kenyon was ordained and called to the 
pastorate, and was pastor until April, 1855. Elder Stephen Burdick, Alvin 
A. Lewis and others then supplied the desk until April, 1857, when Rev. 
James R. Irish, D. D., became pastor for 2 years. Rev. Nathan Wardner, 
who had returned from mission work in China, took charge of the church 
Jan. 1, 1859, and was pastor until Jan. 1, 1867. The next 6 months the pul- 
pit was supplied by Charles A. Burdick, a University student. Benjamin 
F. Rogers, also a student, acted as stated supply for the next 2 years. 
October 4, 1869, L. R. Swinney was ordained and was pastor until July, 1877. 
Rev. A. H. Lewis, a professor of theology in Alfred University, served as 
pastor from Jan. 1, 1878, to Jan. 1, 1880; Rev. Dr. D. E. Maxson from Jan. 
1, 1880, to Jan. 1, 1883; Rev. James Summerbell from Jan. 1, 1883, to April 
1, 1890; Rev. Lester C. Rogers from April 1, 1890, to Jan. 1, 1895. The 
present pastor (March, 1895,) is Rev. A. P. Ashurst. 

The first meetinghouse was located near the junction of the three val- 
leys, one mile south of Alfred Station. The present house of worship is a 
neat and commodious building located at Alfred Station. It was dedicated 
in April, 1857, and has since been enlarged and greatly improved. This 
church has experienced many revival seasons, the most notable one was in 
1878, when about 90 were added to its membership. Members in 1894, 277. 

Deacons. — Amos Burdick, a deacon of the First church, was recognized 
as a deacon of this church. Nathan Lanphear and Stephen R. Smith were 
ordained as deacons in 1832. Charles D. Langworthy and Daniel Potter, 
deacons of the First church, served this church in the same capacity. John 
Langworthy, a deacon of the First Seventh-day Baptist church of Hopkin- 
ton, R. I., united with this church in 1843, and served as deacon until his 
death. Lyman Lewis was ordained as deacon in 1873, Freeborn Hamilton, 
J. N. Forbes and John T. Green in 1873, Joseph Edwards, William H. Lang- 
worthy and S. C. Whitford February, 1888. Clerks. — Amos Burdick from 
1832 to 1847, then Charles D. Langworthy until 1853, when Freeborn W. 
Hamilton, the present clerk, was elected. 

Schools. — From the beginning of her history Alfred has provided her- 
self liberally with district schools, and much attention has always been 
given to education. The remarkable growth of the academy and university 
has been the means of supplying the district schools with a high grade of 
teachers. Large numbers of educated men and women have gone out from 
Alfred who are to be found in honorable and useful positions throughout the 
country, and a good percentage of her present citizenship are college-edu- 
cated people. 



Alfred. 641 

Earbj Teachers of District Schools. — Nancy Teater, Betsey Bassett, Amos, 
Paul and Oliver Crandall, Amasa L. Jones, Abram and John Allen, Henry 
Sheldon, Joseph Edwards, Daniel Babcock, William Moon, Moses Kemp, 
Sibyl Burdick, Alfred Barber, Thaddeus Baker, Jacob Ayars, Charles D. 
Langworthy, Charity Burdick, Orrin Davis, William M. Saunders, Lydia 
Stillman, John S. Baker, Lucy Pingrey, Jared Stillman, Calvin Withey, Paul 
M. Vincent, Hiram Cornwall, Daniel Stillman, Silas Palmiter, Edward 
Greene, Chauncey Witter, Olive Hull, Amarilla Colhns. Lydia Burdick, 
Leroy Burdick, Philip Place, Ambrose Benjamin, Maxson Burdick, Erastus 
A. Green, Mary Adams, Gurdon Evans, Susan Coon, Clarissa Burdick, 
Elvira Stillman, Ezekiel Johnson, Elizabeth Wright. Eusebia and Hannah 
Stillman, Avis Satterlee, Sarah Stillman, Mary A. Sheldon. Susan Maxson, 
Martha Langworthy, Edmund Burdick. 

Temperance. — Although spirituous liquors were freely sold and gen- 
erally used in the eary days, a strong temperance sentiment has long ex- 
isted. The first temperance society organized was formed in the First Al- 
fred church about 1830, after an address by Dr. John B. Collins. It secured 
a large number of of signatures to a total abstinence pledge. It held meet- 
ings at least twice a year, and provided for lectures, etc. With some changes 
of form and pledges, this society continued in active operation until 1844. 
Its first pledge did not include wine, cider and beer, but a total abstinence 
pledge used later received over 500 signatures, and the members mainly re- 
mained true to it, not only abstaining from the use of all intoxicating liquors 
but using their influence against their sale and use. Various other organi- 
zations have existed. The temperance sentiment has increased and no 
license has been granted for the sale of intoxicating liquors for more than 
half a century. Violations of the excise laws have been promptly punished 
and the traffic has practically ceased. The town enjoys almost entire im- 
munity from drunkenness, insanity, j^apuerism and crime. There has been 
so little of litigation that no lawyer has ever been able to make even a fair 
living here. 

Alfred. — In 1840 the village now called Alfred, two miles southwest of 
Alfred Station, contained less than 20 humble dwellings, a schoolhouse, two 
or three blacksmith shops, a cabinet shop, a shoe shop, a tannery and a 
tumble-down, nondescript building used as an ashery or manufactory of 
potash. The ashery stood on the east side of Main street, opposite the pres- 
ent site of the University Bank. The town "pound " occupied the corner 
of Main and University streets, where the Elisha Potter house now stands. 

Ray Greene built and kept the first, and a very small, store. He also 
owned the ashery, managed by Solomon Pingrey. The store, also a dwell- 
ing, stood near the present postotfice. Paul Crandall, a brother of Deacon 
Amos, with Beeley Waterman, opened a second store in the building now 
belonging to Mrs. Milo Burdick and used as a tenement. Luke Green, who 
had at first worked at blacksmithing and afterwards carried on the tannery, 
with Philander Hartshorn, of Hornellsville, bought out Crandall & Water- 



642 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

man. Orson Sheldon bought the interest of his brother-in-law, Hartshorn, 
and with Luke Greene succeeded Ray Greene. Luke Greene continued in 
the same business near the same place during his life, having for partners 
after Mr. Sheldon, Cyrenus Penny, Isaiah Green, and his sons, David C, 
Maxson J., Orson C. and Byron L. Luke Greene, with his partners, suc- 
ceeded to the ashery business also, and built another ashery, on the creek 
bank just west of the house now owned by Lyle Bennehoff. Stephen Beebe 
worked in both asheries. Amos Burdick kept tavern in the Spicer house. 
Isaiah Green, with his son-in-law, David R. Stillman. engaged in business 
in a new store built by Stephen Coon, facing Church street. Ezra S. Clark 
succeeded this firm, and was followed by David C. and Gideon Greene, Terry 
Chadwick and Isaac Fenner, George Chad wick. Ward & Gridley and Hiram 
C. Pettibone. Isaac Fenner built the store on Church street and was fol- 
lowed in business there by Ira B., Ezra P., Almond E. and William H. Cran- 
dall, in various forms of partnership. Clark Crandall was in the grocery 
trade on the west side of Main street, and had Gideen Greene for a partner. 
This business was continued by many different parties, among them Stephen 

C. Burdick, Alanson Potter, Hiram Palmiter, Lorenzo D. Collins, Gurdon 
Evans, Lyle Bennehoff and G. W. Rosebush, John G. Allen established 
a ready-made clothing store. Judge Clark Crandall was first to engage ex- 
tensively in the cheese trade. His sons, Ira B. and Ladurney, were engaged 
with him, and Ezra P. Crandall and William C. Burdick were connected with 
them later. Mr. Burdick has carried on this business continuously until 
the present, over forty years, and has greatly extended it. 

Lyman Allen built the first book store and was succeeded m the book 
and stationery trade by Clark Rogers, Thacher & Nash, Ambrose C. Spicer, 
George Chadwick, Silas C. and Amos Burdick, Mark Sheppard, Aaron Coon, 

D. K. Davis and Joseph J. Jeffery. Barton W. Millard was the cabinet 
maker and undertaker, George, Jared and Nicholas Coon were blacksmiths, 
and have been succeeded by Ezra S. Clark, William S. Crandall, Orsamus 
Palmiter, Russell W. Burdick, Stephen C. Burdick, Abram Stannard, Enos 
P. Burdick, Thomas J. West, Charles Eaton, Henry M Davis, John P. Tis- 
dall and others. Jonathan Palmiter, Maxson and Phineas C. Stillman, Ira 
Pearce, Stephen, Elisha and Orson Coon, Joseph C. Eaton, Jeremiah Place, 
B. F. Potter, Stephen Powell, Thomas and Thomas J. Place and Daniel Perk- 
ins, have been carpenters and joiners. Philip S. and Erastus A. Green, 
Leonard Woolworth and Deloss Crandall, have been wagon makers. Luke 
Greene, Rogers Crandall and George Post, have been tanners and curriers. 
Barton W. Millard w^as for many years the chief house painter, William S. 
Burdick, James R. Crandall, Joseph Eaton, Samuel Whitford, Erastus A. 
Green and Jesse G. Burdick, have operated planing mills and sash and blind 
factories. Gardner Barber, Peleg West and Leonard Potter, have been 
shoemakers, Thomas and Samuel Ellis, harness makers, David Rose, jew- 
eller, Irving Saunders, photographer, Amos B. Collins and Walter T. Bliss, 
lawyers, and John B. Collins, John R. Hartshorn, Horace H. Nye and Wil- 



Alfred. 643 

liam M. Truman, physicians. Jared Coon and Albert B. Sherman, have 
been manufacturers of cheese boxes. 

Stephen and Ehsha Coon built the " Tremont House " about 1850 which 
was kept by different parties, and about 1860 became the property of Wil- 
liam C. Burdick. It was destroyed in the great tire of 1887. Mr. Burdick 
has since built a much larger and finer hotel the " Burdick House." 

The first postoftice at " Alfred Centre " was established about 1848, and 
at first received mail once a week. The postmasters have been: David C. 
Greene, Gideon Greene, Lyman Allen, Clark Rogers, Maxson J. Greene, 
Silas C. Burdick and Terry M. Davis. The postoftice is of the third class; 
postmaster's salary $1,200 yearly. It receives and sends out three mails 
daily, except Saturday and Sunday when there are two. In 1894 the name 
of the postoftice was changed from Alfred Centre to Alfred, and in March, 
1895, the name of the village was changed to Alfred by vote at the village 
election. 

The first printing office was estabhshed in 1859 by J. E. B. and William 
B. Maxson, who published Tlie Neiv Era, a weekly local paper. In 1872 the 
American Sabbath Tract Society estabhshed their publishing house at 
" Alfred Centre, " with Rev. N. V. Hull as editor of their publications and 
David R. Stillman as business manager. This society pubhshed a number 
of papers, among them the Sabbath Recorder, the organ of the Seventh-day 
Baptist denomination, The Outlook, The Peculiar Peoj^le, TJie Helping Hand. 
They also printed for Alfred University the Alfred Student, and for the Sun 
Publishing Association a weekly local paper called The Alfred Sun. In 1894 
the Tract Society sold its outfit to the Sun Publishing Association and estab- 
hshed headquarters at Plainfield, N. J. The Sun Association pubhshes its 
weekly in an enlarged form, and does job printing, stereotyping and book- 
binding. 

The Alfred of 1895 is a bright village of about 700 inhabitants nestling 
high among the hills at the junction of two valleys. It extends a mile and 
a half in length and a half-mile in width, and is surrounded by magnificent 
mountain scenery and enjoys the purest atmosphere. The western slope of 
Pine Hill is covered by the substantial buildings and beautiful campus of 
Alfred University, and its dwelhngs and business houses are of a high class. 
Its streets, some of which are macadamized, are well-graded, sewered and 
lighted. Its sidewalks are many of them of flagstone, its bridges are of iron 
and cut stone. Alfred is an ideal little city among the mountains. No 
saloon or billiard table was ever kept within it. Notable among its build- 
ings is "Firemen's Hall," a fine brick structure, containing a public hall, 
town and viUage offices, dining room, kitchen, parlor, and suitable rooms, 
well stored with fire apparatus. Also its brick union school building erected 
at a cost of $9,500. A hne of stages connects with all passenger trains at 
Alfred station of the Erie railway, and daily stages run to Hornellsville. 
The Western Union and Postal Telegraph Co.s each have here an oftice. 



644 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Alfred Station. — A rude pole bridge thrown across Whitney's Valley 
creek just below the junction of its two main branches on the road leading to 
the Baker settlement (Andover) in 1809 was called "Baker's Bridge," and it 
gave that name to the little settlement that grew up in its neighborhood. 
Judge Clark Crandall very early built a pailf actory half -a-mile below, of which 
Joshua Vincent was manager. Nathan Potter built in 1821 a carding machine 
halfway between. After his accidental death, his brother, Elisha Potter, 
carried on the business, but afterwards built a factory just across the town 
line in Almond. The first schoolhouse of the town, a log structure, was built 
near Albert Warren's house. The first frame schoolhouse was built on the 
east side of Main street near the lower part of the village, and near it was a 
blacksmith shop operated by Jonathan Crandall. A second blacksmith 
shop owned by a Mr. Selden, stood near the western part of the village. 
A tannery was carried on by John Thorp, and at the junction of the two 
branches of the creek stood a saw and gristmill built by Ephraim S. and 
Lodwick Davis. Samuel Russell engaged in the mercantile business in a 
very small way in a store that stood where Andrew Smith's blacksmith shop 
now stands, he removed to a store standing near the present site of T. R. 
Chase's store, and later to a better building on the present site of the post- 
office. Mr. Russell was connected at different times in business with Ros- 
well Adams. John L. and Timothy Russell, Chase, and others. His brother- 
in-law, Jay House, Cyrenus Penny and Luther Whitwood were among the 
clerks he employed. Ray Greene, Gideon C. Greene, Ezra S. Clarke, Leroy 
Burdick, William S. Crandall, Oliver P. Crandall, Benjamin F. Spencer, 
William A. Rose, Dr. J. R. Hartshorn and Aaron W. Coon are remembered 
as having also been in trade here. Reuben Monroe and Deacon Daniel Bab- 
cock were among the earliest tavern keepers. The Monroe hotel stood where 
the dwelling house of Mrs. Alma Greene now stands, and the house built by 
Mr. Babcock is still standing and kept as a hotel. Elias P. Burdick was first 
to engage in the jewelry and watch-making business which he carried on dur- 
ing his life time. He was succeeded by his son John C. Burdick. His sons, 
Reilay P. and Halsey M. were engaged for many years in the boot and shoe 
business. Deacon Daniel Potter and John T. Greene have been wagon mak- 
ers. Benjamin H. Greene (son of Edward Greene) and his son Melvin A., 
have been station agents. 

Endless changes have taken place in the business and among the busi- 
ness men. Its location on one of the chief lines of travel for many years 
caused its name to be known far and wide and gave-prosperity to its citizens. 
Now, the great 'Erie Railway system with its deep "rock cuts," its "big 
fills " and high bridges, winds through the valley on the east side high above 
the roofs of the town. Its busy station, surrounded by ample coal sheds 
and brick warehouses, lies adjoining the old " Harts ville Hill " road. The 
Baker settlement has come to be Andover, the pole bridge and its many 
more pretentious successors have gone down on the bosom of the flooded 
stream. A splendid iron bridge, resting on massive rock abutments, which 



Alfred. 645 

in turn stand on deeply driven piles, has " come to stay. " The name of the 
villag-e has been changed to Alfred and later to Alfred Station, yet the old 
name, •' Baker's Bridge," like a dear old worn-out shoe can hardly be put 
away. It fits easily on pleasant memories, and no one can tell how long it 
will linger. The primitive, unpainted buildings have all disappeared, and 
neat substantial structures give evidence of thrift. The old mills are all 
gone, for the feeble and fickle stream could no more be dejDended upon to 
turn their wheels and the changed ways of business have taken away their 
usefulness. 

Elisha C. Greene and George Burdick are the present physicians. Sam- 
uel L. Russell was the first postmaster and held that office many years. This 
was the first and until 184(S the only postoftice in town. Roswell Adams, 
Timothy R. Chase, William A. Rose, William R. Burdick, Stillman M. Bur- 
dick, Jerry K. Reading have been among the later postmasters. Timothy 
Russell Chase, Jerry K. Reading, Harrison W. Greene and M. A. Greene are 
the merchants; C. F. Locke is theharnessmaker;Mrs. Nancy Hamilton, wudow 
of Arthur Hamilton, is postmistress; Claude Vincent is the jew^eler; Isaac M. 
Lewis is cooper; Andrew^ Smith the blacksmith; Frank Pettibone is station 
agent, and W. R. Chase does a large business as subscription agent for news- 
papers and magazines; Louis Emerson is the hotel keeper and Harrison Kel- 
ler notary public; Halsey M. Burdick is the shoemaker and George Weis- 
brod carries on the meatmarket; William C. Burdick & Co. and Messrs. 
Gridley Brothers & Babcock own the warehouses at the station; and the 
Rock Cut Clay Co. owns the extensive pressed brick works farther up the 
track. A mile down the valley Stillman & Shannon carry on the wagon 
making business, and half a mile up on the Alfred road George Sherman 
manufactures paper boxes and Fred L. Heseltine operates a planingmill. 

Business Interests, March, 1895. — FzY/^^^ (9^tvr^.— President, L. A. Platts; clerk, 
D. R. Stillman ; trustees, James W. Hoard, O. M. Rogers, Lyle Bennehoff ; police justice, 
James R. Crandall ; collector, E. E. Hamilton; treasurer, D. S. Burdick. Celadon Terra- Cotta 
Co , Limited. — J. A. Hubbard, president ; J. F. Hubbard, treasurer ; Will R. Clarke, secretary ; 
offices, Alfred, N. Y.; No. 38 Park Row, New York ; No. 809 Medina Temple, Chicago, 111. 
Seventh-day Baptist Education Society. — L. A. Platts, president ; William C. Whitford, cor- 
responding secretary ; A. B. Kenyon, treasurer. Postoffice. — Terry M. Davis, postmaster. 
Fire Department. — William C. Dunham, chief; Will H. Crandall, foreman; Frank Truman, 
assistant foreman ; Welcome F. Burdick, treasurer. Life Insurance. — Will H. Crandall. 
Foundry and Machine Shop. — David H. Rogers. Books, Stationery and Groceries. — Edwin 
Langworthy. Drugs and Groceries. — J. Reed Burdick. Manufacturer of Clothing, Gloves 
and Mittens. — Edwin S. Bliss ; also publishes the Sabbath School Visitor, Hardware, 
Tin Shop and Plumbing. — Burdick & Green. Cheese Box Manufactory. — Elisha P. Fenner. 
Millinery. — Mrs. L. A. Palmiter. Boots and Shoes. — Willis M. Wilbur. Alfred University. — 
Arthur E. Main, president of faculty ; Will R. Clarke, secretary of Board of Trustees. Unii/er- 
sity Bank. — Will H. Crandall, president ; Lewis A. Platts, vice president ; Elwood E. Hamilton, 
cashier. Alfred Mictual Loan Association. — A. B. Kenyon, president ; Frank A. Crumb, vice 
president ; L. A. Platts, secretary ; W. H. Crandall, treasurer. Alfred Sun Publishing Asso- 
ciation. — Lyle Bennehoff, president; D. S. Burdick, secretary and treasurer; John M. Mosher 
and Frank A. Crumb, editors and managers. Cheese Dealers. — William C. Burdick & Co.: Wil- 



646 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

liam C. Burdick.Calvin D. Reynolds, William C. Dunham. Fire Insurance.— h.. E. & W. H. 
Crandall. General Stores. — Maxson J. Green, Lyle Bennehoff. Furniture. — Maxson J. Green. 
Dealer in Ready Made Clothing. — N. F. Allen. Livery and Stages. — Hoard & Clarke. Jewelry ^ 
Watches and Clocks. — William A. Rose, A. A. Shaw. Dentist. — Willis W. Coon. Wagon 
Makers. — D. F. Abbott, Philip S. Greene. Harness Maker. — Samuel Ellis. Undertaker. — Phil 
S. Place. Steain Laundry. — L. S. Beyea. Shipper of Produce. — Anson P. Saunders. Bicycles. — 
Niles & Whitford. Shoe Makers. — W. M. Wilbur, John Jaycox. Physicians and Surgeons. — 
Henry P. Saunders, Irvmg Truman, Mark Sheppard, Charles M. Post. House Painters. — Or- 
ville M. Rogers, Chester B. Stillman, Milo B. Greene. Hornellsville Stage. — Delwin M. Green. 
Blacksmith. — Charles L. Eaton. Meat J/^zr/^^/.— Hubbard & Wheaton. Upholsterer. — Wil- 
liam T. Howell. Carriage and Sign Painter. — J. W. Halahan. Dealer in Lumber. — B. S. 
Bassett. Masons. — Dura Martin, Loren W. Collins. Carpenters. — I. M. Langworthy, James 
R. Crandall, William O. Place, Andrew Armstrong, Perry Button, Arthur B. Greene, Frank 
Sisson. Police /ustice. —]ames R. Crandall. Notaries Public. — A. E. Crandall, D. R. Still- 
man, Charles Stillman, E. E. Hamilton. 



Personal Chronology. — George Allen, Jr., son of George and Margaret (Chase) Allen 
was born in Marcellus, Onondaga Co. His mother was a daughter of Abner Chase. George 
Allen, Jr., married Hannah, daughter of Michael Wetherby. In 1823 he, with his brothers, 
Abner and Myron, came to Alfred on foot where he located and built his log house and brought 
his family to dwell in the fall. Four of his 12 children are living. George Allen, Sr., came 
later and lived and died in Alfred. His son Clinton, son of his second wife, settled at Allen- 
town. Ebenezer Allen, son of Myron, was born in Lysander, Onondaga Co. He came to 
Alfred about 1827 and settled on the farm now owned by his son Henry. Mr. Allen married 
Elizabeth, daughter of Joseph Clair, and had a family of 9 children. Charles Allen, son of 
Ebenezer, was born April 11, 1843. He married Matilda, daughter of Cyrus Furnald, and 
settled in Mc Henry Valley in Almond where he was a farmer. He came to Alfred in 1888, and 
now resides in Hornellsville. His first wife died Feb. 8, 1873, leaving one child. His second 
wife was Ida, daughter of Solomon Allen of Alma. 

Alvin C. Baker, adopted son of Seth and Elizabeth (Wood worth) Baker, was born in 
Andover. His grandfather Seth Baker was one of the first settlers. In 1886 Alvin C. Baker 
married Leona, daughter of Jerome Potter, and settled in Alfred. He is a cheesemaker and 
owns a factory at McHenry Valley. The Potters are an old Rhode Island family, locating in 
Alfred very early. 

Oscar Beyea, son of Wright Beyea, was born in Putnam county, N. Y. When a boy his 
father moved to Hector, Schuyler county, where he afterward married Celecta Kingsley. He 
was a farmer. In 1848 he moved to Alfred, in 1862 went back to Hector, and in 1867 came to 
Hartsville, Steuben county, where he still resides. Frank M. Beyea. son of Oscar, was born 
March 27, 1842. January 23, 1864, he married Harriet M., daughter of Russell W. and Malvi- 
na (Middaugh) Burdick. He enlisted March 31, 1864, in Co. B, 179th Regt., N. Y. S., V., was 
wounded in front of Petersburg, Va., June 17, 1864, and April 2, 1865, and is now disabled 
from effect of wounds. His only child, Charley R., was thrown from his pony and killed July 
12, 1876. Mr. Beyea and wife are members of the 2d Seventh-day Baptist cnurch of Alfred. 

Edwin S. Bliss, son of Ebenezer D., was born in Genesee June 15. 1836. In 1861 he mar- 
ried Sarah M. Humphrey, and settled in Genesee. In 1862 he enlisted in Co. A, 136th Regt., 
N. Y. S. V, In 1863 he was transferred to the i6th Regt., Veteran Reserve Corps as commis- 
sary sergeant, and was discharged in 1865. He then located at Richburg, where he carried on 
an extensive business in trade and manufacturing till 1887. Mr. Bliss was one of 3 men who 
sunk the first oil well at Richburg. In 1881 he moved to Alfred, where he established a cloth- 
ing manufactory which he still continues. In 1883 he became one of the organizers of the Uni- 
versity Bank, and was its president until 1894 when he retired. Since 1882 he has been the 
publisher of the Sabbath-school paper known as Our Sabbath Visitor. Mr. Bliss is a member 
of B. Frank Maxson Post, G. A. R.. Alfred. His children are Myrta S. (Mrs. Wm. H. Bassett), 
Edna A., E. Lee Rue and T. Coit. 



Alfred. 647 

William C. Burdick is the second son of Amos and Anstis Clark Burdick, and was born in 
Alfred Nov. 26, 1829. He worked on his father's farm, and usually attended school at Alfred 
Academy winters, and when of age he entered the service of Judge Clark Crandall, at that time 
a dealer in cheese. After a few years he, with Ira B. and Ezra P. Crandall, organized the Alle- 
gany Cheese Company, which continued and greatly enlarged the cheese trade of the town of 
Alfred. Purchasing the interests of his partners, Mr. Burdick for many years conducted the 
business alone, but in 1886 Calvin D. Reynolds and Wm. C. Dunham were taken into part- 
nership under the firm name of Wm. C. Burdick & Co. This business, practically established 
and managed by Mr. Burdick, has, for more than 40 years, continued to be one of the most 
prosperous business enterprises of Western New York. Mr. Burdick has twice represented his 
town on the board of supervisors (1874, 1875), and has served Alfred University as trustee con- 
tinuously since 1857. He married Susan Sherman, of Alfred, June 19. 1856, who died in Feb- 
ruary, 1863. He afterwards married Mrs. Amanda (Crandall) Prescott, of Chicago, 111. His 
daughters are Juliaette (dec), the wife of Wm. C. Dunham, and Susan M., who is connected 
with the Seventh-day Baptist mission at Shanghai, China. 

Silas C. Burdick, youngest son of Amos and Anstis (Clark) Burdick, was born in Alfred 
March 12, 1838. He was educated at Alfred and Madison (now Colgate) University, and has 
passed over 30 years in the mercantile business in his native town. He has served as town 
clerk one term, supervisor two terms, and was appointed postmaster at Alfred by President 
Benjamin Harrison, which office he held nearly four years. Mr. Burdick has for many years 
served as a trustee of Alfred University. In 1863 he married Mary, daughter of Hiram Tay- 
lor, of Wirt, a graduate of Alfred University. They have two daughters, Mary Leona, wife of 
John J. Merrill, and Emma Gertrude. Mrs. Burdick fitly illustrates Goethe's " Ewigweibliche." 
Mr. Burdick has been for years prominently identified with the business and educational inter- 
ests of Alfred. He possesses a strong personality, is a man of extended reading and informa- 
tion, and is a leading factor in all the educational advancement of the town, and gives much 
time to the affairs of Alfred University. That he is well versed in the town's history will be 
seen by a perusal of the very full history of Alfred in this volume. 

Milo Burdick, son of Amos and Anstis (Clark) Burdick, married Sarah, daughter of David 
Sherman. He was a farmer, and for several years connected with his brother, William C, in 
the cheese business, and was engaged in the hardware trade for some years. He died in 1873. 
His widow is now residing in Alfred with their son, David S. Burdick, who was educated at 
Alfred University, and was graduated therefrom in 1882. In 1881 he became a member of the 
firm of Burdick & Green (J. C. Green), hardware dealers. In 1894 Mr. Burdick was elected 
supervisor. He has been president of the village three years. 

Truman A. Burdick was born in Newport, R, I., Feb. 28, 1839, of parents of old New 
England stock. Graduating at Newport High School, he married Miss Millie Burdick, of Al- 
fred, and has been a resident of this town since 1857. Mr. Burdick was formerly a printer and 
did good service as associate editor on the Andover Aaverttser, Hornellsville Herald, and 
Owego Blade. He has for over 30 years been a valued contributor to various city and country 
journals, is the author of " Recollections of My Schoolboy Days," " Home Again," and of a 
series of papers entitled " Alfred in the Past." He has, besides, as he says, " done something 
in the way of making words rhyme." Since 1884 he has not been regularly employed at case 
or desk on account of impaired vision. His employment now is farming and gardening, varied 
with an occasionally contribution to some newspaper or magazine. At the request of his Ando- 
ver friends he wrote the excellent history of that town published in this volume. 

Phineas A. Burdick, son of Albert G. and Eunitia (Wheeler) Burdick, was born in DeRuy- 
ter, N. Y., Sept. 7, 1847. He was educated in the common school and in DeRuyter Institute, 
He read law and was admitted to the bar. In 1877 he entered upon what proved to he his life 
work, gospel temperance, and left the Democratic party and joined the Prohibitionists. He 
soon became one of the most eloquent and popular temperance orators. His services were in 
such demand that he closed his office, and from the summer of 1877 until about two months 
before his death, July 3, 1893, he was constantly in his beloved work in many different states, 
cities and towns. Under his leadership more than 1,500,000 signed the pledge of total absti- 
nence. Mr. Burdick believed that what the people needed was education on the temperance 
question, so he made it a constant study, and held the same audiences night after night for 
weeks and months, in each address presenting some new phase of the great subject. Rev. Mr. 
Teller said of Mr. Burdick, " Quick to understand men, he read aright their disposition and 
character, and he seldom rated them wrongly. With this understanding was united a wonder- 
ful adaptability in reaching them. He was especially fitted for a reformer. He had a com- 
manding presence, a voice of great versatility and power, a fine command of language and a 
logical mind. He was brave. He was manly. He was pre-eminently fair. He was true. 
Yet grand as were his gifts, his greatest strength was not in them, but in the noble, loving. 



648 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

heroic Christian man behind them. His sanctified Christian manhood touched men and held 
them. He gave his life for humanity and the cause he loved." In 1872 Mr. Burdick married 
Miss Ella Clarke of DeRuyter, and in 1887 they with their two sons removed to Alfred. Here 
he built a home where he could find needed rest, and here through great suffering he spent the 
last days ot his earthly life, and passed on to his heavenly reward. 

George Champlin, son of Thomas, was born in Rhode Island. He married Martha Allen 
and came to the town of Alfred in 1827. He was a farmer and resided here until his death. 
Of his 4 children, 2 only survive, William F., who resides at Sherman, Mich., and James A., 
who married Susan, daughter of Ezekiel Saunders and settled in town. He is a farmer and 
has been assessor 3 years. His son, Charles C. Champlin, who married Luna E. Adams, was 
supervisor of the town in 1892 and 1893. He is a farmer. 

Samuel A. Champlin, son of Bradford Champlin, who married Betsey Allen and came 
from Rhode Island to Alfred, one of the early settlers of the town, was born in Alfred. Nov. 19,. 
1830. He married Jane, daughter of Joseph S. and Olive (Coon) Crandall, who came from 
Brookfield, Madison county, to Genesee about 1829, and lived until 1843, when they moved to 
Wisconsin where they died. They settled in Genesee where they made their residence until 
1862, when they moved to Alfred. Mr. Champlin enlisted m Co. B, 79th Regt., N. Y. S. V., 
dunng the Civil War, was in the hospital at Alexandria, Va., and is now a pensioner. The 
children of Samuel A. and Jane (Crandall) Champlin are : Ellen A. (Mrs. Charles M. Vincent), 
Myrtie V. (Mrs. Anson Benjamin), LeRoy D., and Eva St. Clair, who is librarian for the Nor- 
mal Schools at New Britain, New Haven, and Willimantic, Conn. 

Timothy R. Chase, son of Henry S. Chase, was born in Canisteo, N. Y., Dec. 25, 1825. 
In 1853 or 4 he came to Alfred and located near the station. He purchased the business of his 
uncle, Samuel Russell, and established himself in merchandising, which he has continued. Mr. 
Chase has served the town as clerk for severi-l years and as supervisor for some years. He 
married Mary E. Williams, of Wirt, and they have three children, Frank J., C. Eugene, and 
Will R. 

Lorenzo D. Collins, son of Dr. John B. Collins, [See Page 221] was born in Alfred, August 
19, 1828. He married Mercellia, daughter of Silas AUis. His education was obtained at Alfred 
University. He holds the office of assessor of Alfred and has been engaged in agriculture. He 
has an adopted daughter, OUie, Mrs. T. M. Davis. 

Judge Clark Crandall was born in Hopkinton, R. I., April 17, 1785. His family removed to 
Petersburg, Rensselaer Co., m 1793, and from there he came on foot, in 1807, with two com- 
panions, and became one of the three first settlers of the present town of Alfred. He married 
Amelia Vincent during the first year of his residence in the town. Descended from ancestors 
who had been prominent in public affairs, strong and resolute, he at once assumed the position 
of a leader which he continued to hold during his lifetime His first public office was that of 
a commissioner for the opening of roads. He was a constituent member of the First Seventh- 
day Baptist church of Alfred in 1813, and supervisor of the town in 1814 and 1815, and town 
clerk three terms. He was made captain of the militia in 181 1, second major in 1812, colonel 
of the 126th regiment of the state militia in 1819, and brigadier general in 1820. He estab- 
lished the first manufactory in the town, wooden pails, built the first courthouse in Allegany 
county in 1819, represented the county in the state legislature in 1820-21. and was one of the 
presidential electors of the state in 1832. Having been made a justice of sessions he was called 
" Judge Crandall " during the remainder of his lifetime. Always engaged in business enterprises, 
he was subject to varying fortunes financially. In 1836 he succeeded Luke Greene in the tan- 
ning and currying business at Alfred, and some years later he engaged in the cheese trade, find- 
ing markets mostly in Pennsylvania for the dairy product of his town, which he conveyed thither 
over the " Laurel Mountains " in wagons. This was the beginning of a business which has since 
assumed large proportions. Honest, persistent, public-spirited and kind hearted to a fault, he 
served his generation well, and died in Alfred November 9, 1862, aged 'j'] years. His son, Ira 
B., and his youngest daughter, Amanda, wife of William C. Burdick, are still living in Alfred. 

Amos Crandall, son of Silas, was born in Waterford, Conn. He married Cynthia Potter. 
In i8i8, he walked from Rhode Island to Alfred in company with Samuel Lanphear, and took 
up 50 acres, which Green Champlin now owns. After building his log house, he walked back. 
In 1819, Mr. Crandall moved his family to their new home, with an ox team and one horse. 
After a few years he sold his place and took up another lot at Five Corners, where he resided 
until i860 when he removed to the village. He taught school winters, also singing school, and 
was chorister of the Seventh-day Baptist church for many years, and took great interest in the 
Sabbath-school. Mr. Crandall died Sept. 9, 1887, his wife died May 21, 1881. Their children 
were Ezra P., Mary A., Julia P., and Almond E. The only survivor is Almond E. Crandall 
who married Emma E. Sisson, and settled on the homestead. Their children are Herbert L, 
and Jessie W. In i860, he removed to the village, and engaged in merchandizing with his 



Alfred. 649 

brother, Ezra P., who died in 1870. In 1873, his brother's son, Will H. Crandall, became his 
partner, and the business was continued until 1889 when they sold out. They are now con- 
nected in the insurance business. A. E. Crandall has been cashier of the bank, supervisor of 
the town, and justice of the peace 14 years. 

Terrence McGuire Davis was born March 25, 1856, near Long Run, in Doddridge Co., \V. 
Va. He is the tenth of the eleven children of Lodawick H. and Margaret Davis. He at- 
tended the common schools, and, at the age of 12, was assistant one term in a select school 
composed partly of ex-soldiers. The next 4 years ill- health prevented school attendance. After 
a year in mercantile work and a few months at school, he taught the public school at his home 
4 years, attending the High School at Salem between the terms of teaching. He entered Al- 
fred University in 1879, was graduated in the classical course in 1881. He then went to Nash- 
ville, Tenn., and entered Goodman's Busmess College, and subsequently taught 2 years in the 
college and a branch at Knoxville. He then came to Alfred and opened the Business Depart- 
ment of the University which he conducted until 1890. The next 2 years he conducted the 
Business College at Hornellsville, then returned to Alfred and taught i year in the Latin de- 
partment of the University. In May, 1894, he was re-appointed postmaster at Alfred, having 
served during President Cleveland's former term. In 1882 he married OUie, danghter of 
Lorenzo D. Collins. They have 2 sons, Lorenzo C. and Carl L. 

W. C. Dunham, son of Henry V. and Susan M. Dunham, born in New Market, N. J., 
March 29, 1859, attended Alfred University from 1875 to 1877, in April, 1880, came to Alfred 
and engaged in the cheese business with W. C. Burdick, and has since 1883 been member of 
the firm of W. C. Burdick & Co. He married, first, Aug. 30, 1879, Juliaette, daughter of W. 
C. Burdick. She died April 26, 1892; second, Dec. 14, 1894, Harriet L., daughter of J. H. 
Vincent of Pike. Mr. Dunham's great-great-grandfather was Col. George Dunham, and his 
great-great-uncle was Capt. Isaiah Dunham of New Brunswick, N. J., both officers of the Con- 
tinental Army of the Revolution. 

Isaac Fenner, son of Stephen, was born in Providence, R. I., in 1795. His wife Amelia 
Potter of Westerly, R. I., a daughter of Col. Nathan Potter, was born in 1799. They came to 
Alfred from Fairfield, Herkimer county, in 1825, and settled on the farm now owned by the 
heirs of Stephen C. Burdick, where Mr. Fenner engaged in farming. He owned the largest 
dairy and dairy farm of the town, made and dealt in cheese, which he drew to Rochester and 
sold. He was also a merchant at the center of the town, and a prominent citizen, and died at 
the age of 82 years. Elisha P. Fenner, son of Isaac, was born in Alfred. July 31, 1834. He 
married El zabeth Hall in 1857, and had one son. Mrs. Fenner died in 1859. His second wife 
was Harriet Smith. His children are Albert S., Elim E., Asenath, H. Edgar, Olin S. and 
Amelia P. In 1874 Mr. E. P. Fenner commenced manufacturing cheese, and at present con- 
ducts 4 factories, Fenner's Home, Five Corners, Pleasant Valley and McHenry Valley. He 
enlisted in Co. D, 86th N. Y., in Sept., 1861, and re-enlisttd in the same regiment in 1863 and 
was discharged in July, 1865, and returned home with a commission of first lieutenant but did 
not muster into U. S. service as such. 

Judge Edward Greene, son of Joseph, was born in Westerly, R. I., March 20, 1760. He 
came to Alfred in 18 16. His wife was Huldah Sweet. Judge Greene was in the Revolutionary 
War, and the war of 181 2. He was the first judge of Madison county, N. Y. Luke Greene, 
son of Judge Edward Greene, was born in Berlin, N. Y., July 19. 1779. He died in Canton, 
III, April 19, 1842. His wife, Nancy, daughter of Martin and Mary (Steadman) Murphy, 
whom he married in 1803, died June 12, 1874. They first settled in Brookfield, and in Febru- 
ary, 1808, they moved to Alfred, and were among the first 4 families in town. Mr. Greene 
only lived here a few years, then took up wild land in Almond. In 181 2 enlisted in Captain 
Barrow's company and was at the battle of Buffalo. In 1818 he made his home in Alfred on 
the farm now owned by W. C. Burdick. In 1838 he moved to Illinois. Among his 9 children 
was Philip S. Greene, who was born March 27, 1818, and married Olivia, daughter of Hazard 
and Phebe (Whitford) Clarke, and located on the farm he now owns. Mr. Greene has been a 
carriage manufacturer for several years, and also a farmer. He was justice of the peace 24 
years, associate judge for 3 terms, town clerk 2 years, trustee of Alfred University for 30 years. 
His 3 children are Mary L., Arthur B. and Prof. f>ark L. Greene, who was born in Alfred, 
July 31, 1851. His education was acquired at Alfred University and Amherst College, Mass. 
He was graduated from Amherst in 1876, with degree of A. B., and in 1879 he received that of 
M. A. He married E. Clara Rudiger. Prof. Greene has been a teacher in various schools, was 
superintendent of schools at Stevens Point, Wis., and at Hornellsville, and is now principal of 
two large schools in Brooklyn. 

Nathan Green, son of Edward, came in 1808 to Alfred, was one of the pioneer settlers, 
and located on the farm owned by Joseph Smith. He carried on carpentering in connection 
with his farming and was a justice of the peace. His wife's maiden name was Orpha Hamilton, 



650 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

She had 2 children, Leroy and Alonzo. Alonzo Green, born in 18 14, married Lucinda Pal- 
miter, and was a farmer on the homestead. His children are Harrison W. and Orpha A. (Mrs. 
Daniel M. Burdick). Harrison W. Green was born July i, 1836, married Polly, daughter of 
James S. Green, in 1859, and settled at Alfred Station. They have one daughter, Maud. In 
1862 he enlisted in Co. H, 130th New York Regt., was taken prisoner at Shepardstown, Va„ 
Aug. 25, 1864, and confined in Libby and Dansville prisons until Feb. 22, 1865, when he was 
paroled and returned to his regiment. He was discharged in 1865 ranking as sergeant. He 
has been engaged in manufacturing cheese, but is now in the hardware business at Alfred 
Station. 

Luke Green, son of Clark Green, was born Aug. 3, 1802, in Berlin, N. Y., and about 1825 
made his residence in Alfred, where he engaged in tanning and in various other kinds of busi- 
ness. July 3, 1827, he married Irene, daughter of James and Hannah (Green) Fisk. Mr. Fisk 
was one of the pioneers of the town, a soldier in the War of 181 2, and died in 1814 from camp 
fever. Mr. Green opened a general store at Alfred in 1836, which he continued until his death. 
He was one of the first trustees and long time treasurer of Alfred University and a much 
esteemed member of the First Seventh-day Baptist church. He died Feb. 13, 1876, his wife 
died April 7, 1890. Only 4 of their 9 children are living : Orson C, Hanuah A. (Mrs. D. E. 
Maxson), Miranda S. (Mrs. James R. Livingstone of Saginaw, Mich.), and Selinda I. Green. 
The mercantile business of Mr. Green was continued after his death by his sons, Maxson J., 
Orson C. and Byron L. Maxson J. Green, son of Luke and Irene (Fisk) Green, was born Nov. 
23, 1829, and always resided in Alfred. In 1850, he entered into partnership with his father, 
and continued in merchandising until Sept. 24, 1895, when he sold out his business to his 
brother Orson C. and Vernon A. Baggs. He was postmaster nearly a quarter of a century, 
from 1861 to 1885, was supervisor for two terms, and was a trustee of Alfred University from 
1859 to the time of his death which occurred Nov. 3, 1895. He married Huldah P., a daughter 
of Eli Lesuer, Sept. 28, 1853, and has 2 children : Jennie I. and Sarah E. Orson C, brother of 
Maxson J., was born in June, 1837, after a residence of 11 years in Plainfield, N. J., and i year 
elsewhere, he made his permanent home in Alfred. 

Thomas H. Green, son of Rev. Henry P. and Lucy (Rogers) Green, was born in Wirt Feb. 
6, 1827. He married Lucy C. Crandall, a daughter of Dea. Jairus Crandall, and made his home 
on lot 13 in Genesee, and was a farmer. He was supervisor of the town, assessor many years, 
and superintendent of schools several years. In 1882 he came to Alfred to educate his children, 
where he now resides. He has been road commissioner of the town, and was the first street 
commissioner after its incorporation. His children were : Ivor E., died Sept. 7, 1883, Minnie J., 
Orange J., drowned June 10, 1888, F. Grace (Mrs. W. W. Coon) and Susan, who died April 
28, 1872. 

Giles H. Gridley, son of Frederick, was born in Candor. N. Y. He came to Andover about 
1857, married Sylvenia Lanphere, and settled in Andover. After some years he removed to 
Alfred Centre and was a farmer. His present home is Perryville, Pa. Loren L. Gridley, his 
son, married Laura G., daughter of William Dingman of Coudersport, Pa., and now resides at 
Alfred Station. Mr. Gridley is the patentee and manufacturer of " L. L. Gridley 's Young 
America Potato Planter," said to be best article of the kind in use. 

William Hamilton, a native of East Greenwich, R. I., came to Alfred from Brookfield about 
1814. Freeborn Hamilton, son of William, was born in East Greenwich and came with his 
parents from there to Brookfield, where he married Tacy, a daughter of Edward Green. He 
was a soldier in the War of 1812, and served at Sackett's Harbor. He settled in Alfred in 1814 
and in 181 5 located on the farm now owned by his son, Freeborn W. Here he lived and died. 
He had a family of 12 children, 11 of whom attained maturity. His second wife was Mary 
Davis. They were members of the Seventh-day Baptist church. Freeborn W, Hamilton, son 
of Freeborn, was born Nov. 21, 1827, and married Amanda, daughter of Ezra and Content 
(Sisson) Potter. Their children are : Flora E. (dec), Elwood E., who married Bertha Burdick, 
Eola L., and Ezra P., who married, first, Ella Potter (dec), second, Leora Sisson. Mr. Hamil- 
ton has served the town several years as assessor. He was elected clerk of the Second Seventh- 
day Baptist church of Alfred in 1855, and was ordained deacon of the same church in 1866 and 
is still serving in both these offices. 

Col. Nathan Potter, son of George and Content (Maxson) Potter, was a descendant of 
Ichabod, the first emigrant of that name, who settled in Portsmouth, R. I. Col. Potter was 
born in 1769, came to Alfred in 1823, and settled at the Five Corners, where Jerome N. Potter 
resides. He died in 1825. His son, Ezra, born April 14, 1814, married Content Sisson, and 
settled first on the homestead, subsequently on the farm now owned by F. W. Hamilton where 
he died in 1874. His wife died in 1892. They had 3 children : Amanda, (Mrs. F. W. Hamil- 
ton), Elmina (dec) Thomas E. (dec). 

Isaac Hoard came from Yates county to Independence at an early day. He was a farmer. 



Alfred. 651 

His son, James C , married Eliza A. Walker and settled in Ward where he was a " tiller of the 
soil." Of their 4 children, 3 are living : Rachel (Mrs. John W. Sisson), Alexander W. Hoard 
of Hornellsville, and James W. Hoard, who married Harriet E., daughter of Alonzo Sisson, and 
located in Alfred. In 1864 he enlisted in Co. I, 189th Regt. N. Y. V., and served until dis- 
charged in 1865. He is a member of the B. F. Alaxson Post, G. A. R. He has been assessor 
6 years and is a trustee of the village. He is a prominent business man, owns and conducts 
the stage line to Alfred Station, and keeps a livery stable. He has a son Fred S., his daughter, 
A. Maude, a most promising young lady, is not living. 

Laurence LaForge, son of Abiel T. and Margaret Getchell LaForge, was born in New 
York City, Sept. 17, 1871. His grandfather, Samuel LaForge, born in Lyons, N. Y., brought 
his family from Matteawan, Dutchess Co., to Independence in 1851. Abiel T., then nine years 
old lived on the farm until the Civil War when he enlisted in Co. C, 85th N. Y. He was mus- 
tered out as major in 1S65 and engaged in business in New York. In 1869 he married Mar- 
garet Getchell and became one of the firm of R. H. Macy & Co. He died in February, 1878, 
his wife in January, 1880, Their six children were Louis, Laurence, Adrian, Lillie and Rose, 
and Leon. The five surviving children were members of the family of their aunt, Mrs. Joseph 
Potter of Andover, after their parents' deaths until December, 1886, when they came to Alfred, 
where Laurence was a student of Alfred University until June, 1892. He married, June 28, 
1893, Fannie A., daughter of Rev. Thomas H. and Harriet (Wightman) Carryer, then of Shingle- 
house, Pa., but a native of Wirt. Mr. LaForge is greatly interested in astronomy and allied 
sciences. In hir private observatory is an equatorial telescope by Warner & Swasey, with a 
6-inch objective by Brashear, and other accessory apparatus. He divides his time between labor 
in this observatory and in his fine library. 

Rev. Darwin E. Maxson, A. M., D. D., born at Plainfield, Otsego Co., Sept. 15, 1822, died 
at Alfred, Feb. 22, 1895. His ancestors were Scotch Irish. Joel Maxson, a native of Hopkin- 
ton, R. I., early moved to Berlin, N. Y. His wife was Rachael Coon, daughter of Joshua. Their 
son, Joshua G. Maxson married Lois, daughter of Amos and Phoebe (Covey) Burdick. Darwin 
E. Maxson was sixth of their 12 children. His father, a lease-hold farmer, became blind in the 
prime of life, and the support of the family devolved largely upon the children. Darwin when 
13 became a member of the Seventh Day Baptist church at Brookfield, N. Y. He served a 
two-years apprenticeship at blacksmithing, worked two years as a journeyman, then seems to 
have cared for his father family, and attended and taught school until 1S45 when he passed 
two years teaching and working at Westerly, R. I. He came to Alfred in 1847, attended Alfred 
Academy for two years supporting himself by teaching and other labors. In 1849 he became 
a member of the band of teachers " Kenyon, Sayles & Co." which conducted the academy until 
it was chartered as an university. In 1851 he was admitted as a " senior " in Brown Univer- 
sity and at the end of the year received his diploma. He then was professor of natural history 
and natural science in Alfred University until November, 1861. when he enlisted. While teach- 
ing he used both to preach and lecture, and showed rare powers as an opponent of intemper- 
ance and slavery. July 7, 1853, he was ordained as a minister and became pastor of the Sev- 
enth Day Baptiat church of Hartsville for several years. After the Civil War he held pastorates 
at Milton, Wis., Plainfield, N. J., Hornellsville, Hartsville and in the Second Church of Alfred. 
In 1879 he was elected professor of church polity and pastoral theology in Alfred University, 
and in 1883 took a course of mstruction in Union Theological Seminary. He held this office as 
long as his health would admit and was then elected " Emeritus Professor." Mr. Maxson be- 
longed to the old time " Liberty " party in politics, and was elected member of assembly from 
the second district of this county in 1859 as a Republican and to the same office by the same 
party in Rock county, Wis., in 1869. He later was a Prohibitionist. His Alfred home was 
ever a " station " of the " underground railroad " when that was in operation. He was elected 
and commissioned chaplain of his 85th N. Y., regiment soon after his enlistment, and did valu- 
able service in the army of the Potomac until malarial fever caused his resignation, June 23, 
1862. From the effects of this fever he died. He married Hannah A., daughter of Luke and 
Irene (Fisk) Green in 1849. Their children were : Flora (dec), Carrie (Mrs. Robert Gorton of 
Plainfield, N. J.) and DoUie, wife of Prof. C. M. Post, M. D. of Alfred University. Mr. Maxson 
was a man of strong convictions and high moral ideas. These he boldly advocated with a zeal 
and ability which made him a leading spirit in whatever position he was placed. 

Rodman Place, born in Rhode Island about 1784, married Sally Stiliman and located in 
Alfred in 181 5. A tailor by trade he became a farmer here. He died in i860, surviving his 
wife about a year. They had 12 children, 11 of whom lived to marry and have families of their 
own. Of these Rev. Alvin A. was born Jan. 6, 1821, and married Ruth Sherman Feb. 12, 1846. 
He received his education in the district school and at Alfred Academy. Soon after his mar- 
riage he moved to Nile where he was located for 25 years working at blacksmithing. In 1881 
he was called to ordination as a minister and served the Seventh-day Baptist church of Scio 



652 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

until 1894. He had 6 children, Emily (Mrs. Theodore Gardiner) dec, Jennie A. (Mrs. Charles 
Stillman), Fred S. (a professor in Alfred University), R. Artamisiaand two who died in infancy. 

Thomas Place, son of Rodman, a native of Alfred, married Elizabeth, daughter of Enos 
Burdick, and in 1858 established the first undertaking- establishment of the town, and for some 
time made coffins. He was a man of extensive acquaintance and conducted trade until his 
death in 1885, when his son, Phil S. Place, succeeded him and now conducts the business. P. 
S. Place married Margaret M, daughter of O. D. Green of Adams Center, Jefferson county. 

Jeremiah Reading, a cooper, settled early in Independence where he died in 1836. His 
son, Jeremiah K. Reading, born in Independence in 1836, enlisted in July, 1861, in Co. I, 27th 
N. Y. Inf., and was discharged May 31, 1863. Returning to Independence he married Ruth, 
daughter of Elias Smith of Alfred. In 1882 he removed to Alfred where he is in trade as a 
grocer. He has been justice of the peace nine years, and was postmaster under President 
Harrison. Mr. Reading was taken prisoner at the first battle of Bull Run, carried to Richmond, 
New Orleans and then to Salisbury, N. C. and suffered the privations of rebel captivity 10 
months and 10 days. He is a member of B. Frank Maxson Post, G. A. R. 

Ezekiel Saunders, son of Clark and grandson of Peleg, was born in Westerly, R. I., April 
I, 1801. In 1826, he emigrated to Alfred, took up 75 acres, cleared and cultivated his land, 
made his home. His wife was Clarissa, a daughter of Jonathan Lanphear. Of their 7 children, 
6 attained maturity. Mr. Saunders was a member of the Seventh-day Baptist church, aud a 
man much respected by his neighbors. He died Oct. 26, 1878, his wife Dec. 19, 1873. Henry- 
Saunders, son of Ezekiel and Clarissa (Lanphear) Saunders, was born Sept. 5, 1844. He mar- 
ried Laura, daughter of Sylvester and Lura (VanNess) Compton of Wirt, and settled on the 
homestead where he is a farmer. His children are Clarissa A., Clark E., Charles L., Marion 
H., S. May and Wilson S. 

George Sherman, son of Samuel, was born in Norway, N. Y., Oct. 15, 1793. He married 
Arta M. Wright. They had 6 children. Mrs. Sherman died in April, 1 831. His second wife 
was Anna Potter, whom he married in 1833. In 1836 he moved to Alfred and located on lot 30. 
He was a farmer, a respected member of the Seventh-day Baptist church, and was a soldier of 
the War of 1812. He died May 11, 1869, his wife died June 7, 1877. Clark Sherman, son of 
George, was born June 12, 1825. He married Phebe, daughter of Rodman and Sally (Stillman) 
Place, and settled on the farm where he now resides. They have 2 children, George C. and 
Harley P. Mr. Sherman was supervisor of the town in 1870 and '71 and road commissioner 
several years. George C. Sherman, son of Clark and Phebe (Place) Sherman, was born May 19, 
1854. He married, Sept. 25, 1878, Martha, daughter of Manning and Emeline (Smith) Liver- 
more. The Livermore family was a noted one in early New England days. Mr. and Mrs. 
Sherman have six children: Ethel E., David C, Susan B., Thomas P., Emma A., and Harley 
B. Mr. Sherman was formerly engaged in the machine business, but in 1893 Mrs. Sherman 
purchased a paper box plant and is now manufacturing paper boxes under the name of M. L. 
Sherman. Mr. Sherman is now managing the business for her. Their home and the plant are 
near Alfred Station. 

Phmeas K. Shaw, son of Anthony, came from Stephentown, N. Y., his native place, in 
1824 or '5 and purchased 66 acres of land on the farm now the property of his son Milo. He 
then brought his widowed mother, and, with his brother John R., made his home in Alfred for 
life. He was a carpenter as well as a farmer, and was industrious and frugal, holding the offices 
of constable and collector, and assessor for years. Both he and his wife, Melissa, daughter of 
Rev. Spencer Sweet, an early settler, were active members of the Seventh-day Baptist church. 
They had 11 children. Their son Milo married Alzina, daughter of Daniel Coon, of West Ed- 
meston, Otsego Co., and succeeded his father in the possession of the homestead. He has 
been a successful farmer, assessor for three years, justice of the peace for eight years, and he 
and his wife are members of the Second Alfred Seventh-day Baptist church. Phineas A. Shaw, 
son of Phineas K., was born May 3, 1835. He was a soldier of the Civil War, enlisting May 10, 
1861, in Co. E, 5th Wis. Inf., and was m several engagements with the Army of the Potomac, 
among them Williamsburg, McClellan's Seven Days' Fight, etc. From that time he was team- 
ster of the ambulance corps until the spring of 1864 when he took his gun and joined his com- 
pany again. He was discharged at Madison, Wis., July 30, 1864, returned to Alfred, in August 
married Fanny R., daughter of Joseph Stillman, of Alfred, and located in Almond. In 1894 he 
returned to Alfred. 

David Stillman was born in Westerly, R. I., May 30, 1787. His father, Joseph Stillman, 
was a grandson of George Stillman, who came from England to Hadley, Mass., in 1701. His 
mother was Elizabeth Maxson. His parents removed to Petersburg, N. Y., when he was 
about nine years old. He married, July i, 1809, Lillis, daughter of Nathaniel and Mary 
(Tanner) Rose. They came to Alfred in the spring of 181 8 with three children and Peter Rose, 
Mrs. Stillman's brother, with his family. Their conveyance was a wagon of the " prairie 



Alfred. 653 

schooner " style drawn by two pairs of oxen. A horse was purchased on the road to lead the 
team. Their cow was tied behind the wagon. They were a month on the journey, every day 
but one it rained or snowed. Stillman had previously brought a load of goods and stored them 
with his brother Silas Stillman, and purchased the improvements of John Teater on lot 14, on 
which he built a house the same season, the oldest house, with one possible exception, now 
standing in town, and now occupied by his daughter, Amanda Stillman, and his grandson, 
Charles Stillman, and where he died April 27, 1872. He took an active interest in public, edu- 
cational and church affairs, and was one of the first farmers to do his haying without liquor. 
He held the office of supervisor six years besides other minor town offices ; was one of the 
original projectors of Alfred Academy, which was merged in Alfred University, and was the 
first president of its board of trustees. His children were : Lavinia, who married David R. 
Potter and died in Alfred, Dec. 19, 1893 ; Amanda, Orra, who died at Westerly, R. I., April 22, 
1890, and David R., who was born in Alfred, Dec. 15, 1822, and lives on the home farm within 
speaking distance of the place of his birth, the old farm residence. He married Martha M., 
daughter of Isaiah W. and Betsey Bassett Green, of Independence. They have four children : 
Charles, Rogers, Liilis E. and Martha R. He is extensively known, havmg been for 20 years 
connected with the board of supervisors of the county, 7 years as representative of the town, 3 
years as assistant clerk, and 10 years as clerk of the board. He was business manager of the 
publishing house at Alfred from its establishment in June, 1872, to the end of the year 1882, 
He was appointed notary public by Gov. R. E. Fenton in 1866, and has held the position con- 
tinuously to the present time. 

Charles Stillman, oldest son of David R. and Martha (Green) Stillman, was born at the old 
Stillman homestead Aug. 17, 1851. He worked on his father's farm, attending school in the 
fall and winter, first at the district school and later at Alfred University, until the winter of 
1870-71, when he taught school winters most of the years up to 1882. From 1872 until 1883 
he worked his father's homestead, then was in the store of E. S. Bliss at Richburg for one 
year. He was then employed in the County Clerk's office at Belmont about 5 years, January 
I, 1890, he purchased the Stillman homestead in Alfred and resides there. December 2, 1874, 
he married Jennie A., daughter of Alvin and Ruth (Sherman) Place of Nile. They have three 
daughters, Vida Rose, Ruth and Elizabeth. From 1874 to 1880 he was assistant clerk of the 
board of supervisors of the county, and in 1881 he was elected clerk of the board which posi- 
tion he still holds. He is one of the justices of the peace of Alfred. 

Rowland P. Thomas, son of Archibald, born in Petersburg, N. Y., came in 1821, and took 
up 50 acres on which he built a frame house and made his home. He was a soldier in the War 
of 1 81 2, married Prudence Potter. Six of their nine children attained maturity. He died in 
1874, his wife Dec. 14, 1886. Rowland A. Thomas, son of Rowland P., was born July 26, 1819. 
He married Ann Crandall, daughter of Isaiah, of Almond, in 1841, and settled on the farm now 
owned by J. and C, C. Champhn, where he conducted farming operations until 1880, when he 
sold the place. In 1876 he moved to Alfred Centre where he resides. He has been assessor 6 
years, poormaster 5 years, and trustee of Alfred University 33 years. His six children were 
Wm. G., who enlisted in Co. H, 130th N. Y. Inf. in 1862, and died of disease in camp July 11, 
1864; Sarah M. (Mrs. H. D. Eaton), Lorenzo C. Alma E. (Mrs. Oliver Pierce), Lura A. (Mrs. 
Edward Beebe), Minnie M. (Mrs. E. E. Beckwith). 

Daniel G. Vincent, son of Joshua [see page 495], was born in Berlin, N. Y. Joshua Vin- 
cent, one of the settlers of 1822, was a native of Rhode Island. After coming to Alfred he 
was in partnership with Judge Crandall in the manufacture of pails. He was supervisor several 
years, and justice of the peace. He died in 1873. Daniel G. Vincent married Lucretia Max- 
son, and made his home here. He was a school teacher, a cabinet maker by trade. He was 
justice of ihe peace for 24 years, and a well-known citizen of the town. Of his 5 children, 3 
are living, Francis M., Charles M., and Claude A., who married Mary Shaw, and is in business 
as a jeweler, Paulding, one son, was a soldier in the 23d Regt. N. Y. S. V., and died in the 
army. 



Allegany and Its People 



A Centennial Mennorial -History 



TOW/NS OF THE HOLLA/NB 
PU-RCHASE 

CANEADEA, BELFAST, FRIENDSHIP, HUME, CENTREYILLE, 

RUSHFORD, CUBA, WIRT, NEW HUDSON, 

GENESEE, BOLIVAR, CLARKSYILLE. 



Caneadea. 657 

CA/N EAT) EA. 

BY JOHN S. MINARD. 

CHAPTER LVII. 

WHEN CANEADEA was formed March 11, 1808, it covered the territory 
now embraced in Belfast, Bolivar, Cuba, Clarksville, Friendship, 
Genesee, Rushford, New Hudson and Wirt, besides its present reduced area. 
The first townmeeting- was held at the house of Jedediah Nobles April 5, 
1808,* and the officers then elected were scattered over quite an extent of 
territory. It " held its own, " territorially, until 1815, when in consequence 
of the rapid settlement of the country, Friendship was taken off comprising 
its present territory, Bolivar and Wirt, Cuba, Clarksville and Genesee. In 
1816 Rushford was set off covering present Rushford and New Hudson. 
Belfast was taken off in 1824, not however with its northern boundary so far 
north as at present located. In 1831 a small part along the southern border 
was annexed to Belfast, since then its limits have remained unchanged, 
being township 5, of range 1, of the Holland Company's survey, excepting 
section 5, which was the triangle since known as " Brook's Gore." This 
laid between the Caneadea Reservation and the Transit Meridian, and 
was ^north of the present northern boundary of the town, now included in 
Hume. 

Caneadea, the only Indian name given to a town in our county, comes 
from the old Seneca name found on the Guy Johnson map of 1771. (See 
page 38). The town is more connected with American and Indian history 
than any other Allegany town as here was located the famous "western 
door " of the Iroquois Confederacy. (See page 34.) The large stream com- 
ing from the west and emptying into the river at Caneadea Centre has always 
been called Caneadea Creek. Shongo brook has its source in the extreme 
eastern part of the town. It derives its name from Chief Shongo who lived 
on the flats at its mouth, and the flats have been called " Shongo flats." 

Caneadea is an interior town, lying northwest of the center of the county 
and bounded north by Hume, east by Allen, south by Belfast, w^est by Rush- 
ford. The Genesee river forms its distinguishing geographical feature, 
here making the most noted change in its direction (so distinctly marked as 
to have been in early times called the "great angle"), changing abruptly 
from a northwest to a northeast course. The surface is broken into two 
distinct ranges of hills by the Genesee, while the western range is broken 
by Crawford Creek (named after an early settler) which rises in New Hud- 
son, runs northeasterly through the northwest corner of Belfast and dis- 
charges into the river north of Oramel, and the Caneadea Creek which, for 
two miles or more after entering the town, makes its way riverward, 

* The Nobles place is east of the Genesee, ly.^ miles above Belfast village, and now owned by W. W. 
Byrnes. 



658 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

through a rocky defile, presenting in some places perpendicular banks of 
over 100 feet in height, upon which for some part of the way still stands the 
original growth of hemlock, pine and other timber. Houghton Creek also 
comes from the west, piercing the same ridge, but without impressing itself 
so distinctly as the Crawford or Caneadea, while numerous smaller rills and 
brooklets seek the river at various points. On the east the only streams 
which have names are the Vandermark and Shongo, each finding its way 
through deep, rocky chasms, which in early times furnished facilities for 
mills, and so were made useful in manufacturing the cheap lumber with 
which this town abounded. These streams, as well as the river, when first 
visited by the white man, were well stocked with a great variety of fish, 
among which were innumerable brook trout. 

When first explored by the white man Caneadea was covered, with the 
exception of occasional open flats along the river, with a prodigious growth 
of pine, oak, hemlock, elm, chestnut, beech, maple, cherry, ash, and along 
the river with butternut, hickory and wild plum. It was subdivided in 
1800 by Alexander Rhea, assisted by James Rogers of Big Tree as hind 
chainman, George Washington, an Indian of Squakie Hill, as fore chainman, 
and Seth Fields of Big Tree as axeman and others. 

In the northwestern part is a sheet of water, covering 25 to 40 acres, 
(the second largest natural body of water in the county) called Bull Head 
Pond, but more generally known as Moss Lake, from the large quantities of 
moss of a peculiar character about its margin. This is shipped to Rochester 
for use in packing fruit trees for shipment. This lake is quite popular as a 
pleasure resort. 

Years ago grindstones were made in the gorge near the west side of the 
town. These stone, from their peculiar "grit," were known to the settlers 
north of here as early as 1807. For a long time the Caneadea grindstones 
have made no figure in the market. 

The Old Council House. — When Joel Seaton came soon after 1830, he 
bought the lot on which was the Indian village of Caneadea. Here, with 
other buildings, stood the council house. It was some distance back from 
the road, and, at that time, a man of ordinary stature could reach the eaves 
with his hands, and had to stoop when going through the door. There were 
places for fires at each end and holes in the roof admitted light and gave 
egress to the smoke. Mr. Seaton took the house down and rebuilt it by the 
roadside, adding, however, some logs to the walls to make them higher. 
The Seaton family lived in it for some time, then used it as a barn. It was 
an object of much interest for many years. About 1871 Hon. W. P. Letch- 
worth purchased it and removed it to his residence at Glen Iris at Portage 
Falls, and under the supervision of John Shanks, an aged Indian, it was 
there reconstructed as nearly to its original condition and appearance as 
possible. It was " re-dedicated," Oct. 1, 1872, with interesting ceremonies, 
by a party of Indians, descendants of Brant, Cornplanter, Red Jacket and 
Mary Jemison. Many "pale faces" attended this "last council of the 



Caneadea. 659 

Senecas on the Genesee," and among the guests was ex-President Millard 
Fillmore. This " council " was made the subject of an interesting article in 
Scribnei''s Monthly of July, 1877. During the Columbian Exposition at 
Chicago, the taking of the council house thither as an " exhibit " in connect- 
ion with the New York state Indian village was considered, but the timbers 
were found to be in such condition as to render the idea an impracticable one. 

It is universally conceded that one Schoonover, a Dutchman, was the 
first settler, he locating in 1800 on lot 11, section 10, east of the center. He 
made a small opening, burnt the brush, and scattered appleseeds and so 
came the first nursery in Allegany county. Here is still to be found what 
is supposed by some to be the largest apple tree in Western New York, if 
not in the state. It is about 8 feet in circumference and hardly ever fails of 
a good crop. In 1802 Ephraim Sanford and Zephaniah Huff from Wayne, 
Steuben Co. , came by Almond and Angelica, and, reaching the river near 
the Transit Bridge, made exploration of it as far as Portage Falls. They 
then went back to Wayne, and the next spring Huff' returned, planted corn, 
and put up a log house. Remaining until he had harvested his crop, he 
went back for his family, and in February, 1804, Huff settled opposite the 
village of Caneadea, on the lot now constituting the farms of Charles E. 
Parker, Ephraim Huff and Mr. Hale. Sanford returned in 1803, bringing 
with him from. Steuben 18 others, for which Mr. EUicott let him have his 
land at a low rate. 

In the spring of 1802 Timothy Hitchcock of Bainbridge, N. Y., came and 
articled lot 13, section 10. Building a little bark tent just east of the pres- 
ent village of Caneadea, he passed the summer in making improvements, 
then returned to Bainbridge. In the spring of 1803 he returned with James 
Rice, who had married his sister Eleanor. Rice paid $5 for the use of less 
than an acre of land on the site of the village of Angelica which he planted 
with corn. He bought Schoonover's interest in lot 11, section 10, and arti- 
cled lot 9, section 10. Rice and Hitchcock worked together improving the 
land and building their log houses. In the fall one returned to Bainbridge 
for their families and stock. A few years after James Rice built another 
house about where the Westbrook House barn stands, and opened the first 
public house kept in Caneadea. About 1806 or 1807, Arad and David Hitch- 
cock came from Bainbridge. 

David Hitchcock and James Rice put up the first cardingmill in town 
(probably first in the county) about 1807 or 8. Hitchcock brought the machine 
from Bainbridge on a sled. It was located on the east side of present high- 
way on Caneadea Creek. A short time after a high flood carried away the 
dam and building, but through almost superhuman exertions of the settlers 
the machine was saved. It was then rebuilt farther up the stream, just west 
of present railroad. It caught tire and burned, causing quite a loss to the 
owners, as they had to pay their customers for the wool they had left with 
them at the rate of one dollar a pound. 



660 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Some time after a few families had settled, and made some improve- 
ments, they found themselves with seven " porkers," but no salt. They got 
together a few dollars, and Hitchcock made a dray of a tree-crotch, and 
started for the Onondaga salt works at Syracuse, having for most of the way 
only an Indian trail to follow. He returned in three weeks with two barrels 
of salt and made the settlers happy over the prospect of eating salt pork, in- 
stead of venison and bear meat. 

The first birth was that of Elizabeth, daughter of Ezra Sanford, April 
15, 1804. He lived on the Michael Dougherty place, where he no doubt built 
the town's first framed house. The first burying ground probably was on 
the river 2 miles above the center. An old burial ground was in Oramel 
where the schoolhouse stands, and some of the graves are still to be seen. 

For some time during the War of 1812 the Indians run a sort of express 
from the nortli side of the hill where Houghton Seminary stands, up the 
ravine and on to Buffalo, and the people used to congregate there to hear the 
news from the front. Once there came a rumor that the Caneadea Indian 
warriors had gone to join the British. The frightened Mrs. Hitchcock began 
to prepare her children for flight, but Big Kettle, the chief, came and said 
" Squaw and papoose no go. Indian good friends," and the scare was over. 
. James Caldwell who came early from Vermont was the first postmaster 
here, was supervisor and justice of the peace for many years. He built the 
first tannery in town, on the John Ingersoll place, and one later on the Munn 
place. The machinery for grinding the bark was simple. A large stone, 
six inches thick and five feet in diameter, shaped like a grindstone, was at- 
tached to a beam fastened to a center post. A circular trough of plank was 
filled with the bark and then a horse made the stone revolve like a wheel, 
crushing the bark over which it was made to run until it was ground. The 
stone is now used as a cover for a well on the Caldwell place in Hume, where 
James Caldwell removed, and died. 

About 1805 Noah Franklin from Bainbridge settled on the John Ingersoll 
place, Noah's son Ramson was deaf, but not entirely dumb, and could work 
with skill at blacksmithing or carpenter and joiner work, and was quite a 
hunter. He once shot between the eyes, and killed a large panther near the 
quarry on Caneadea Creek. 

Asa Harris, known as Squire Harris, came from Connecticut about 1808. 
He taught the first school here in 1811, in a log structure about opposite the 
residence of the Burr Bros. He built the first framed barn in town which 
is still standing on the John Ingersoll place, which he purchased from the 
Holland Land Company in 1830, and there lived, and died in 1842. His wife 
and 6 children survived him. He was highly esteemed. He was noted for 
his great self possession. Once some young fellows were picking berries 
back of his premises, and there came up a heavy thunder shower. They ran 
across his fields and found a valuable mare dead, killed by lightning. All 
excitement they hurried and told him, when he very calmly replied, "By 
the life, I wiU go right over and take her hide off." This was the nearest 



Caneadea. 661 

approach to swearing he ever made. He was a good friend of the Indians, 
and they gave him a name, Chic-ioa--au-iuie and called his children Cliic-icas- 
sies. The meaning of neither is known to me. 

About 1820 Daniel Ingersoll from Steuben county took up land where 
the village of Houghton now is. He w^as friendly to the Indians, and they 
always asked his advice on business. He died in 1826, leaving a wife and 
ten children; all except Polly, Mrs. John S. Wilson, are died. John, the 
oldest son, helped his mother care for the family. When 30 years old he 
married Jenette, daughter of Squire Harris, and settled near Burrville. He 
had a good position during the construction of the old canal, and when it was 
completed he bought lumber and shipped to Rochester. In 1853 he bought 
out the heirs of the Harris estate, and removed to the farm in that year. 
He died at Caneadea Centre, Jan. 18, 184-4. The farm is owned by his daugh- 
ters, Mrs. Viola Butler and Mrs. Lenora Vedder. 

William Pinkerton, first from Pennsylvania, then from Steuben county, 
settled about a mile north of Caneadea in 1805. In 1806 he sold and removed 
to Cattaraugus county. In 1814 he returned and purchased a farm in the 
south part of the town. Daniel Dodge was a settler on the river in the 
north part of the town as early as 1809-10. Moses Stockwell settled about 
a mile below Caneadea, probably as early as 1807-8, for after making some 
improvements he sold to Major Alanson Burr, who came in 1810 from 
Bainbridge, Chenango county. 

Samuel Burr, father of Alanson, came from Scottland. Alanson Burr, 
though born in Vermont, was a " bound out boy " in Connecticut. He first 
took up a farm in Bethany, Genesee county, where his wife, Mary Bush, 
died. He returned to Bainbridge, and married his wife's sister Susie, then 
fourteen years old. They came from Bainbridge to Caneadea, with an ox 
sled containing their household effects, and leading a cow. They were nine 
or ten days in making the distance, and sometimes " camped out " over night. 
Mr. Stockw^ell had made a little clearing where Burrville afterwards was. 
Indians were their neighbors. He helped to cut out the roads to Angelica 
and to Pike. Mrs. Burr used to ride horse to plow out corn with a child in 
her arms, and has been to Rushford to mill on horseback also with a child 
in her arms. Mr. Burr built a still, where is now Edgar Lewis' garden.* 
Indians used to frequent this still to exchange corn for whiskey. Loring 
Francis had a "still" east of the river near the south line of the town, 
about the same time. 

Major Burr kept the first tavern at Burrville in a log structure. The 
Indians had a small village a little southeast of Burrville on the low ground. 
Judge Dole and Luther C. Peck, on their way to court stopped there once, 
about night. It was raining. Many Indians were around there and a fight 
ensued. Burr seized a " black-snake " whip and lashed them severely right 
and left and soon quieted the disturbance. 

*One time Siin-ge-wah (Big Kettle) was boasting at Burr's distillery of his exploits during the Revolu- 
tion, when in some of their raids he had killed little white children, etc. Wm. Lewis, one of the listeners in 
his indignation knocked the Indian down. 



662 History op Allegany County, N. Y. 

Mr. Burr was drafted during the war of 1812-14, and started for Ba- 
tavia the rendezvous. He met a man, whom he hired to take his place giving 
him all the money he had (a few dollars) his boots, coat, hat (a tall silk) and 
came home barefooted. He did not find his wife at home but found a 
crotched stick leaning against the door (the Indian way of signifying that 
she was safe, and taken care of by them). Going to their shanties he found 
her safe. Burr was a large man, strong and courageous; had great influence 
with the Indians, who regarded him with much fear. There was something 
in his presence and bearing that made them obey him. At one time when 
two or three hundred Indians were present they danced around him, and 
formally adopted him, giving him an Indian name, Un-gwa-de-o (big man), 
by which name he was known at Salamanca, Buffalo and Tonawanda. Ma- 
jor Burr held many offices of trust and responsibility and was a prominent 
citizen of the county. He was a life long Democrat. He had six children, 
Joseph, the oldest being the first white male child born in town. The late Col. 
A. L. Burr of Caneadea, Alvah Burr of Yorkshire and A. J. Burr of Canea- 
dea, were his sons. Mrs. Morse, recently living in Fillmore, and the late 
Mrs. James A. Jackson were the daughters.* 

Eleazer Burbank from Vermont settled near Oramel in 1812. He after- 
wards kept a public house, built by James Caldwell, which J. E. Munn owns. 
George P. Ketchum from Pennsylvania also came in 1812. In 1814 Hiram 
Gray settled in the southern part and in 1815, came Samuel Hunt from Ver- 
mont. In 1816 John Hoyt erected the first sawmill in town at the mouth of 
Caneadea Creek. He started from Windsor, Vt. , June 9th, and arrived at 
Caneadea July 3d. His brother Richard and Moses Barnard and their fam- 
lies accompanied him. They brought 16 cattle, 8 horses and 4 hogs. Mr. 
Hoyt had previously bought of David Hitchcock 100 acres of land, 15 were 
cleared and a log house built in which the three families lived for one year. 
In the winter of 1816-17 provisions being scarce Mr. Hoyt went to the mill 
at Hornellsville taking with him 25 bushels of wheat, bringing the flour and 
bran back. He was a stirring, wide-awake, enterprising man. His son, 
John, owned the Hari*y Tucker place, and died a few years since at Oramel 
at an advanced age, having lived a life which commanded respect and 
esteem. 

Simon Wilson from Windsor, Vt., came in 1813, and settled in the cen- 
tral part of the town. He was drafted during the War of 1812-14, and went 
to Buffalo and hired a substitute. His son, John S. Wilson, who died some 
2 or 3 years ago, stated that when they came into the town there was no 
store, and that the first one was kept by one Waldo on the A. J. Burr place; 
also that Nicholas Nicholson built the first sawmill;! that when George 

* A. J. Burr is my informant as to matters pertaining to the Burr family, and is owner of the ances- 
tral acres purchased of Moses Stockwell. He says that in days before the canal they have had fifty teams 
at their place at once coming in from the north after lumber and shingles. They paid for lodging and horses 
to hay, 25 cents, meals i shilling, whiskey per drink 3 cents. In canal times $75 a day has been paid at 
their house alone for liquor. 

+ Only another instance of conflicting statements. 



Caneadea. 663 

Minard settled in Hume about 1830, he came up there and bought the lum- 
ber for his barn, and he and his brother Albert delivered it to him by run- 
ning it do'wm as a raft. 

Luther Houghton, a native of Lyndon, Vt., settled in the north v^est part 
in 1817, coming from Centerville (where he located about 1811) with his fam- 
ily. He lived the remainder of his life in Caneadea. His son Loren (dec.) 
succeeded to the old homestead, and his son Henry now has the place. Cy- 
rus H. Clement, son of James, of Windsor, Vt., also came in 1817. He was 
a mechanic, bought and run a sawmill, changed his location several times, 
and finally settled where he lived so long and died. He was justice of the 
peace for many years and well-known and influential in town affairs. Henry 
Her rick, also from Vermont, located about two miles north of Caneadea in 
1818. Alpheus Estabrook of Vermont came from Centerville to the north- 
western part of Caneadea when but 14, preceding his father, Benjamin Esta- 
brook, by two years, and being the youngest pioneer on record. Timothy 
S. Daniels, a native of Windsor, Vt., was a settler as early as 1824. He re- 
moved to Allen in 1833, returned in 1846, and afterward went to Pennsyl- 
vania, where he died in 1877. His son Charles R. resides in town. Arad H 
Franklin, another Bainbridge man, came in 1824, went back in 1826, re- 
turned in 1830, purchased the farm of Cyrus H. Clement opposite Caneadea 
village, where he ever after resided. He was prominent in town affairs. 
His son, Phil D. Franklin, is the proprietor of the " red gristmill " and saw- 
mill adjoining. Edward Nicholson, from Delaware county, and later Steu- 
ben county, came in 1828, settling on lot 35 of the Caneadea Reservation, 
where he ever after resided. He was one of the best of agriculturalists and 
highly respected by his fellow townsmen. He died ten years ago. 

George W. Parker started in 1831 from Chatham, Pa., for Michigan. 
Stopping in Caneadea over night he learned that some land on the east side 
of the river on the Reservation could be purchased at a bargain, and he 
bought about 300 acres. Sixty acres had been cleared and cultivated by 
the Indians, and an Indian hut erected. Shongo creek ran through this 
land and emptied into the river here. Near its mouth, on Shongo flats, was 
a famous sugar orchard or "sap bush." The trees were greatly enlarged 
for about five feet from the ground from being tapped so many times with 
the axe. The Indians had made sugar there for a long time, and the Parkers 
succeeded them with improved methods of tapping, using buckets and hang- 
ing them with nails. A few years since the " bush " was cut down. Mr. 
Parker was a great hunter, kept hounds, and used to run deer into the river 
and shoot them, a practice condemned by the hunters who had no dogs. He 
was a Forty-niner Californian, and also exi)lored the wild lands beyond Lake 
Superior. He died in 1868 aged 75, leaving two daughters, Mrs. Amos R. 
Smith and Mrs. Edwin Leet (dec), and two sons, Noah H., now of Pennsyl- 
vania, and Andrew J., who is in the west. 

Col. James A. Jackson came in 1831 from Hartford, Conn., and has since 
been widely known as a farmer and inn-keeper. He married a daughter of 



664 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Maj. Alanson Burr. He commanded a regiment of the old militia, and held 
every office in the town except magistrate. He was born in Herkimer 
county in 1806, and died in Caneadea April 14, 1888. 

Abel N. Rice, son of Josiah, came from Chenango Co. in 1823, and went 
into a little plank house which stood where the Burr Brothers now live. He 
traded principally at Rushford and Angelica.* 

Anson Arnold from Granville, Washington Co., came in 1830, and in 1883 
bought lot 73 of the Caneadea Reservation^lOO acres, at $2 per acre, and built a 
log cabin 20 by 26 feet. His nearest neighbors on the river were Drock and 
Seaton. He was a clothier, carder and cloth dresser and had worked four 
years at Perry: On the north of his j^lace it was one unbroken forest to 
Rush Creek in Hume, and, except two or three small clearings, on the east to 
the Short Tract. In 1833 he helped to open the road on which he lives, the 
the first one in that part of the town. He remembers a pack of wolves kill- 
ing a deer within ten rods of the house. Mr. Arnold says that in 1830 neither 
shingles nor lumber would buy shirting, tea or sugar, and he had paid John 
Freeman at Hume, six shillings per yard cash for cottton cloth (shirting 
width). Tea was $1 and $1.25 per lb. He sold M. W. Skiff over 300,000 
shingles at one dollar per M. He also says he never knew an Indian to steal. 
Mr. Arnold married Lutheria Wilson Feb. 12, 1835, and the aged couple are 
spendiug the evening of their days on the old homestead, with their son 
Alfred, f 

"Deacon " Walter Al worth was a settler about a mile north of Arnold's 
in 1834. He did well his part in all improvements and died about ten years 
since. His widow still survives. 

The Germans. — About 1851 Gen. Micah Brooks who was a large land- 
owner in the east part of the town, induced some German families of Roch- 
ester to settle upon his lands which he sold at reasonable prices on easy 
terms of payment. Meeting with success, they were soon joined by friends 
from Germany who had barely sufficient means to make their first payments 
and put up their rude mud-thatched cabins. They lived on plain fare, cut their 
several openings in the forest and soon made a living off their cleared 
ground. The people have prospered and this part of the town has made 
rapid improvement, and stands second to no other section of the town, while 
for good citizenship, honest dealings, sterling worth and substantial pros- 
perity, the settlement takes high rank. Achilles, Buckhister, Johannes, 
Zollman, Zorn, Brandes, Mineke, Reutch and Behrms, are names of some of 
its worthy families. 

Prominent among those who came in 1834 was John Smith, born in Ver- 
mont in 1791, who came from Kinderhook to Caneadea. He purchased 300 
acres half a mile west of Caneadea village, and in 1836 erected part of the 
Jackson House where for a while he kept a store. In 1838 he sold the goods 
to Henry Runyan from Syracuse, who conducted the business until 1840 

* The pioneers so far mentioned were settlers along or near the river, 
t Since deceased. 



Caneadea. 665 

when he died. He was one of the first to be buried in the Caneadea cemetery. 
Amos R. Smith, his son, was a man long conversant with town affairs, but 
better known for many years as a successful pension agent. Burton Butler, 
a grandson of Col. Zebulon Butler, who was a leading patriot of eastern 
Pennsylvania in the Revolution, and commander of the militia which vainly 
opposed the Tories and Indians that committed the bloody massacre of 
Wyoming, settled about 1833 or 1834, a short distance west of Oramel, and 
about 1835 located in Drock neighborhood on the farm now owned by Eph- 
raim Ballard. He died in December, 1891. Simon Drock, a negro, settled 
on the east side of the river about 1836. George T. Turner came in 1836. 
purchased 100 acres where Wm. Powers now lives. He built a loghouse and 
barn, planted an orchard as soon as the ground was cleared. He died in 
1864. His son, Geo. W. Turner, is a resident here. Sylvester Spencer, son 
of Sylvester, removed from Centerville in 1838 and settled on the east side 
of the river and is one of the few settlers now living. Rodman Freeborn 
came here before 1840 and was a prominent man in the town and county. He 
removed to Angelica where he died. His farm is now owned by Mrs. Har- 
riet Tucker. 

During the making of the Genesee Valley canal many foreigners, Irish 
in particular, were attracted here by the good wages offered, and after the 
canal was completed many made the town their home. Purchasing land 
they cleared up farms, and by hard labor, persistent effort and rigid econ- 
omy, they have produced good homes and rank among the substantial citi- 
zens. Among them the names of Mountain, Curran, Dougherty, Sheehan, 
Burke, Butler and Whalen are prominent, with many others. 

The completion of the canal gave an impetus to lumbering, and the 
villages of Burrville, Caneadea (Center) and Oramel sprang up like magic. 
Oramel, for a short time the head of navigation, became a place of some im- 
portance; a great shipping place of lumber, and the best market in northern 
Allegany. The Republican Era was for a time published there by Hor- 
ace E. Purdy. But the opening of the canal to Olean pricked the 
Oramel bubble and it collapsed. Burrville, once a lively little place, where 
the first postofftce was located, a station on the stage route, and where in 
canal times considerable business was done, has, as a village, entirely dis- 
appeared. Houghton, early called "Jockey Strut," though on the canal, 
never in canal days aspired to be a village, has since the advent of the rail- 
road and the seminary made a healthy growth, and is a very pleasant, clean 
and tidy village. There are three postoffices, Houghton, Caneadea and 
Oramel at these villages. The schools are well supported; those of the three 
villages being exceptionally good, while the rural district schools are fully 
up to those in other towns. Three substantial iron bridges now span the 
Genesee in the town, and others have been placed over the creeks, and evi- 
dences of prosperity are to be seen on every hand. The equalized valuation 
of real and personal property for 1895, is $472,361, and the amount of tax 



666 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

$7,371.16. The equalized value of land per acre $20.72. The number of 
acres assessed is 21,950. 

There are four cheese factories in successful operation, one at Hough- 
ton, owned and conducted by Peter B. Loftus; one at Caneadea, owned by 
Young & Young of Fillmore, and run by Charles Howser; " Shongo " factory 
in the east part of the town also owned by Young & Young, and operated by 
Frank Adams, and one at Oramel owned by A . E. Perry of Belfast. 

The prominent business men and merchants are F. J. Corp at Hough- 
ton; Burr Brothers, J. L. Jackson, N. B. Sherman, B. D. White and F. L. 
Davis at Caneadea; and C. W. Vosburg & Co.. at Oramel. 

The " Soldier dead " of Caneadea are, John Cole, Peter Fox, Darius 
Ott, Ezra Pryor, Charles Seaton, O. Barnard, H. Merchant, A. Bannister, 
John Hendry, G. W. Dunham, Sidney Chase, Ambrose Smith, Joshua Bar- 
ney, Albert Little, Joseph Steuben, Thomas Pendergast, Philander Kellogg, 
Barney Riley, Esquire W. Johnson, David Magee, Edward Clark, Benson 
Bacon, Simon Wilson, Hugh Bennett, Charles W. Minard, R. A. Westbrooks, 
Wm. Pinkerton, Benjamin F. Andrew, Frank Johnson, Cyrus Johnson, Fred 
Willard, Reuben Madison, Curtis Daniels, Monroe Elliott, Charles A. Ellis, 
Albert H. Johnson, Wilson Dunham, Frank Rawson, Abel S. Nicholson. 

The first town ofiicers were William Pinkerton, supervisor ; Isaac San- 
ford, town clerk ; David Sanford, John Higgins, Asa Harris, assessors; Sim- 
eon Gates, Squire Haskell, James Rice, commissioners of highways ; James 
Sanford, constable and collector ; Elisha Chamberlain, Ezra Sanford, over- 
seers of poor. The early town records are missing. 

Supervisors from 1812. — Thaddeus Bennett, 1812, 1813 ; Israel Curtis, 1814 ; Alexander V. P. Mills, 
1815 ; Dyer Story, i8ib; Ezra Sanford, 1817 ; Asa Harris, 1818 ; William Burnett, 1819, 1820; Hiram Gray, 
1821-23; Asa Harris, 1824, 1825; James Caldwell, 1826-29, 1832, 1833; John McKeen, 1830; Eleazur Bur- 
bank, 1831 ; Cyrus H. Clement, 1834, 1835, 1844, 1845 ; Alanson Burr, 1836, 1840, 1841 ; George C. Cald- 
well, 1837 ; Edward Nicholson, 1838 ; Noah Bowker, 1839 ; James A. Jackson, 1842 ; David H. Franklin, 
1843-1846 ; Rodman Freeborn, 1847 ; John Ingersoll, 1848-53, 1855, 1873 ; Horace E. Purdy, 1854 ; Truman 
Hall, 1856 ; A. L. Burr, 1857 ; R. B. Laning, 1858 ; Lorenzo H. Brooks, 1859, i860 ; James A. Jackson, 
1861, 1862 ; Henry Burleson, 1863, 1868-71 ; Wm. E.Hammond, 1864-66, 1874-76, '86, '87, '88, '89, 90; 
Thomas R. Leet, 1867; James T. Severance, 1872; Fred L. Davis, 1877, '78; O. H. Thompson, 1879, '80; 
Charles A. Burr, 1881, '82 ; L. N. Brainard, 1883 ; J. L. Jackson, 1884, '85 ; S. M. Bartlett, 1891, '92, '93 ; 
D. W. Chamberlain, 1894, '95. 

The present officers are : Daniel W. Chamberlain, supervisor ; Fred L. Davis, town clerk ; Ellis L. Bee- 
be, collector ; Fayette McKee. commissioner of highways ; Edwin P. Swan, James E. Munn, Jacob T. Cle- 
ment and Charles R. Parker, justices ; Willis L. Fox, James Wilson, Henry Stephens, assessors ; Riley Steu- 
ben, James J. Scribner, Robert Bacon, constables ; Charles Gleason, George W. Denio, overseers of the poor ; 
Joel M. Van Dusen, Michael Keniry, Willard Kelly, excise commissioners. 

Religious. — The first religious services were held on the site of Oramel 
by Rev. Ephraim Sanford at his own house, as early as 1804, and until the 
erection of school houses when they were made use of, the dwellings of the 
settlers were the places of worship when some itinerant preacher found 
his way into the settlement. 

Methodist Episcopal Church of Oramel. — At an early date a church was 
organized here but by whom or when cannot be stated as the records are 
missing. Many years later, under the pastorate of Rev. O. S. Chamber- 



Caneadea. 667 

layne, a zealous worker, a reorganization was effected, with these trustees: 
Francis Armstrong, Wilham Conable, Geo. E. Parker, Alsen Hurlbut and E. 
E. Young. The charge has always been connected with the Belfast and 
Caneadea charges. Some years before this a Baptist church edifice had 
been erected, which at this time had become old and suffering from neglect. 
The newly organized Methodist church bought the property, repaired and 
remodelled it, and made it a comfortable place of worship. It has a seating 
capacity of about 200, and the house and lot are probably worth $1,250. Since 
the purchase of the church the jmstors have been, Rev. Mr. Ho])kins, J. B. 
Whiteside, H. O. Abbott, Mr. Stevens, Mr. Osborne, E. J. Cook, Juhus 
Brown, John A. Smith, M. D. Jackson, T. E. Clayton, O. N. Leggett, C. S.- 
Daley, G. H. Hancock, W. D. Allen, E. M. Kelly. 

Congregational Church, Oramel. — After Congregational preaching was 
had at occasional intervals at the schoolhouse and private houses, the 
Congregational society was organized May 12, 1842, at the house of Elihu 
Eurez. Rev. R. H. Conklin and Hiram Gregg of the Angelica Presbytery, 
presiding. These persons presented letters: Elihu Eurez, Stephen Bald- 
win, James Go wing. Eli Nettleton, Mrs. Oliver Cary, Jr., Mrs. Julia Bald- 
win, Mrs. Malinda Eurez, Mrs. Mary Nettleton, Mrs. Susannah Gowing, 
Mrs. Anna M. Carey, Mrs. Hannah Baldwin, Mrs. Urilla Colton, Miss 
Emarancy Gowing. Miss Laura Colton and Mrs. Betsy Gowing. These with 
a few others constituted the new church, which took the name of the First 
Congregationalist church of Caneadea, and elected these officers, Stephen 
Baldwin and Elihu Eurez deacons, Oliver Carey, Jr., church clerk and 
treasurer. July 10, 1842, a meeting of the church was held. Rev. Royal 
Twitchell presiding, and Joseph C. Sawyer was received on profession of 
faith, the first member received into the church after the organization. 
March 11, 1843, Robert Renwick was received in like manner, and the fol- 
lowing Sabbath "seven children of believing parents were baptized, viz., 
Deacon Eurez, one, Oliver Carey, Jr., one, Robert Renwick, three, and J. 
Colton, two." The first pastor. Rev. Mr. Twitchell, closed his labors in Feb- 
ruary, 1846, and was succeeded in 1849 by Rev. Daniel Russell, who re- 
mained till Feb. 4, 1855. In 1853 the church edifice, the first in town, was 
erected and dedicated free from debt. The pastors since Mr. Russell have 
been: Rev. G. B. Cleveland, 1855-6; Rev. J. Wynkoop, 1859-60; Rev. J. C. 
Richardson, 1861-65; Rev. Wm. P. Jackson, 1865-71; Rev. George B. Nut- 
ting, 1875-76-; Rev. W. J. Ballard, 1876-78. In 1879 there were only 11 mem- 
bers and -the house now appears as though seldom used. 

The Caneadea M. E. Church. — Owing to lack of early records the memory 
of the older inhabitants has been consulted to supply items of the history of 
this church. The consensus of opinion is that the church edifice was erected 
about 1854. The first frame was blown down. Another and a better one 
soon succeeded it. Before this meetings had been held in private dwellings 
and the schoolhouse, and it was because it was to be a union church, where 
people of any religious belief might worship, that sufficient funds were 



668 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

secured to build it. The deed of the ground upon which it is built bears 
date Nov. 14, 1863. The consideration was $30, the amount of land .82 acre, 
and the title came from Timothy Rice and wife. In time the Methodists be- 
came the proprietors of all the interests rejDresented, and it has for a long 
time been classed as a " Methodist " church, and made a " station " on the 
Belfast charge until some three years since. It is now supplied by the pas- 
tor of the Rushford church. Since, and including 1874, the pastors have 
been: Revs. E. J. Cook. 1874-1875; J. F. Brown, 1876-1877; J. A. Smith, 
1878-1879; M. D. Jackson. 1880; T. E. Clayton, 1881-1883; O. N* Leggett, 
1884-1885; C. S. Daley, 1886-1887; G. H. Hancock, 1888-1890; W. D. Allen, 
1891-1892; T. W. Chandler, 1893-1894; Mr. Manning, 1895. 

Tlie German Church. — The German colony organized a Methodist Episco- 
pal church of 30 members in 1853, with Rev. P. W. Denger as pastor, and in 
1857, through their own efforts, and by help of generous contributions from 
Gen. Micah Brooks and his son. Col. L. H. Brooks, a handsome little coun- 
try church was erected at a cost of $1,200, which was dedicated in 1858. In 
the absence of stated ministry, Mr. Henry Achilles supplied the pulpit and 
conducted the Sabbath school. This custom was continued for years. Mr. 
Achilles was succeeded by Mr. Henry Johannes, who, for the past 19 years, 
in the absence of a regularly ordained preacher, conducts the services. 
Col. L. H. Brooks in the earlier days of this church entertained their visit- 
ing ministers, the members in their rude cabins not having the conveniences. 

The Wesleyan Methodist Church at Houghton was organized in June, 1852, 
with Rev. John Watson, pastor. Meetings were held quite regularly in the 
schoolhouse for over twenty years. In 1876 a church edifice was built at a 
cost of about $2,000. The first trustees, presumably those under whose ad- 
ministration the building was erected, were W. J. Houghton, J. B. Parker 
and Truman Palmer. Pastors: Revs. Geo. W. Cooper, S. Brundage, D. W. 
Ball, J. E. Tiffany, B. S. Loughlin, G. W. Sibley, E. W. Bruce, and Rev. Rob- 
ert Jeffrey, the present incumbent. The membership is about 50. A Sun- 
day school of 50 members has Prof. J. S. Luckey as superintendent. 

Houghton Seminary. — In October, 1882, Rev. D. S. Kinney, one of the 
leading preachers of the Wesleyan Methodists, and the manager of their 
publishing association at Syracuse, said to Willard J. Houghton, " We as a 
denomination very much need a school in Western New York." Thoroughly 
imbued with the truth of the statement, and determined to be first in the 
field, Mr. Houghton and others set actively at work, and by February, 1883, 
had so far succeeded in obtaining subscriptions in aid of the enterprise as to 
warrant the presentation of a petition for incorporation. In April articles 
of incorporation were obtained. The charter members were Rev. W. J. 
Houghton, Rev. D. W. Ball, Rev. H. F. Bruce, Rev. Reuben P. Dutcher, 
Rev. John C. Benton, Rev. Geo. W. Sibley, Rev. F. M. Moshier, Rev. Benj. 
S. Loughlin, W. Dougherty, B. A. Hammond, Edward R. Weaver, and Alonzo 
Thayer. Mr. and Mrs. H. J. Tucker donated the grounds covering 11 acres, 
and work was commenced before April, 1883, had passed. The building was 



Caneadea. 669 

erected, partially finished, and the school opened in the fall of 1884. Rev. 
W. H. Kenedy, the first principal, remained two years and was succeeded by 
Rev. A. R. Dodd, for six years. Rev. E. W. Bruce then was principal for 
one year. Since Jan. 1, 1894, James T. Luckey has been the principal. Rev. 
W. J. Houghton was the sole agent for six years. In 1890 he coUected the 
necessary funds, and founded the theological department, calling it the 
" Bible Training Class." Rev. B. S.Loughlin, the pastor of the Houghton 
church, was the first teacher in this department; Rev. J. L. Benton taught 
for three years, and now Rev. B. S. Loughlin is again at the head. Students 
attend the school from states east and west, and quite a number of gradu- 
ates from the Bible Training Class are now actively engaged in iDreaching in 
different states. 

Caneadea Lodge, No. 357, F. & A. 31., was instituted June 16, 1855, with 
14 charter members. Among them were James McCray, W. M.; Simon 
Wilson, S. W.; Levi H. West, J. W.; Alanson Burr, Charles Ingham, and 
Leonard P. Walker. George P. Ketchum was the first to be initiated. Down 
to 1879, 124 masons had been made by this lodge. Feb. 13, 1878, the build- 
ing containing the lodge room was burned without an insurance, and its 
charter, furniture and jewels were lost. Since then communications have 
been held in a hall over a store in Caneadea village. The masters have been: 
James McCray, Levi H. West, Henry Burleson, John Ingersoll, B. F. Big- 
elow, John H. Saunders. Columbus Balcom, Sampson Friendly, Joseph T. 
RusseU, Geo. L. Estabrook, Alpheus Estabrook, Jr., Fred L. Davis, N. B. 
Sherman, Fred D. Franklin, C. N. Bigelow, J. L. Jackson, Almon H. Lyman, 
A. L. Franklin. Present officers: A. O. Arnold, W. M; B. D. Wliite, S. W.; 
M. Z. Butler, J. W.; William Sherman, Treas., C. N. Balcom, Sec; A. L. 
Franklin, S. D.; Charles W. Vosburgh, J. D.; F. J. Lewis, S. M. C; F. L. 
Davis, J. M.C.; F. R. Westbrook, Tiler. The membership is now 37 and 
the lodge is in a good thrifty condition. 

Equitable Aid Union.— The charter of the Caneadea Lodge bears date 
Feb. 17, 1890. Its first officers were: E. T. Hendry, chancellor; William 
Sherman, advocate; A. J. Stewart, pres.; P. D. Frankhn, vice pres.; Riley 
Steuben, auxilliary; B. J. Bacon, treas. ; A. H. Lyman, sec.;B. D. White, 
accountant; W. H. Tucker, chap.; O. D. Hamer, warden; Bruce Burr, senti- 
nel; Francis Burgess, watchman. The present officers are: Riley Steuben, 
chancellor; Bruce Burr, advocate; A. J. Stewart, pres.; P. D. Frankhn, vice 
president; B. D. White, secretary; E. T. Hendry, accountant and treasurer; 
W. H. Tucker, chaplain; O. D. Hamer, warden. Meetings are held semi- 
monthly in Masonic Hall. The membership is 24. It has had one death, 
that of Mrs. E. T. Hendry. 



670 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Of Caneadea's Citizens.— Milo J. Allen is the son of Milo Allen, born in York, Living- 
ston county, in 1806, whose father came from Washington county, N. Y. Milo came to Cen- 
treville in 1827 where he married Betsey, daughter of William King; children. Electa (Mrs. 
Oscar Hanks), Amasa, Samuel, Martin, Clarilla (Mrs. Orlando Locke), Cornelia (Mrs. Sheldon 
Trail), Earl A. and Milo J., who was born m Centreville in 1850, and was raised a farmer, re- 
ceiving a common school education and two terms in Belfast Academy. In 1869 Mr. Allen 
moved to Caneadea where his wife died in 1878, and he 1881. Milo J. married in 1878 Mary 
L. Granger, who died in 1881. His second wife was Miss Anis, daughter of Charles R. Parker 
of Caneadea. They have one child, Ethel. Mr. Allen was collector of the town of Caneadea 
in 1889, '90, '91. 

Bethuel J. Bacon, owner of the noted Caneadea resort, Moss Lake, is the son of Rev. Jesse 
Bacon, a Methodist preacher, born in 1796 in Washington county, N. Y., who settled in Sus- 
quehanna county. Pa., where he married Catharine Harris. Their children were Beziza, Bezera, 
a soldier in the 105th N. Y. Dragoons under Gen. Sheridan, Benona, Beriah C, a soldier three 
years, Burla B., a soldier in the 76th Regt. N. Y., who died in the army, Bethuel J., Belinda B., 
Belina S., Berena C. and Bethia E. Jesse Bacon bought the farm now the home of Bethuel J., 
containing 127 acres and settled here in 1857. He died in 1872, Mrs. Bacon in 1877. Bethuel 
J. Bacon was born in Burns. He married, July 4, 1872, Marilla, daughter of Riley and Susan 
(Jewell) Matison ; children, Harrison, born in 1876, Luella and Minnie (dec). Moss Lake, 
known also as Bullhead pond, noted for its quantities of this species of fish, is surrounded and 
partly covered by a dense growth of moss that has been shipped for packing fruit trees by the 
boat load and car load. It covers about 75 acres and has no inlet or outlet. In 1882 Mr. 
Bacon and some of his neighbors heard loud splashing sounds for many nights, the water being 
agitated by some cause that could not be understood. Dim objects were claimed to be seen 
sporting in the water. The illustrated papers of the time contained flaming accounts of the 
strange occurrence at little Moss Lake. 

Columbus Balcom is the son of Dan Balcom who was born in Connecticut, and at the age 
of 22 came to Otsego county and thence to West Bloomfield, Ontario Co., N. Y., where he 
married Clarissa, daughter or Enos French, an early settler from Massachusetts. Dan and his 
wife settled at Pearl Creek, N. Y. He was the first merchant there, and had an ashery, and a 
distillery. About 1829 he came to Rushford settling on the Enos Gary farm. In 1832 he 
bought 106 acres of lot No. 12, in Caneadea, where his son Fayette still lives, and died there 
in 1876, 99 years old. His children were, William, Joseph, Columbus, Fayette and Adeline — 
all alive but Joseph who died from effects of soldier life in the Mexican War. Columbus was 
born at Pearl Creek, Sept. 30, 1822. When 21 years old he worked at lumbermg on the Alle- 
gany river. In 1847 he bought at East Rushford a tannery buildmg of Samuel Capen and put 
in the first sash, door and blind factory there. He then bought of Oramel Griffin a sawmill on 
Rush creek which was burned about 1854. Next he bought of Leonard P. Walker a mill prop- 
erty in the Gorge, rebuilt tha mill and ran it till the flood of 1864 carried it away. He enlisted 
the same year in Co. B, 12th N. Y. Cavalry and was captured at battle of Kinston March 11, 
1865, and was confined 40 days in Libby prison. He married in 1847 Mary D. Smith who died 
in 1877. His second marriage was in 1880, to Cora B. Cunningham. Children, Lena M. born 
Feb. I, 1 881, and Guy C. born Nov. 14, 1882. After the war he bought ofU. G. Bennett a saw- 
mill at East Rushford, ran it ten years, then built and ran a planing mill in Caneadea village 
four years, since then a farmer. 

Charles J. Beardsley comes of New England blood. His great-grandfather, Charles Beards- 
ley, was a Massachusetts man, his grandfather. Judge Charles Beardsley, was of St. Lawrence 
county, whence his father, Charles Beardsley, came in 1865, to Belfast, removing soon after to 
Allen, where he married Mrs. Arilla (Townsend) Carpenter. Charles J., their only cnild, was 
born Sept. 9, 1867 After several years' study at Genesee Valley Seminary at Belfast, he went 
to Binghamton and was graduated from Lowell's Business College. In 1885 he enlisted in the 
3d U. S. Cavalry and passed a year at Jefferson barracks, Missouri, as clerk in the adjutant 
general's office. The next year he procured a discharge and for eight years was a commercial 
traveler in the south and west, buying a 200 acre farm in Louisiana which he still owns. In 
1894 he bought for $4,000 90 acres of land in Caneadea and is now a farmer. Sept. 11, 1895, 
he married Bertha Emery. Mr. Beardsley has been a life-long lover and writer of poetry. His 
verses have appeared in many periodicals, the Chicago I titer Ocean and the Youth's Com- 
panioii among others. 

Henry Brand, son of Henry Brand, was born in Germany and came with his father in 1850 
to Wellsville where his father died in 1857. Mr. Brand had two sons, Henry and Charles. 
Henry enlisted in ist N. Y. Dragoons and fought in the army of the Potomac under Sheridan 
in most of the large engagements, the battles of the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor and 
in the Shenandoah Valley, Winchester, Cedar Creek, Fisher's Hill to Lee's surrender at Appo- 



Caneadea. -- 671 



mattox of which he was a soldier witness. He gets a pension. He bought in 1867 the old nur- 
sery farm belonging in early days to Gen. Micah Brooks, who gave each farmer a fruit tree for 
each acre they bought of him. Mr. Brand now owns 120 acres. He married in 1868, Mary 
Swartz of Grove. Children, Charles, Willie and Clayton, who is a student at the Belfast 
seminary. 

Alva C. and Andrew Jackson Burr, are the only surviving children of Major Alanson Burr, 
the pioneer, and founder, m rSio, of Burrville. His father, Augustus, born in Connecticut in 
1786, was the son of one of three brothers, merchants in Tweed, Scotland, who were seized 
while in London buying goods and forced into the British army during the Revolutionary War. 
They deserted to the American army in the first battle here, and after the war settled as mer- 
chants, one in Connecticut, one in Vermont, and one in Rhode Island. At the age of 15, Alan- 
son came to Bainbridge, Chenango Co., N. Y., with two packs of goods on his back as a ped- 
dler, coming as far as Genesee county. He married Mary Rush in Bainbridge, after whose 
death in 1810, he married Susie, his first wife's sister and came with two heifers yoked as oxen 
to Caneadea. He bought 375 acres of land at 75 cents per acre and settled Burrville, where he 
died in 1863 universally mourned. His children were : Joseph B., Matilda (Mrs. James A. Jack- 
son), Eliza (Mrs. Joseph Morse), Allen L , colonel in the last war. Andrew J., and Alva C, who 
was born at Burrville in 1827. At the age of 16 he left home and traveled till his marriage in 
1849 to Harriet P. Dunham. The next five years he and his brother Allen L., were contractors 
on the Genesee Valley canal, over which they built 119 bridges between Fillmore and Olean, 
He then became landlord of the tavern his father had opened in 18 16— long known as Burr's 
exchange — kept in the familv 60 years. In 1878 he located at Yorkshire, Cattaraugus Co., built 
and ran a large cider manufactory till 1894. His children are : Lewellen, married Angle Lincoln, 
one child Maud, who is now Mrs. Edwin Hawk ; Frank P. and James D. The sons all live in 
Buffalo, and are in the wine trade, and proprietors and originators of the new light drink " cato." 
Mrs. A. C. Burr died in 1884. 

Daniel W. Chamberlain is grandson of David Chamberlain, son of Simon, who lived in 
Massachusetts. David married Mary Kinney, and came with his brothers Benjamin, Calvin, and 
Elisha to Angelica in 1803. The children of David and Mary were : Hepsibeth, Moses Van- 
Campen, Elizabeth, Elisha, Prudence, Mary, David, Simon, Lucy and Robert H. Judge Ben- 
jamin, and General Calvin T. Chamberlain, were sons of Benjamin. Moses VanCampen Cham- 
berlain was born March 31, 1804, the first white child born in Angelica. He grew up a farmer^ 
and married Cynthia Frost from Massachusetts. Children, James F., Martha (Mrs. Alonzo 
Royce), David, Hepsibeth (Mrs. Newell Clark), Moses H., Daniel W., Benjamin F.,Joseph S., Ed- 
win S. and Emily L. (Mrs. William Foster). Mr. Chamberlain settled in Allen, from whence he 
went in 1849 to Belfast where he was a farmer, served as justice of the peace, and died in 1867 
and Mrs. Chamberlain in 1875. Daniel W. was born in Allen Sept. 19, 1845. He was raised a 
farmer, and married in 1872, Maria, daughter of John M. Emerson of Attica, from Hempstead, 
N. H. Children : Merton E., RoUo F., Roy W., John E. and Hugh D. In 1882 they bought 
their present farm of 86 acres on the east side of Genesee river on which Indian relics are still 
frequently found. An ancient mound in a cultivated field was opened in 1895 and a human skel- 
eton very much decayed was found with which had been buried over thirty flint arrow heads. 

William Curran was the son of Thomas and Mary (Wall) Curran of Ireland, whose children 
were Thomas, James, Patrick, John, Michael, William and Mary. William was born in 1838, 
and in 1857 started for America on the brig New World. Three Fridays running she sprang a 
serious leak. The passengers had to help the crew, all pumping for dear life, and were thank- 
ful when their voyage of 40 days was ended. William had but 50 cents in money left when he 
arrived in Caneadea, but he had a " ton " of grit. His present farm of 160 acres he bought in 
a wild state and chopped and cleared it, making a home for his heroic young partner, Mary 
Flavin, whom he married in 1856. Their children were : Thomas. Mary (Mrs. Robert Laffan, 
children, John, and Robbie), John, married Belle Stevens, Kate (Mrs. Patrick Abernethy, one 
child. May), Ellen and James. Mr. Curran's second wife was Mrs. Mary (Britt) Hanley, married 
in 1876. Children: Will, Peter, Alfred, Margaret, Arthur, Satie and Gertrude. 

Fred L. Davis, son of Benjamin M. and Rosette (Rice) Davis, was born in 1848. His father, 
son of Benjamin W. Davis from Fulton Co., N. Y., was a farmer, and in war times ran spars 
and timber by canal to New York. One lot of 52, 80 feet long was sold there for near $10,000. 
Fred attended school at Rushford then drove on the tow path for his father. He was then a 
farmer and livery man till he bought Swan's drugstore in 1873, selling it in 1880 to H. B. Max- 
son. In 1 88 1 he and N. B. Sherman opened the first bottling works here. In 1889 they traded 
the business to Charles Balcom for his drug store to which they added groceries and continued 
till 1892, when Mr. Davis bought Mr. Sherman's interest, selling the entire business in 1895 back 
to Mr. Sherman. Mr. Davis is again a farmer and livery man. He has always been a dealer 
in horses, owning at one time the famous " Sorrel Billy," when his record of 2.24X was fast 



672 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Mr. Davis, always a Republican, was town clerk of Caneadea in 1876 and 1895, and supervisor 
in 1878 and 79. He married Jennie Hewitt, children, Sadie R, Flora, and Nellie B. A part of his 
present farm of 125 acres was settled by the pioneer James Rice, whose son Timothy's daughter, 
Rosette Rice, married Benjamin M. Davis. Their two children were Ellery and Fred L. 

William J. Fox is the son of Owen Flynn who was born in Ireland and came to Mt. Morris 
where he married Rosanna Gormly. They had 2 children, Anna and William J. Mr. Flynn 
was killed by an accident on the canal at Brushville, near Dansville. Mrs. Flynn married for 
her second husband Peter Fox by whom she had i child, Francis J. Mr. Fox brought his 
family to Oramel in 1854. He enlisted in the 27th N. Y. for 2 years, and in 1864 re-enlisted, 
served in ist N. Y. Dragoons and was killed in battle of The Wilderness. William J. was 
born Oct. 3, 1846, in Mt. Morris. He has had large experience in the lumber trade and in the 
oil business, drilling many wells ; among others i in New Hudson 1,203 ^^^t deep, and 10 in 
Richburg. He owns 410 acres of land at Oramel, and has always been a large farmer, breeder 
of horses, and dealer in live stock. He was elected commissioner of highways in 1885, and by 
re-elections served 5 terms, during which he built 5 iron bridges. He is still a jobber in stone 
and earth work, his last job was the abutments of the steel bridge at Oramel, in 1895, costing 
$3,400. Mr. Fox married Mina, daughter of George Carpenter of Caneadea. 

Phil D. Franklin, proprietor of the Red gristmill on Caneadea Creek, is the son of Arad 
H. Franklin who was born in Bainbridge, Chenango Co., in 1798, where he married in 1823, 
Laura, sister of Hon. John M.Hammond. They came to Caneadea in 1824, and in 1830 bought 
104 acres of land, still the homestead of Phil D. Their children were : Lafayette, Mayett 
(Mrs. Jerome Mead), Jerome B., Jonathan H., Prudence M. (Mrs. M. D. Freeborn), Ashley L., 
Phil D. and Frederick D. Mr. Franklin dealt in lumber, and, with his son-in-law, Jerome 
Mead, built and ran 2 canal boats, the " A. H. Franklin " and the " Mayett Mead." He was 
highway commissioner, justice of the peace 8 years. He died in 1884. Phil D. was born Dec. 
7, 1847, and went to Omaha in 1867 where he was a railroad man. In 1874 he returned, and 
with his brother built, in the eighties, the brick drug store in Caneadea village which they ran 3 
years. Then he became a jobber, building, with W. J. Fox, the abutments of the lattice bridge 
near the Genesee river. In 1888 he bought the Red gristmill built by John Smith in 1839 with 
a sawmill adjoining, both of which he still conducts. He married, in 1876, Eva C. Ogden. 
Their children are : Clifford B., Charles A. B., Bessie, Lenora and Eva M. 

Edwin T. Hendry is the son of Thomas E. Hendry who was born in Delaware Co., N. Y,, 
in 1808, the son of John and Bethia (Baker) Hendry. William the ancestor came from Ireland. 
In 1813 John took his family to Loraine county, Ohio, where he died in 1828, when the family 
returned to this state and settled in Eden, Erie Co. Thomas E. married Mary Joslin, whose 
mother, a Jennings, was an heir to the famous Jennings estate that still remains in England, 
because one or two families failed to preserve their family records. The children of Thomas 
E. and Mary were : John, Serena (Mrs. Orrin D. Green, children, Charles T., Flora C. and 
Chester A.), Ruth A. (Mrs. John Barber), William J. and Edwin T. Thomas E. was a clothier 
by trade, after his marriage a farmer and a great reader. He came to Caneadea in 1852 and 
died here in 1887. His son Edwin T. was born in Eden, Aug. 2, 1850. In 1869 he began 
making cheese and followed it 10 years. In 1878 he married Isabel Holton of Scio. Children : 
Harold, Earnest, and Gale. Mrs. Hendry died in 1893. 

George P. Leet is son of Edwin Leet, whose father Abner Leet was born in Connecticut 
and settled in Fenner, Madison Co., N. Y., where he married Polly Ransom. Children : Min- 
erva, Thomas R., Abner B., Julia A. (Mrs. Parley Short, the only child now alive), Uriah, 
Franklin, Edwin, Russell and Harriet. Abner Leet brought his family to Hume in 1833, and 
worked George Minard's farm. In 1839 he built and kept for some years the noted old Red 
Tavern in Fillmore. Edwin Leet was born in 1820, and married in 1848 Mary A., daughter 
of the famous hunter George Parker of Hume. The same year he and his brother Thomas R. 
bought the farm of 175 acres, now the home of his sons Ralph and George P., and here he died 
in 1893. George P. was born on the old homestead in 1852, attended the common schools and 
Rushtord Academy, and has always be'en a farmer. He married in 1873 Mattie, daughter of 
H. K. Stebbins of Rushford. Their children are Bernice and Dora. His farm has always been 
rich in Indian relics. W^hile preparing to build his house in 1878 a row of six Indian graves 
were unearthed in which were found brass kettles, arrow heads, and trinkets. Mr. Leet was 
assessor in 1883, justice of the peace 1887 to 1895, and postmaster at Houghton from 1888 to 

1893. 

Erly H. Madison, M. D., son of Harrison and Betsey M. Madison, was born in New Hud- 
son Oct. 29, 1869. He attended school at Houghton Seminary 2 years, read medicine and was 
graduated from Buffalo Medical University in 1891, and has since practiced his profession at 
Oramel. He married in 1887 Mina, daughter of William A. Davis from Cayuga Co., N. Y. 
They have one child Harrison W. The Davis family is of Welch origin with five generations 



Caneadea. 673 

bearing the name of William Davis. The American ancestor, grandfather to William A., was a 
soldier in the War of 1812, as was also Brewster Madison, the father of Harrison, who was 
born in Groton, N. Y., and married Maria Emery, whose father was a blacksmith in the village 
of Hume in 1832, and moved his business to Belfast in 1S34. Mrs. Madison has two relics 
preserved by the Davis family of rare historic interest ; a powder horn of Indian make covered 
with excellent carvings and the name " Capt. Isaac Woods 1777." It holds two pounds of 
powder, or one quart of whiskey, for which purpose the Indians also used it. The other relic 
is a German clock over a century old still a good time keeper. 

David A. Mountain is son of John Mountain who came in 1840 and settled on the Gen. 
Micah Brooks tract in Caneadea. He married Anastatia, daughter of John Bowers. They had 
four sons : Thomas, John L., William and David A., who was born in Caneadea, Oct. 22, 1844. 
Their father, who was born in 1804, was killed in 1845 by a fall on the ice. At the age of 17 
David A. went to the oil regions at and near Titusville, Pa., returning in 1866 with sufficient 
savings from his wages to help his mother clear the old homestead from debt. In 1868 Mrs. 
Mountain sold the old homestead and bought the farm of 145 acres where David A. now re- 
sides. Thomas and William died before they reached manhood, and after their mother's death 
David A. bought out John D's. interest in the farm and built new buildings in modern style. 
She died Jan. 14, 1878. He married in 1870, Catharine, daughter of Captain William Rock of 
Rockville town of Belfast. Their children have been : Anastasia, Rose and Mary, twins, Wil- 
liam H., David J., Stephen V., Agnes and Elizabeth. In 1890 Mr. Mountain moved his family 
to Geneseo, where Anastasia, now a teacher at Belfast, and Rose and Mary, now teachers at 
Tonawanda, were graduated from the State Normal School in 1892. William H. is now in the 
Buffalo Medical College. Mr. Mountain was one of the assessors of Caneadea from 1878 to 
1884. John D. Mountain bought the old J. McCray farm in this town, where he still lives with 
his wife and one son Thomas. 

Dan Nicholson, son of Abel S. and Adeline (Turner) Nicholson, is in the ninth generation 
of descent from Anneke Jans, the original owner of the now multi-million Trinity church prop- 
erty in New York City. Her second husband was Domine Everardus Bogardus. Their son 
William had a daughter, Anette, who married Jacobus Brower. Magdalena Brower married 
William Drake, whose daughter, Hannah Drake, married Jonathan Washburn and their daughter, 
Mary Washburn, married in 1798 at Middletown, N. Y., Nicholas Nicholson, whose children 
were Edward, Sarah, Elizabeth, James H., Hannah, Abel S. Mr. Nicholson brought his family 
to Caneadea in 1827. He built about 1835 the house Columbus Balcom owns and kept tavern 
there. Abel S. Nicholson and his brother, James H., built and ran a sawmill. Abel S. con- 
ducted a grocery store in which he kept the postoffice. He was appointed postmaster Sept. 14, 
1845, by Postmaster General Cave Johnson under John Tyler. His children were Edward, 
Robert, Dan and Mariette. Dan was born in 1854, and has always been a farmer. He married 
in 1887, Catharine, daughter of Jacob C. Klickee of Clarence, Erie county. They have two 
children, Eva C. and Clarence R. 

Charles R. Parker is the son of Richard, whose father John Parker lived in Massachusetts, 
and was a tanner and currier. Richard was born there in 1804, and married Maria Young, 
Children, George E., Lucy, Lydia, Betsey A., Hiram H.. William, Jane, Charles R., Elizabeth 
and Horace H. Richard brought his family to Caneadea in 1835. He and his cousin George 
were noted hunters, going winters to Pennsylvania and shooting deer till their sleighs were 
loaded with choice venison which they sold in the east, driving as far as Boston, and one winter 
making two trips. Richard was a successful farmer, and died in Caneadea at the age of 85. 
Charles R. was born in Caneadea in 1844. He passed 8 years in the oil country, and with his 
brother George, was a merchant at Oramel in 1872-3. He married in 1866 Mary Mcintosh. 
Children, Earl, married Maud Bates, Anis (Mrs. Milo J. Allen, one child Ethel), George, mar- 
ried Hattie S. Carpenter, Florence (Mrs. A. R. Brine), Clair, Ruth, Grover C. and Harrison. 
Mr. Parker bought his present farm of 65 acres in 1885. He has paid special attention to horses, 
owning for a time the noted runners, " Caligula," and " Long Branch," and now owning sev- 
eral thoroughbreds. He is a democrat, and is serving his second term as justice of the peace, 

Charles Reeves, hotel keeper in Oramel, is the son of James Reeves, who was born in On- 
terio county, in 1801, and married Melinda Van Scoy. Children, George, Clarissa, Canar, 
Margaret, Charles, Hannah, Emily, Mary and Delos. James came to Belvidere in 1845, and 
with his sons' help chopped and cleared several hundred acres of land for Mr. Paxton. He died in 
1882. Charles was born in Yates county, and began while yet a boy working on the canal at 
Penn Yan. By hard work and good habits he saved money enough to buy a boat. He pros- 
pered and owned several boats which he ran from the upper Genesee Valley canal to all points 
east. Rates on lumber to Albany were then from $5 to $10 per 1,000 feet. Among his best 
boats were the J. R. Barber, and the J. A. Willover, the latter cost $1,800. They carried from 



674 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

75,000 to 90,000 feet of lumber. After canal times he jobbed a year in the oil country. In 
1883 he bought the hotel he still conducts at Oramel. He married Emily McKee. 

George Reusch, son of Frederick and Margaret (Fritz) Reusch, was born in Wurtemberg, 
Germany, Feb. 28, 1847. Frederick, his father, son of Leonard Reusch, was born in 18 10, 
The children of Frederick and Margaret were : John B., Godfrey, George, Margaret, Dora and 
Mary ; the two youngest have since died. The family came to America in 1852, in ship St. 
Patrick. Mr. Reusch bought the farm of 120 acres his son still owns at $16 per acre and lived 
on it till his death in 1876. George was brought up a farmer. He married Dora, daughter of 
Christopher and Dora (Behrens) Achilles. They have one adopted child, Grace. 

John Ryecraft, son of Joseph, son of John, was born in County Cork, Ireland, in 1833. 
His mother was Frances, daughter of Thomas and Catharine (Laning) Kingston. The chil- 
dren of Joseph and Frances Ryecraft were : John. Catharine, Thomas, Esther and George. 
John came to America in 1855 on the sailing ship Antarctic, which had several cases of cholera, 
and was 38 days coming. John came to Rushford and worked by the month till 1859 when he 
bought the first land of his present farm of 150 acres at $6 per acre. His father and mother 
left Ireland in 1862, coming to Hume where Mr. Ryecraft died in 1880, and his widow 
survives him. In 1857 John married Jane McCarthy of Hume. Children : Frances (Mrs. 
Frank McCall of Rushford), Charles (dec), John (married Cora Wells ; 3 children), George,. 
Thomas, Joseph (married Eva Kendall ; children, John and Fannie) and William. Joseph and 
William live in Denver, Colo, 

Amos R. Smith, son of John and Maria (Wilson) Smith, was born in Kinderhook, N. Y., 
June 5, 1818. John, born in 1791 in Montpelier, Vt., came in 1809 to Kinderbook and was a 
commercial traveler, one of the first. Children : Mary A. (Mrs. Isaac Quackenbush), Amos R., 
John, Henry, Jeanette, Lydia, Edward, James (the last 4 were killed by the explosion of the 
steamer Phoenix on the Hudson river in 1832, Dr. Smith received $8,000 in settlement), Emeline, 
(Mrs. Wesley Smith), William and Ambrose. John Smith came to Caneadea in 1833, and 
bought 300 acres of land on the creek, built a store (now the Jackson house) and traded 3 
years, sold to Henry Runyan and in 1838 built and ran the present red gristmill, and had a saw- 
mill above on same dam. He went to Michigan in 1861, and died there the same year. In 
1832 Amos R. began learning the wagon trade with Webster Wagner, of palace car fame, at 
Palatme Bridge, N. Y. He came in 1836 to Caneadea and built and ran a wagon shop till 
1843. The next 8 years he traveled for Genio C. Scott, the noted fashion delineator of New 
York City. In 1851 he bought 200 acres in Caneadea, and served as coroner in 1859 and i860. 
He then engaged in the pension and bounty business. He married, in 1840, Deborah Smith, 
who died in 1844. His second marriage was in 1846, to his brother John's widow, Mrs. Emily 
A. Smith, daughter of the noted hunter, George Parker. Their children have been : Mary A. 
(Mrs. Lucius N. Brainard, children : Pauline E. (now Mrs. Martin Litchard, one child Donald), 
Ethel L., Hollis M. and Mildred), John C, (married Maria Ives, children : Berdine and Bernice,) 
and Cassius M., married Mary Millard, one child, Courtney C. Mr. Smith died Jan. 7, 1896. 

Christ J. Schmidt, son of Christ and Sophie (Kreuger) Schmidt, was born in Mecklenburg, 
Scheverin, Germany, in 1828. In 1854 Mr. and Mrs. Schmidt and their children, John, Christ J., 
Frederica and Mary came to America and in 1856 settled in Caneadea. Mrs. Schmidt died in 
1 87 1 and Mr. Schmidt in 1878. Christ J. married in 1862 Elizabeth, daughter of Peter Lut2,who came 
from Germany in 1852, and settled in Caneadea, where he died in 1880. Mrs. Lutz died about 
1865. The children of Christ J. and Elizabeth were John, Henry (married Ella McCarthy, one 
child), Christ, Ida (Mrs. Fred Lillie, one child, Earl), Albert, George and Roy. Mr. Schmidt 
bought in 1867 the first 50 acres of his present farm of 170 acres. His son Henry has a farm 
of 227 acres. 

Nathaniel B. Sherman, druggist at Caneadea, was born at Burrville May 4, 1854. His 
father, William, born in 181 8, and his grandfather, Stephen Sherman, came from New York 
City about 1833. William returned to New York where he was a stone cutter and married 
Mary Taylor, from Virginia. Children, Henrietta (Mrs. Rev. James I. Scribner), Elizabeth 
(Mrs. Rev. Walter A. Scribner), William and Nathaniel B. The latter grew up a farmer, and 
became a canal man, owning and running several boats, his first purchase being the " Isabel 
of Burrville," and he stuck to the business till the Genesee Valley canal was abandoned Sept, 
30, 1878. He kept the Jackson House at Caneadea in 1880, and in 1881 became a partner 
with Fred L. Davis in the bottling business and a meat market. In 1889 they opened a 
grocery and drug store. In 1891 Mr. Sherman was elected Sheriff of Allegany county, taking 
the office in 1892, when he sold his store interest to Mr. Davis, and removed to Angelica. At 
the close of his three years' term he returned to Caneadea and bought the old grocery and drug 
business of Mr. Davis in the spring of 1895. In the spring of 1896 he was elected supervisor of 
Caneadea on the Republican ticket. Dec. 16, 1875, Mr. Sherman married in Rochester Mary 



Caneadea. 675 

J. Slewick.who was born in that city of English parents, whose families bore honorable records 
in their native land. 

Charles F. Stebbins is the son of Henry K. Stebbins who was born in Norway, Herkimer 
Co., N. Y., in 1 812, son of John, whose children were. William, John J., Philander W., Charles, 
Henry K. and his twin sister Fannie, Mary and Kate. Henry K. was a merchant in Salisbury, 
Herkimer county, and later a commission dealer in Watertown, N. Y., coming in 1849 to this 
section buying butter and cheese. He married in Salisbury, Rutham S. Ives, and came to 
Rushford in 18 157, a farmer, a merchant, and in 1864, one of the three men who built the pio- 
neer cheese factory. He removed to Caneadea in 1868. and bought the farm of 140 acres his 
son, Charles F., still owns. His chidren were, William D., Mary (Mrs. Robert W. Ford), Har- 
riet A. (Mrs. Henry W. Norton), Martha E. (Mrs. George P. Leet), Henry R., Fred I., Charles 
F. and Lizzie (Mrs. Frank Crowell). H. K. Stebbins died Feb. 14, 1892. Charles F. was 
brought up a farmer, and was educated at the Genesee Valley Seminary, one year at Oberlin. 
Ohio, and at Denison University, Granville, Ohio. He returned in 1877 and has since been a 
farmer on the old homestead. He married in 1886 Eliza A. Stephenson, who died in 1887. His 
second marriage was in 1889 to Isabella C. Brown. They have two children, Isabella B. and 
Charlotte E. 

Henry Clark is son of Lyman, son of David Clark, whose father came from Ireland and 
settled m Connecticut where David was born. He came to Tully, Cortland Co., N. Y., where 
Lyman was born in 1804, about which time David brought his family to Warsaw, and was an 
early settler of Wyoming county. Lyman married a Miss Spoor, children : Henry, born May 20, 
1835, Anna, Isaac W., Cornelius, Catherine, and George. Mr. Clark died in 1880. Henry has 
always been a farmer. He married in 1857, Candace, daughter of Stephen Rice who came to 
Caneadea in 1833, son of Eber Rice of Rutland, Vt. After residing in Wyoming and Gen- 
esee counties, part of the time in Leroy, Henry came in 1869 to Caneadea and bought his pres- 
ent farm on lot 69, where pioneer Walter Alworth settled in 1834. It has had but two owners. 
Mr. and Mrs. Clark have one child, George, born in 1867, who is a farmer with his father on the 
old homestead now containing 184 acres. They are up-to-date farmers, and among the very 
few who built a silo in 1895. Mr. Clark is Republican. He served as assessor from 1882 to 
1888. George married Carrie d'Autremont. They have one child, Henry L. They are both 
old school teachers and still students and readers. 

James J. Thomas, proprietor of the public hall at Caneadea, son of Henry M., and grand- 
son of George Thomas, was born in 1855, in Adams Co., Pa., his home being but eight miles 
from Gettysburg. During that historic battle Mr. Thomas says the roar of artillery was con- 
stant, but the children had a long tin horn which with the big end on the ground and the ear at 
the small end conveyed a peculiar sound, quite like the buzzing of a disturbed swarm of bees. 
He also describes the singular action of horses who were excited by the constant trembling of 
the ground, and would change from one foot to the other, refusing to keep quiet. His father 
was a soldier in that battle, and served to the close of the war but died on his way home. He 
married Margaret Orner ; children, James J., born in 1855, John C, William H., and Maggie M. 
(Mrs. John Haller). James J. learned wagon making and then the builder's trade. In 1882 he 
went to Kansas and then to the Pacific coast where he had charge of building a life saving 
station that took two years. In 1892 he came to Caneadea and married Mrs. Prin B. (West- 
brook) Ingersoll. Mr. Thomas has built a commodious public hall in Caneadea, and a grand 
stand at the race track, both of which he owns and runs. 

Harvey Tucker is the grandson of Joshua Tucker, whose parents were Quakers and lived 
in Rhode Island. Joshua settled in Greenwich, N. Y., where he married Rebecca Kenyon. 
Children were : Jonathan, Joshua C, Gardner, Jabez, Abathy and Elizabeth. Joshua C, born 
in 1804, married Elizabeth S. Wright. Their children were: John W., Henry, Harvey and 
Alphonzo. Harvey the only survivor. Mr. Tucker brought his family to West Almond in 
1835. In 1840 he moved to Angelica where he was county superintendent of the poor in 1854, 
1855 and 1856. He was a veteran school teacher of 25 terms, teaching his last term when he 
was 60 years old. He died in 1876. Harvey Tucker was born Dec. 25, 1835. in West Almond. 
He was educated in the Angelica schools, attending the academy when Prof. Center was princi- 
pal and D. P. Richardson assistant. He was brought up a farmer and in 1858 married Mary 
A., daughter of David Carey of Hume. Charles J., their eldest child, was graduated from the 
New York Medical University in 1883, and is now practicing his profession in Topeka, Kan. 
He has 2 children Clair M. and Bessie C. John E., second son, died when 4 years old, and 
Nana S. the youngest child died in 1887 at the age of 18 while at school in Batavia. Mr. 
Tucker bought in 1858 the first 70 acres of his present farm of 204 acres, which originally 
belonged to the noted Indian, Copperhead, and included the Shongo island in the river. He 
raised in 1895 50 tons of sweet corn from n acres, and 1,100 bushels corn from 16 acres. He 



676 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

has been justice of the peace for i6 years. Mr. and Mrs. Tucker gave Houghton Seminary 1 1 
acres of land and $200 in labor and material. 

Abram L. Vosburgh, merchant at Oramel, is the son of Barnabas and Lydia (Harris) Vos- 
burgh, of Vermont, where Barnabas, whose father came from Germany, was born in 1789. 
Their children were : Isaac, Jane, Ann, George, Armenius, Lucy, William, Clarissa, Andrew J„ 
Thomas L., Abram L. and Betsey. Abram L. was born in Danby, Tompkins Co., in 1834. 
After running lumber on the Chemung river he came in 1852 to Belmont and made shingles 
there. In 1861 he located near Allentown, Pa., where he ran two shingle machines. In 1881 he 
came to Oramel and bought the Burleson farm of 140 acres which he still owns. In 1888 he 
opened a store in the Granger block which he moved to his present location in the old Arcade 
building the same year, buying it in 1891. This block of 4 stores cost in canal times m the 
fifties $4,500. Mr. Vosburgh married in 1855, Emily, daughter of N. B. Welch, of Scio ; children, 
Francis B., Florence A. (Mrs. Charles Bid well, two children, Claude and Ethel), Myrtie (Mrs. 
Frank H. Lawton), and Charles W. married Clarie Petty, two children, Robert and Mildred. 
Mr. Vosburgh has been an active member in the M. E. Church acting as Sabbath school super- 
intendent 25 years. Politically a Republican, he has been justice of the peace in Caneadea five 
years, and has managed cases in justice court, and transacted legal business for others since i860. 

John H. Waggoner, postmaster at Oramel, was born at Oramel Sept. 18, 1871. His father 
Charles W. Waggoner, was born in 1842, in Rensselaer county, N. Y., son of John H. and 
Eleanor (Sears) Waggoner, whose children were, Franc's, Charles W., Martin, Clark and George. 
Charles W. enlisted in 1861, in Co. E, 93d N. Y., and served in the Army of the Potomac in 32 
engagements, among which were Cold Harbor, Antietam, Wilderness and Gettysburg. He was 
discharged Oct. 10, i864, returned to Oramel and married Jan. 8, 1865, Lucinda Dake. Chil- 
dren, John H., Charles and Miles. Mr. Waggoner's health was ruined in the army and he re- 
ceives a pension. John H. was appointed postmaster Nov. 23. 1895, succeeding William E. 
Hammond, who was appointed in April, 1862, by Montgomery Blair, and held the office till his 
death Sept. 20, 1895. 

James L. Jackson, merchant at Caneadea, son of Col. James A. Jackson, was born at 
Burrville Oct. 6, 1843. James Allen Jackson, whose father's name was James Andrew, was 
born in Herkimer county, in 1806, and settled in Onondaga county, where he was ensign in the 
233d Regt. of Infantry. He came to Burrville in 1831 and married Matilda, daughter of Major 
Alanson Burr. Children, Marion, James L., Andrew F., Ida M. (Mrs. Alpheus Estabrook, 
children, Minnie M. and Volney J.), and her twin brother Melvin, who died young. He was 
lieutenant colonel in the 230th Regt. state infantry which he resigned in 1841. He vi^as a 
farmer and hotel keeper at Burrville, came to Caneadea village in 1866 and bought the Minard 
House which has since been known as the Jackson House. His wife died in 1852, and he 
married in 1854, Achsah, daughter of George W. and Betsey (Swift) Dunham of Rushford. Her 
brothers and sisters were, Lucia (Mrs. A. J. Burr), Harriet (Mrs. Alva C. Burr), George W., 
killed in battle of Cold Harbor, Milan A. and Lyman. Col. J. A. Jackson died in 1888, and 
Mrs. Jackson is proprietor of the Jackson House. He held all town offices except justice of 
the peace, was canal collector two years, and at one time carried the mail from Burrville to 
Angelica, Franklinville and Pike. James Leroy Jackson graduated in 1865 from Eastman's 
Commercial College at Poughkeepsie and was clerk and book keeper in various places till he 
bought Jo. Holden's store in 1874. He still is a merchant, was supervisor in 1884-5, and post- 
master 1885 to 1889. He married in 1874, Adalaide, daughter of Abijah Sanborn. Children, 
Allan L., Luella L. (Mrs. Fred R. Leet) and George B. 

Theodore C. and Joseph H. Wingert are the sons of Henry G., whose father, Henry Win- 
gert, was born in Germany, and settled in Jefferson county, Pa., where Henry G. was born in 
1844. He married Paulina Walker. Children, Theodore C. born in 1867, Jefferson G., a 
lawyer in Pennsylvania, Perry L. and Joseph H. born in 1873, Mrs. Wingert died in 1873. Mr. 
Wingert re-married, and is now a merchant, and the owner of a gristmill and several farms in 
Marchand, Indiana Co., Pa. Theodore C. was raised a farmer and lumberman. In 1890 he 
^ent to the far west, spending a summer near Portland, Oregon. Returning home he came 
with his brother Joseph H. to Caneadea where they bought in 1894 their present farm of 105 
acres on which they raised in 1895, $136 worth of sweet corn from four acres, and 1,900 bushels 
of potatoes from eight acres, selling 1,100 bushels at 18 cents per bushel, and the rest at 10 
cents per bushel. Theodore C. Wingert married in 1894, Ida, daughter of Jacob Bartholo- 
mew of Marchand, Pa. They have one child, Joseph L. 



Belfast. 677 



BELFAST.* 

BY JOHN S. MINARD. 

CHAPTER LVIII. 

BELFAST, as it was originally formed March 24, 1874, was called Orrins- 
burgli, and was that part of Caneadea included in township 4, range 1, 
of the Holland Purchase. This town had a length north and south of six 
miles, but lacked the width of 2 lots, or 1^ miles of the regulation width, as 
township 4, range 2, had a width of 7i miles, including the two western 
ranges of lots of present Belfast. April 26, 1825, the lots from 1 to 16 in- 
clusive, of township 4, range 2, were annexed to Orrinsburgh, and lots 1 to 
6, and 29, 53 and 61 were set off to Caneadea, and the name changed to Bel- 
fast. The suggestion of the name of Belfast is ascribed to John McKeen, a 
native of Belfast, Me., an early justice of the peace. In 1831, the part set 
off to Caneadea in 1825, was re-annexed, and since then no changes have 
been made in the boundaries. 

The first town meeting was held, AjDril 6, 1824, when these officers were 
elected : David Hitchcock, supervisor ; Elijah Reynolds, town clerk ; Elisha 
Chamberlain, Jr. , constable and collector ; Solomon Benjamin, John Mcin- 
tosh. John McKeen, assessor ; Packard Bruce, Nathaniel Reynolds, Joseph 
Benjamin, highway commissioners; Joseph T. Ford, Samuel Wilkinson, John 
McKeen, commissioners of common schools ; James Jennings, overseer 
of the poor ; David Hitchcock, Elijah Reynolds. John Mcintosh, John Mc- 
Keen, inspectors of election. 

The Genesee river enters this town from the east and passes northwest 
into Caneadea a little east of the middle of the town line. There are some 
fine flats along the river, but the surface is generally uneven, and broken 
into distinct ridges by White and Blackf creeks which discharge into the 
Genesee from the west at points less than a mile apart, and Crawford creek, 
which passes through the northwest corner. On the east Wigwam creek 
breaks down through a precipitous defile, emptying north of the mouth of 
Black creek. Some of the hills reach altitudes of 500 to 750 feet above the 
streams. Upon the hills the soil is a clayey loam, in some places mixed with 
gravel. On the narrow creek bottoms and the river flats sandy and gravelly 
loam appears, and the soil is very productive. A small part of the town is 
profitably devoted to grain raising, but as a whole it is better adapted to. 

* Much of the material used in preparing this sketch of Belfast has been kindly furnished by Mr. E. M. 
Wilson in memoranda taken by him in interviews had at various times with such intelligent early settlers as 
Daniel and Ward Pierce, W. A. Burlingame, Abram Willison, Daniel Howard, Mrs. Betsey Crawford and 
others. Miss L. E. Ford furnished the data for the history of the Baptist church and W. B. Renwick, Esq. 
that for Belfast Seminary, etc. 

■|- These creeks were probably so named because the water in Black Creek is quite dark, nearly black; in 
White Creek it is very clear and white. 



678 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

grazing. Distinct rapids in the river east of the village afford excellent 
water power, and the mill privileges determined the location of the village. 
The lateral streams also afforded many desirable mill seats, but since the 
forests have been denuded, the volume of water has shrunk to insignifi- 
cance, and the old mills have disappeared. 

The town has three postoifices, Rockville, Frank Burlingame, P. M. ; 
Transit Bridge, Charles Coleman, P. M. ; Belfast, B. T. Wilhs, P. M. 

Settlement was begun in 1803 by Benjamin, Elisha, Calvin and David 
Chamberlain, brothers, from Pennsylvania, who "took up" farms on the 
river a short distance below the "transit."* Thaddeus Bennett, Nathaniel 
Reynolds and David Sanford soon after appeared, and Jedediah Nobles and 
Benjamin Littleton, from Elmira, came in 1805, Nobles purchasing land on 
the river, and Littleton on Wigwam creek. Abraham D. Hendern, Isaac 
Sanford and Marvin Harding were other early settlers. John Crawford, 
from the Susquehanna, settled in the northwest part on Crawford creek, 
the first settler in that part. His sons, Benjamin, Lyndes, Harry and John, 
settled farther up the creek. The roof of their first habitation was fast- 
ened on with poles and withes. This stood on one of the Indian trails be- 
tween the Genesee and Allegany rivers, and the family became well ac- 
quainted with many Indians. Other settlers here were the Gowans and the 
Emery s. 

Rockwell Hopper was a settler on lot 10 as early as 1812. It is probable 
that Jedediah Nobles was the first keeper of a public house, as the first town 
meeting for Caneadea was held at his house April 5, 1808. As Caneadea ex- 
tended south to the state line, and as New Hudson, Cuba, Friendship, Clarks- 
ville, Rushford, Genesee, Bolivar and Wirt, though part of the town had not 
welcomed their first settlers, the fact shows the primitive condition of 
things. This house has long since been removed. It was on the west side 
of the road, nearly opposite the large old fashioned building on the Byrns 
place. This also for many years was a public house. In 1813, Simon C. 
Moore walked here from Worcester county, Mass., taught school one year, 
then was clerk 3 years in Alexander D'Autremont's store in Angelica. He 
later settled in Cuba. 

Harry Byrns was a settler just south of Belfast village in 1813. Only 
the saw and gristmill and log cabin of David Sanford was at the village of 
Belfast. The mills were the first in town and were erected in 1809. It is 
said the first birth in town was that of Deborah Reynolds, and the first mar- 
riage that of John Sanford and Mary Collar in 1806. Elijah Reynolds taught 
the first school in 1807. A Schoonover girl taught school on the Miles place 
in 1807-8, and Susan McGray was then teaching in Ezra Sanford 's house. 

* Elder Ephraim Sanford, from Keuka Lake region, in 1802 explored the river country from the " transit " 
down into present Caneadea, and selected four tracts in this town for as many sons, locating Abram on the 
Bennett or Miles place, Isaac on the Royce place (now Addison Clark's), David at Belfast village, and Ezra on 
the Dougherty place in Caneadea. Other tracts further down he also purchased, and the Sanfords may have 
settled as early as the Chamberlains. 



Belfast. 679 

Bears were numerous and the early settlers had to securely fasten their 
pigs in pens made safe against their attacks, and often they were obliged to 
seize a firebrand to compel their retreat. Joseph S. Raymond kept an inn 
near the village in 1821. The nearest place at which the settlers could trade 
was Angelica. Prom |1.50 to $2.50 per acre was usually paid for land. The 
main land office was at Batavia, over 50 miles away. Samuel S. Haight, as 
early as 1821, was appointed agent for the Holland Land Company at Angel- 
ica, and this was a great convenience. 

About 1830 a mill was built on the river on lot 12 at " Gougeville," later 
" Hopper ville, " a place which attained some importance and where RockAvell 
Hopper kept a public house. Joseph S. Raymond built the first mill here. 
The rifile or rapids in the river which afforded the power was early called 
"Bennett's Palls," from Bill Bennett the hunter. Ed. Gastin and Wm. 
Potter were subsequent owners of the sawmill and the flood of 1857 took it 
away. It has never been rebuilt. Cabinet, blacksmith and wagon shops, 
etc., were once in operation here, and the hamlet had 16 or 18 families. 
In 1832 or '33 Robert Ren wick kept a store here for Sherman Brothers of 
Angelica. 

Joseph T. and Lewis H. Pord from Connecticut came in 1818-19, settling 
on the east side of the river about 14- miles above the iron bridge. Mrs. 
Melton Millett from Canada, settled on lot 55 in the White Creek valley in 
1820. Mrs. Ezra Tibbetts, Charles Drew and Matthew Lounsbury were 
settlers as early as 1824. Martin Butts and Samuel King (who kept the 
first store) came that year on the east side of the river a little below the iron 
bridge. Settlement had so progressed that by 1823 the people began to 
talk of a new town and it w^as erected March 24, 1824. 

As early as 1827 settlements had been made along Black Creek valley 
by Daniel Howell. Daniel and Jonathan Gleason, John and Thomas Bartlett, 
Peter Miner, Selah Bacon, Ira and Reuben Bridgeman, Lyman Tibbets, 
Samuel Lounsbury, Charles Drew, Jacob Cole, Packard Bruce and a Jones. 
On the road from Belfast over Gleason Hill were Jonathan Gleason, Ira 
Hastings and Ephraim Stewart. Packard Bruce had built a saw and grist- 
mill, and had erected a large framed house, the first on Black Creek. The 
timbers were large enough for a mill. The plates and beams were rabbetted 
to receive the boards which were put on upright. One Killburn ran the 
Bruce mill for a time. Ira Bridgeman's barn was used for a schoolhouse. 
Mrs. Bruce was an early teacher on Black Creek. 

Martin Butts, from Vermont, who in 1822, had settled in Priendship, 
and "Col" Samuel King in 1824 opened the first store in Belfast. This 
was east of the river on the main Indian trail along the Genesee below the 
iron bridge; a solitary apple tree, between the road and river, to-day marks 
the spot. 

Mrs. Betsy Crawford says " Dr. Hardy lived there by the apple tree 
also " at the same time. Col. King had built a sash and door factory also on 
the east side of the river, a good business was built up, and the manufact- 



680 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

ured products were sent as far as Chicago. In 1824 there was not a plas- 
tered house in town. In the spring of 1835 the sash factory was burned. 
A large gristmill was at once built upon the ruins. It was designed for three 
run of stones. The stones had been hauled from Friendship and laid upon 
the bridge to the mill, when the "big flood" of Oct. 19, 1835, carried the 
mill off bodily, and left it standing on the east side of the river on the Ste- 
phen Rock place. There was a "paring bee " at Mr. Alexander's house by 
the mill race on the night of the flood. The water came up all around the 
house, and the party found other business than paring and stringing apples, 
dancing, or playing " snap and catch 'em." Robert Renwick's store and 
house stood near the west end of the bridge, and he moved most of his goods 
over to the east side. The building was carried off. All the people living 
on the flats moved out, the water reaching the window sills of their houses. 

Martin Butts was popular, and the little village soon came to be " Butts- 
ville." Mr. Butts in a few years returned to Friendship, but the place re- 
tained his name for years. About 1830 a dispute arose as to a permanent 
name for the village. Some insisted on retaining Buttsville, others wished 
to call it Antioch. The Jackson men took one side and the anti- Jackson men 
the other. One party would nail a board inscribed with the name they de- 
sired upon the bridge. The other party would tear it down and replace it 
with one lipon which was the name they favored. Excitement ran high, but 
a compromise was made and the village took the name of the town. At this 
time (whenever it was), according to Mrs. Crawford, there were living in the 
place families named Dunn, Bass and Howe. Dr. Davis and " Bob " Renwick 
had been there for some time. The place was also called the Huddle,. 
Podunk, and Poland or Portland by some in 1833. 

Col. King built a saw and gristmill under one roof (John Babcock, a 
millwright, did the work), a carding mill and a fulling mill. A mill or factory- 
was put up by Lyman and Aikens where they made spinning wheels . The 
cardingmill was burned after some years. The original village was on the 
flats north of the eastern part of the present village on both sides of the 
river below the iron bridge. Soon after the " big flood " vague intimations 
of a projected Genesee Valley canal began to be heard. This was the one 
thing needed to stimulate settlement and their fulfillment enhanced values 
and greatly improved all the interests of the people. 

July 26, 1838, occurred a disastrous windstorm from which Belfast 
suffered most severely. Ward and Daniel Pierce give vivid descriptions of 
its fury. Daniel says: 

" It was in black-raspberry time, for I was in a berry patch on the point of the hill between Andrew Cough- 
lin's and McKeanan's. This was in the center of its path, and we ran to the house which stood through it all, 
though it seemed as though it would go to pieces. Oh, how it roared ! After the wind passed the rain fell in 
torrents. After the shower the sun came out scorching hot. The whirlwind next struck where John D. Nellis 
then lived, partly tore down his barns, unroofed the larger one, and some of the siding was blown off. The 
frame stood but was blown more than its width off from its foundation. The house was low and stood." 
Ward Pierce was at work on the " Billy Ashley " place, settled by Squire Baird, who was building a barn (still 
standing, so Daniel Pierce thinks). He says: " We could see two great black clouds approach each other over 
toward ' Bullville,' from the south and from the north. Starkey Gleason said, ' when those two clouds come 



Belfast. 681 

together there will be a devil of a meeting,' and he was right. I was at work for John F. Babcock as an ap- 
prentice, and we all ran to the house when we saw the flying timber coming and falling among us. Not being 
in the center of the storm, which passed to the north, the house stood. After the storm Babcock took a horse 
and started for home. His house was a log one standing south of the one where Charles Bixby now lives. 
Babcock's house stood through the wind which tore off a corner of the roof and unroofed his log barn. A 
little above Babcock's, on the present Gleason Hill road, was a hemlock tree lying beside the track on the lower 
side with earth thrown against it to make the road. It was 70 or 80 feet long and about 3 feet through at the 
butt. The wind rolled this log across the road, and left it lying on the upper side of the track. On the side 
of the road where the log first laid stood Scott Kinney's log house. Mrs. Kinney, her children, and some 
women neighbors were in it. The wind leveled the house nearly to the floor, tumbling the logs down upon 
the occupants, and some of the women had to be extricated. A son of Kinney's had his skull crushed. Dr. 
Allen removed the bone, put in a silver plate. The boy recovered. Reuben Bridgeman's log house was un- 
roofed. Between Baird's and Babcock's some buildings were torn down. On the farm where Charles Ford 
now lives Charles Amsden's frame barn was leveled to the ground. His frame house was uninjured. There 
was a " linter " on the back side of John Hank's log house. In this was a dog churn and a baby in its cradle. 
The churn and the cradle were carried into the field below, where the cradle was found with the baby undis- 
turbed. The barn was demolished." 

Ward Pierce says that as long ago as he can remember Gideon Lewis 
and Henry Torrey were making grindstones at the Wing quarry. Many 
grindstones were got out there in early days, and they were quite an article 
of commerce. 

"In the early twenties," says William A. Benjamin, " a sawmill wa= built where Ralph 
Richardson afterward lived by one Winters ; afterward one was built at the falls on White 
creek at the Wing place by Mr. Arnold. No dam was made, simply a log laid on the rocks, 
water being conducted by a race from above the falls. While the canal was being built, the 
Cases, who were building locks and grading, put up a store and built up the village for years 
called Caseville. To saw their lumber they constructed a mill on the site of the Arnold mill 
and put in a dam. After the canal was built Nathan Bailey put up another mill on the site of 
the Winters mill. In 1822-3 the nearest gristmill was the Cherry mill. This stood near the 
present gristmill. The Benjamins harvested 2 acres of wheat in 1823 of which 10 sheaves 
made a bushel of wheat and the toll over. No other mill was nearer than Angelica and Philips- 
burgh. Set out an orchard in the fall of 1822 or 3, buying the trees at a nursery in Caneadea. 
Old Ben Chamberlain then lived where John White lives. Bill Bennett on the Miles place, 
where the road to Angelica leaves the river road. Old Major Reynolds lived next below Ben- 
nett, and Joseph T. Ford on the John B. Ford place. Next below was Mr. Bridgeman. Henry 
J. Raymond owned the land at Gougeville and built the mill. A little way above a fall of some 
two feet in the river was called Bennett's falls. Rockwell Hopper was next below. Below Hop- 
per was Jedediah Nobles, then one Ford, John Sellon, Wm. Sellon, Garrett Vandermark. Then 
came Col. King's mills, etc. Across the bridge lived Martin Butts, and Parker Alexander kept 
the postoffice. He built the Mrs. Covert house in 1843. Dr. Davis had an office between a 
hotel on the flats and the river. For several years there were no other buildings in the village ex- 
cept ' Cherry mill ' and a log house on the bank above ' cold spring,' the watering trough. 
From there the land was cleared out toward the cemetery. About 1840 Henry D. Lyman from 
Burrville built his hotel. Robert Renwick built his store in 1843, his house earlier. Hughes 
and Chamberlain came in 1842-3. The old man Petty settled on the J. Neely farm. Christo- 
pher Jennings built a mill. Elijah Reynold lived on the Hiram Seeley places. A log school- 
house stood near the little old graveyard. Rufus Petty was a teacher, and soon after went to 
Texas and joined Col. Fanning's Texas troops and was killed. Mcintosh kept a tavern on the 
Stephen Wilson place and had a ' still.' John McKeen was on the Brown place." 

When the first settlements were made, deer were very plentiful, and 
the rifle was as much depended upon for meat, as was the soil for a harvest. 
In every house suspended by loops or laid upon hooks over or near the fire 
place, was always to be found, except when in use, the trusty rifle of the 
settler; no sight was more familiar in the cabin, and many became expert in 
its use, and in the chase. William Bennett, " Bill Bennett," was a famous 
hunter, and many stories are told of his exploits. Tradition says that he 



682 History op Allegany County, N. Y. 

drove a deer through the streets of Angehca completely tired out, and sub- 
missive as a cow. When the bounty on a full grown wolf's scalp was $20 
from the state and |20 from the county, and $10 for " whelps' " scalps, the 
inducement stimulated effort. Those who knew " Bill Bennett " say that he 
has been known to capture a she wolf and a litter of whelps, kill the old one, 
and carefully take the young ones home and rear them with the care and 
anxiety of a dog fancier, to hurry them up to the proportions of a "full 
grown" wolf, and thus get his $20 apiece instead of $10. 

Conspicuous among the very early settlers were Benjamin, Elisha, 
Calvin and David Chamberlain, brothers. Their descendants are scattered 
not only all Western New York, but in other states. Benjamin had two 
sons, Gen. Calvin T. Chamberlain of Cuba, and Judge Benjamin Cham- 
berlain of Randolph, who became noted public men. David Sanford was no 
ordinary man. and Jedediah Nobles, Nathaniel Reynolds, Thaddeus Ben- 
nett, Benjamin Littleton, Thomas Mapes, Rockwell Hopper, Simon C. Moore, 
William and Harry Byrns, Joseph T. and Lewis H. Ford, were men well fit- 
ted for the work of the pioneer. Others could be named. These are only 
specimens of the early settlers. Later came the Gleasons, the Wilsons, the 
Browns, Lounsbury, Jenkins, Millett, Tibbetts, Jennings. Athertons. Guil- 
fords, Crawfords, Drews, Pierces, Howells and of others a host. The for- 
rests disappeared, and the green fields were opened to the smiling sunlight. 

In the thirties the pine timber of Allegany began to come into notice. 
No better pine was to be found, but Rochester and Buffalo were the nearest 
places of market. Rafting and " bull-frogging " then came into play. Dur- 
ing the fall and winter all hands were engaged in cutting logs and drawing 
them to some suitable place on the river bank. Large quantities of logs 
would thus be ready to be rolled into the river in the first suitable spring 
flood, to float to the mills at Portage, Mt. Morris and Rochester. " Booms " 
were constructed to hold the logs near the mills where they were sawed 
during the summer. But some of the logs would lodge, and these would be 
left high on the land after the flood unless again rolled into the water. So 
gangs of men called "bull-froggers "" would follow these logs with boats, 
axes, pikes, cant-hooks, etc. A man with a yoke of oxen quite frequently 
accompanied the bull-f roggers. It often became necessary to wade into the 
water, and at night these men would come into quarters with their clothes 
dripping wet. In this way they would chase the logs to their destination. 
This was "bull-frogging." Lumber sawed at Belfast and above would 
sometimes be made into rafts and run to Portageville, then taken out and 
hauled over the hill past the lower falls, again rafted and the journey re- 
sumed. Sometimes the booms would break, and the logs would be " chased " 
down to another mill. If any passed Rochester they would be lost in Lake 
Ontario. Ebenezer Kingsley informed the writer that he had once found some 
of his logs on the Canadian shore. William Stephen and James Atherton 
were prominent among those lumbermen. John Gleason, Asahel N. Cole, 
Ebenezer Kingsley, John McWliorter were others in the business. Millions 



Belfast. 683 

and millions of feet of lumber and logs have been sent to market from Bel- 
fast in this laborious, exciting and hazardous way, and Belfast was distin- 
guished over any other river town for the amount of its business in this line. 

Rafting was abruptly ended when the Genesee Valley canal was opened. 
(See pages 123 and 124 for history of the building of the canal). The canal 
opened to Oramel in Ibol, but Belfast had to wait two years longer. Through 
this town the work was heavy (mostly through an original forest), and a 
reservoir was constructed at Rockville which when tilled covered many 
acres. When the canal was opened the logs were made into rafts in the 
canal and went through this to the mills below without loss, and the home 
manufactured lumber was sent to market on canal boats. 

In June, 1842, Joseph Miller, the inventor of the " Miller car-coupler," 
here constructed a one-horse machine for cutting grass, with the cutter bar 
in front of the horse, which did not prove a success, as, after cutting one 
swath of about 20 rods, the horse ran away and broke it to pieces. In 1852 
or 53 the mowing machine however came to stay, making its first appearance 
on the old Chamberlain farm near the transit. 

Tanneries. — Belfast has had her share of tanneries. Half a century ago 
one was built at Rockville. Not far from the same time Hiram Seeley oper- 
ated one on his farm near the Junction, southwest of the village. Lewis 
Ford and Hiram Seeley built one at the " Huddle " and also ran a shoeshop. 
Afterward Lewis Ford built one on South Main street, which was later 
operated by Fred Sheeley. There was also once one at Black Creek on the 
river road. Not one is in existence to-day. All swept away by the irresist- 
ible tide of centralization and consolidation, which has not only wiped out 
the small tanneries, but the shoeshops and wagonshops and coopershops, 
which, in the old days, were a distinguishing feature of country villages. 

Cheese Factories. — Though some parts "of the town are well adapted to 
dairying it was never prosecuted, further than a few isolated individual 
dairies, till Kinney & Gunn in 1869 erected the "Belfast Cheese Factory," 
for several years one of the most important of those institutions in northern 
Allegany. It stood north of the village, and is no longer used for its original 
purpose. Mr. Justus H. Neely came from Herkimer county in 1844, and 
brought with him Herkimer county knowledge, notions and ideas about 
cheese and butter making, and was the first in town to manufacture cheese 
in quantities. In 1872 he built the "White Creek Cheese Factory" (now 
owned by Warren Wilkinson). There are now three other factories in town, 
all owned by A. E. Perry, who to the one in Belfast village has lately added 
a creamery. He also owns the Oramel and Marshall factories. The four 
factories use the milk of about 1,800 cows, and have reputation for excel- 
lence of work fully up to the high standard of Allegany. 

Supervisors. — David Hitchcock, 1824; William Bennett, 1825-26; Lyman Tibbetts, 1827-30, 1836, 1841' 
Selah Bacon, 18-51-32; John McKeen, 1833-34; Robert Renwick, 1835; Stephen Wilson, Jr., 1837-40; Wil- 
liam A. Kirkpatrick, 1842-43; Isaac Miles, 1844-46; Jacob Searl, 1845, 1847, 1848; Joab B. Hughes, 1849; Jo 



684 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

seph D. Beard, 1850; Samuel C. Wilson, 1851; Hazen Hughes, 1852-53; D. A. Knapp, 1854-55; Sidney 
Stowe, 1856; John W. Eldridge, 1857-58, 1865; O. W. Story, 1859; Robert Snow, i860; Charles M. Crandall, 
1861; Christopher Jennings, 1862, 1864; C. W. Saunders, 1866-68, 1877-80; Thomas Miller, 1869-70; Benja- 
min Willis, 1871; J. H. Saunders, 1872; James M. Davis, 1873-74; Eaton Kinney, 1875-1876; B. T. Willis, 
1881-85, J- M. Davis, 1886-87; A. P. Mcintosh, 1888-90; M. L. Brainard, 1891-92; I. S. Hunt, 1893-95. 

Officers for 1895. — I, S. Hunt, supervisor; J. D. Shuart, town clerk; R. R. Seeley, W. B. Renwick, 
Newton Sumner and F. S. Burlingame, justices of the peace; William M. Gleason, Henry Guilford, Eaton 
Kinney, assessors; F. C. Hastings, commissioner of highways; Lyman Stanton, collector; Michael Burke, 
overseer of the poor; Addison G. Weaver, George Wilson, inspectors of election, 1st district; R. Bradway 
Renwick, George I. Fisk, 2d district; Lyman Stanton, W. E. Vaughan, Almond Burlingame, Michael Garvin, 
John Farnum, constables; Henry Gleason, Charles P. Bixby, Charles English, commissioners of excise. 

Belfast Village. — Mention lias been made of the settlement on the 
low flats near the dam and bridge, northeast of the present village. One 
effect of the "big flood" of 1835 was a movement to change the business 
places and residences from the low flats to the plateau, or table land, then 
covered with an immense growth of timber, and the building of the new 
village soon began. The growth for the first few years was slow. Henry 
D. Lyman about 1840 built a hotel, and Robert Renwick a store. It was not 
however until the completion of the Genesee Valley canal was made reason- 
ably certain that suflicient confidence was inspired to promote a vigorous 
and substantial growth. Judge Benjamin Chamberlain was quick to discern 
the trend of things material, and so (as was his custom in such cases) he 
purchased all the purchasable land where the village is, and in the fall of 
1849 employed Charles Williams to lay it out in lots and streets and make a 
village map preparatory to offering lots for sale. He also included in 
this village plat a public park which he deeded '■ to the people of the town of 
Belfast. " A cemetery then existed on the present village lots of Mrs. Hattie 
Johnson and John Holden, but early in 1850 the bodies were removed, mostly 
to the cemetery in the eastern part of the village. 

Stimulated by the public works and the prospects of the canal the vil- 
lage grew quite rapidly. The headquarters of the engineer corps for this 
portion of the canal was established here, and contributed toward enlivening 
things, and general prosperity ensued which has continued with occasional 
brief interruptions to the present. By 1852 the village had a newspaper, A. 
N. Cole starting the Genesee Valley Free Press, soon removing it to Wells ville.* 
For felicity of situation no village on the Genesee river equals Belfast. It 
is above the highest water. The ground is dry, good springs are abundant, 
and the well water is pure. A high order of interest is taken in religious 
and educational matters, and the morals of its people are of a high standard, 
with school, churches, societies, etc., of a corresponding character. 

Business Interests, 1895. — The leading dealers in general merchan- 
dise are N. C. Saunders & Co., and I. S. Hunt, in hardware; Thornton and 
Freeborn. E. Carter & Co., manufacture and deal in harnesses, etc.; the 

* Hiram Rich, son of Esau, was born in Hume March i, 1822. In 1852 he came to Belfast, and in com- 
pany with his brother, C. O. Rich, built in 1853 a sash and blind factory, and later added a saw and shingle 
mill. 



Belfast. 685 

Tarba Manufacturing Company conducts milling in all branches and saw and 
planing mills, and R. G. Young deals in flour and feed. V. I. Cook and Mr. 
Dort are watchmakers and jewelers; and " Norm " Holden runs the Belfast 
House. The village has the usual accessories of shops and mechanics and a 
bank. With many natural attractions and many monied citizens who are 
proud of their home, the future of the village is a promising one. 

Banks and ExcMnge.— Until the latter half of this century no regularly 
established banks were nearer Belfast than Bath, Clean, Warsaw and Gen- 
eseo. About 1852 Joab and Hazen Hughes estabhshed here a branch of the 
Millford Bank of New Jersey. The bills were issued and signed by the 
Messrs. Hughes, as president or vice president and cashier. Business was 
conducted successfully until 1856 or 57, when it went down in the general 
financial crash of the country. It seems well established that A. J. Lewis 
was the next to conduct the purchase and sale of exchange and the best in- 
formed fix the time as 1863. For eight years from 1865 B. T. Wilhs & Bros, 
did private banking, and before they ceased to operate, J. M. Davis opened 
an account in New York, and bought and sold exchange and discounted paper. 

The Bank of Belfast was organized March 25, 1882, as a co-partner- 
ship in which the several stockholders are individually liable to the extent 
of their means, and all are directors. The first officers were: James M. 
Davis, president; Charles W. Saunders, vice president; W. B. Manley, cash- 
ier. The bank represents a capital of $200,000. Present stockholders are: 
J. M. Davis, I. S.Hunt, Mrs. Emma J. Davis, Miss S. S. Jennings, David 
Kinney, Alfred Spring, Mrs. Sophia Jennings, G. Pisk, Mrs. Eliza Saunders, 
and W. B. Manley. The-present officers are: J. M. Davis, president; I. S. 
Hunt, vice president, and W. B. Manley, cashier. R. Bradway Renwick is 
employed as book-keeper. Por the fourteen years of its existence, the 
business has been conducted upon a sound financial pohcy. By careful and 
conservative management and fair treatment to its customers the bank has 
steadily grown in public favor and is one of the reliable financial institutions 
of the county. 

One of the best business institutions of Belfast is the M. B. Tarba Man- 
ufacturing Company's plant, consisting of a custom and merchant flouring 
and gristmill and a saw and planingmill. The present structure of the grist- 
mill was built about 1852, by Parshall and Eldridge. About the same time 
H. and C. Rich put in a sawmill and sash, door and bhnd factory. The grist- 
mill occupies nearly if not quite the site of the old "Cherry mills," The 
property now combined has frequently changed hands. Some years since 
it was owned by George B. Knickerbocker; later by L. P. Hull, who enlarged 
and improved it, introducing the full roller process, and other improved 
machines and devices, enabling it to successfully compete with any mill in 
this section of the state. The Tarba Manufacturing Company are the pres- 
ent owners and the mill and connected industries are doing a successful 
business. 



686 History of Allegany Count"^-, N. Y. 

Fires. — In June, 1871, the Belfast House then a wooden structure was 
burned, and the same day the old Lyman hotel building farther north was 
also burned. Jan. 2, 1877. the Willis and Saunders block, a row of wood 
structures oj>posite the present brick blocks, was burned. In this were the 
stores of A. R. Hopper, Saunders Bros, and B. T. Willis & Bros., offices, 
etc. In December, 1887, a fire consumed the Davis block, including three 
stores, and the Belfast bank, was injured. In February, 1893, Neely's grist- 
mill was burned. Another fire destroyed the block on the east side of Main 
St., for some years the store of A. J. Lewis. The effect of these fires has 
been the construction of a better class of buildings, and the exercise of more 
care in making them safe. 

Belfast Fire Department. — This was incorporated Feb. 22, 1887, with these 
trustees: A. R. Hopper, R. Neely, O. Whipple, F. H. Smith, James Lang. 
The first officers were: Reuben Neely, president; I. S. Hunt, secretary; W. 
B. Manley, treasurer. Under act of 1895, these fire commissioners were 
elected, J. D. Shuart, J. V. Jennings, Eaton Kinney. The department has 
a Rumsey hand engine, 1,000 feet of hose, a good engine-house with rooms 
overhead for meetings. Six cisterns located in different parts of the village, 
are depended upon to furnish the water supply. The officers are: T. B. 
Miner, chief; George Thornton, assistant chief; Chas. Rich and E. J. Sul- 
livan, foremen; H. H. Marsh, treasurer. The equipment for fighting fire is 
good, the protection afforded is such as to materially reduce the rates of in- 
surance. 

The Genesee Valley Seminary was established in 1857. The trustees 
named in the charter, were: William Windsor, Robert Ren wick, John Huff', 
Sidney Stowe, Wilson Collins, Frederick Sheeley, John W. Eldridge, William 
R. Smith and Calvin T. Chamberlain. At a meeting of the trustees held at 
Belfast, Feb. 2, 1857, Robert Renwick was made president, William Wind- 
sor, secretary, and Richard Jacobs, treasurer. Robert Renwick, Ozro 
Thomas, W. R. Smith, and John W. Eldridge were elected building com- 
mittee. Later John W. Eldridge was awarded the contract to build a suita- 
ble seminary for |5,300. Rapid progress was made and Sept. 19, 1857, Prof. S. 
R. Thorp was elected principal of the seminary, and S. R. Thorp, John W. 
Eldridge and Dr. C. M. Crandall were made a committee on dedication. It 
was dedicated in the latter part of October, 1857, Rev. Thomas K. Beecher 
delivering the address. Nov. 14, 1857, these teachers were elected to assist 
Prof. Thorp, and with him constitute the first faculty: Prof. F. D. Tooker, 
mathematics and natural sciences; Miss Lucia Clement, preceptress; Dr. C. 
M. Crandall, lecturer on anatomy, physiology and hygiene; Mrs. Crandall, 
painting; Miss Mary J. Natting, French and music. The school was soon 
opened with about 180 students, and was under the control of the Methodist 
Episcopal church until Aug. 11, 1860, when its direction was passed to the 
Baptists with the condition that the selection of principal should be subject 
to the approval of the trustees. In November, 1860, Prof. Joel Hendrick 
was elected principal. His assistants were Prof. Lyman B. Tefft and Misses 



Belfast. 687 

Susan Stowe and Lucinda Ford. After seven years of faithful labor Prof. 
Hendrick was succeeded by Prof. Fradenburgh who remained until June, 
1868. Prof. R. A. Waterbury succeeded him Sept. 2, 1868, and was succeeded 
Sept. 13, 1873, by Prof. Melville E. Crowell. 

May 14, 1874, the trustees voted "to turn over the Genesee Valley 
Seminary, and all the lands and other property thereunto belonging, to 
school district No. 1, in Belfast, for the purpose of making a Union Graded 
School, with an academic department and vacate their ottice as such trus- 
tees, when the district shall have accepted this proposition, and shall have 
elected a board of education to take charge of said union school." The 
proposition was accepted, and the first board of education consisted of Eaton 
Kinney, John Rockwell, W. W. Byrns, A. R. Hopper and Dr. C. W. Saunders. 
Dr. Saunders was made president, and Mr. Byrns secretary. Under the 
new order Prof. M. E. Crowell was the first principal. The present teachers 
are F. W. Gray principal, Mrs. Silver class-teacher. Miss Nelson grammar, 
Miss A. Mountain intermediate, Miss Bertha Carter primary. The attend- 
ance has increased from 258 in 1890-1, to 297 in 1894-5, and the Belfast Sem- 
inary and Union School has done its fuU share in elevating the standard of 
education, morality and intelligence of the community, and for the material 
prosperity of the town. 

Baptist (7/mrc/i.— Without doubt. Rev. Ephraim Sanford conducted the 
first religious services. In French's Gazetteer, it is stated that it was in 
1806, and that he formed the first church in 1807-8. No record proof of the 
statement is to be found. That the first services were held in 1806 may be 
true, but the writer would as soon think it was earher, for the habit of Rev. 
Mr. Sanford was to preach whenever opportunity occurred, and the few 
settlers could be convened. Some of them came from long distances, fol- 
lowing the primitive wood paths and the -lines of blazed trees. The first 
meeting held to estabhsh a church, of which record has been kept, was at 
the house of Isaiah Smith, April 6, 1811. Mr. Smith was chosen moderator, 
and Ezra Sanford clerk. The record does not show any business transacted. 
On April 27 and May 14, 1811, meetings were held but no action was taken 
till June 1st when Thaddeus Bennett, Elizabeth Bennett, Isaiah Smith, Lila 
Smith, Nathaniel Reynolds, Margaret Reynolds, Ezra Sanford, Samuel Very, 
Ziba Huff, Zephaniah Huff, Jonathan Huff and Jacob Rickey, to use their 
own words, "joined together in covenant relations. " August 24th this com- 
pany adopted articles of faith and covenant. In December, 1811, it was voted 
" to send to the Wayne and Bristol churches (Steuben and Ontario counties), 
calling a council in order to regularly organize a Baptist church on the first 
Thursday in February, 1812." No record of this meeting for organization 
has been preserved, but in April, 1812, " trustees were chosen who were to 
act also as deacons," but no names are mentioned. Sept. 11, 1812, the first 
delegates were elected to attend the Steuben Association. In July, 1813, 
the church voted to hold their covenant meetings " on the last Saturday in 
each month " and the practice has ever since been recognized. 



688 History of Allegany County. N. Y. 

In August, 1813, the church felt itself strong enough to send out four 
missionaries, S. Very, J. Rickey, T. Bennett, and E. Sanford, to hold meet- 
ings in Nunda, Ischua and Van Campen's Creek. Sept. 29, 1827, "The 
church left the Steuben Association, to join the Holland Purchase Associa- 
tion," and nearly seven years elapse before the next entry, June 28, 1834, 
which imparts the intelligence that it was then that the first funds for home 
and foreign missions were raised. In 1835 the church "resolved that we 
cannot co-operate with any society bound by a constitution, to support slave- 
holding ministers in the slave states, believing that it is wrong to support a 
sin abroad that we would not at home. " In 1838 Lewis H. and Joseph T. 
Ford were chosen deacons, which office each held most of the time for forty 
years, or until released by death. In 1842 62 members were added by bap- 
tism, during the labors of Rev. J. E. Eldridge as pastor. The need of a 
meetinghouse was sorely felt, for up to this time services had been held in 
dwellings, schoolhouses and barns. Putting forth great efforts the society 
constructed a building which was finished and dedicated in 1844. For the 
next 21 years the church observed the usual routine of services, but all the 
time making steady growth, and in 1865 50 members were added. In 1874 
a council was called to ordain as pastor Rev. Eugene Hillman, on Nov. 18th. 
Sept. 25, 1889, Pastor C. L. Bonham was ordained 

Under the pastorate of Rev. H. W. Jones in 1892 the church was remod- 
eled and a session room and pastor's study added. The wooden walls were 
replaced with brick and stained glass windows put in. The large front 
window is in memory of Dea. L. H. Ford and wife, given by the sons and 
Ford Brothers. Another window is to the memory of Rev. A. S. Kneeland 
and wife, and one to Squire Miller and wife. The church was rededicated 
March 5, 1892. This was the first church built in the town, and the present 
modernized edifice occupies the site of the original structure. The pastors 
have been. Revs. Isaiah Smith, Solomon Dimmic, John P. Evans, M. M. 
Colman, James Eldridge; Benjamin Thomas, John Trowbridge, James Green, 
William Storrs, J. Hendrick, Mr. Mudge, R. A. Waterbury, Eugene Hill- 
man, Mr. Rupert, D. P. Lappeus, C. H. Wood, A. S. Kneeland, C. L. Bon- 
ham, H* W. Jones, F. A. Vinal, C. E. Drake. The value of church proj^erty 
is 14,000. The number of members Jan. 1, 1896, was 141, and the present 
officers are. Rev. C. E. Drake, pastor; David Kinney, S. A. Ford, R. D. Guil- 
ford and C. P. Bixby, deacons; C. D. Shuart, S. A. Ford and Frank Crowell, 
trustees; Cheney Kinney, treasurer; C. L. Ford, clerk. A large Sunday 
school of 85 pupils is connected with the church, of which R. D. Guilford is 
superintendent, James Talbot assistant, Edith Guilford organist and Lewis 
A. Walker secretary, Mary Neeley and Nellie Ramsey librarians, Mrs. M. 
L. Brainard supt. home dej)artment. 

Metliodist Episcopal Church. — The most painstaking research gives noth- 
ing of the early history of this church, owing to the loss of the early records. 
It is conceded that the house of worship was erected about 1848, under the 
robable pastorate of Rev. John Kennard. E. Gastin was the contractor and 



Belfast. 689 

the cost about §1,500. Mrs. Susan (Norton) Byrns, Mrs. Susan Strong and 
Mrs. John Huff, all aged members, have taxed their memories to restore the 
succession of pastors from 1838 to 1874. when records became available with 
this result: John Maxwell Bell, 1838; Wm. N. Cobb, 1839; Samuel Cook, 1840; 
Charles Barclay, 1841; J. A. Hagar, 1842; Mr. St. John, 1843; J. G. Dubois, 
1844; J. G. McEwen, 1845; John Kennard, 1848; John McEwen, 1850; John A. 
WeUs, 1860; J. G. Barrett and J. B. Whiteside, 1861; Mr. Vradenburgh, 1867. 
Revs. W. W. Luce, Schuyler Parker, Cornelius Brooks. John F. Durr, 
Thomas Hudson and William Bush are also mentioned but without dates. 
Since 1873 the pastors have been E. J. Cook, 1874-75; J. P. Brown, 1876-77; 
J. A. Smith, 1878-79; M. D. Jackson, 1880; T. E. Clayton, 1881-83; O. N. 
Leggett, 1884-85; C. S. Daley, 1886-87; G. H. Hancock 1888-90; W. D. Allen, 
1891-93; E. M. Kelly, 1894-96. The church building is in a good comfortable 
condition for meetings, with a seating capacity of 275. A parsonage prop- 
erty has been purchased which adjoins the church lot. The church is out of 
debt and the property is valued at $2,500. There is a thriving Sunday 
school under the superintendence of Eugene Capron. It has a membership 
of nearly 100. 

St. Patrick's [Catholic) Cliurch* — Previous to 1854-5 mass was occas- 
ionally celebrated at private houses and sometimes in the hall over the A. J. 
Lewis store by Rev. Father McEvoy and others from Java. After the canal 
was opened in 1853 many members of the Catholic church came to Belfast, 
and soon the building of a church edifice was considered. A small church 
(30x40 feet) was soon built on land donated by Judge Benjamin Chamberlain, 
a former resident of Belfast. The ground had to be cleared of the large 
j)ine stumps that covered it, and a "bee " was organized, which pulled the 
stumps and made them into a fence on two sides of the lot. Prominent in 
the church building were James Durning, Patrick Finnessy and James 
Markham, the biiilding committee. This first structure was never formally 
dedicated, further than " blessing the walls," but was used for over 20 
years, when an addition of 30x60 feet was made to the old part, making the 
shape of the whole somewhat that of the letter T. The church was dedicated 
Aug. 18, 1878, Bishop Timon of Buffalo officiating. Pastors: Father Leddy 
was here previous to 1878-9, when Father George J. Dunbar officiated as 
rector; Father Litchworth succeeded Father Dunbar, and then in succes- 
sion came Fathers O'Mara, Barlow and Haire, the present rector. Before 
these dates services were at seasons held by priests from St. Bonaventure 
college at Allegany. The old church was completely destroyed by fire in 
March, 1892. Soon after the fire a beautiful brick edifice was built on the 
site of the wooden one and duly dedicated. It is the finest church structure 
in northern Allegany. The interior is beautifully painted and decorated; 
the windows are all stained glass memorial windows. Too much credit can- 
not be awarded to Rev. T. E. Haire, to whose active efforts and great execu- 

* We are indebted to Michael H. Sullivan, an active and worthy member of this church and a resident of 
Belfast for 40 years, for the information concerning this church down to 1890. 



690 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

tive ability is largely due the wonderful success and rapidity of work in 
building this beautiful edifice. 

The cemetery connected with St. Patrick's church was originally one- 
half acre of land purchased of Dr. C. W. Saunders by Michael Dougherty. 
Another half acre was subsequently bought by David H. Mountain. The 
first interment was that of Martha W. Dougherty, aged 2 yrs. and 4 mos., 
Nov. 24, 1869. The parish now owns the cemetery. 

A Presbyterian society was organized Feb. 22, 1830, with 11 members, 
under " the care of the Presbytery of Angelica. " It was reported " vacant " 
the next year. 

Grace Church {Episcopal).— In or about 1885 Rev. Mr. Rafter of Cuba 
established a mission here holding services, first in the M. E. church and 
afterward in G. A. R. hall. In January, 1894, a society was organized. Rev. 
Dwight Galloupe the rector at Angelica commenced to hold services in the 
hall, and the building of a chapel was soon considered. Mrs. Christopher 
Jennings generously donated a building lot, and during the season sufficient 
means were pledged to warrant the letting of a contract for building. The 
corner stone was laid by Rev. Dwight Galloupe Jan. 30, 1895, and the com- 
pleted structure was dedicated Sept. 8, 1895. Revs. Beecher and Warner 
of Angelica officiating. It is a beautiful little chapel. Its cost was |1,200 
and 150 persons can be seated. Among those active in building the chapel 
and promoting the interest of the mission were Mr. and Mrs. Frank Free- 
born, Mrs. Milford Freeborn, Mrs. James Jennings, Mrs. Volney Jennings 
and Miss Susan S. Jennings. Mrs. J. H. Saunders has placed a memorial 
window for her father William Windsor in the chapel and others are soon to 
foUow. Services are held regularly every Sunday by the rector from 
Angelica. A Sunday school of 20 members, F. Freeborn superintendent, is 
connected with the mission. 

Civic Societies. — Western Union Lodge, No. I46, F. & A. M. — This lodge 
was instituted under a dispensation of the Grand Lodge Nov. 13, 1823, as 
No. 364. Calvin T. Chamberlain, as Worshipful Grand Master j)'^'^- tern., 
installed these officers: Hiram Gray, W. M.; Freeman Wilson, S. W. ; D. D. 
Hardy, J. W.; J.T.Raymond, Secretary; George P. Ketchum, Treasurer; 
Simon Wilson, S. D.; Lewis Wilson, J. D.; Daniel Ingersoll, Timothy Daniels, 
Stewards; Cyrus H. Clement, Tyler. The membership came from a wide 
territory, covering Caneadea, Rushford, Amity, Friendship and Cuba. 
Among them were: Alvan E. Parker, H. M. Munson, Joseph Palmer, Charles 
Horton, Ichabod B. Sharp, Warner Hastings, John Hammond, J. D. James, 
Richard Comfort, W. C. Sheldon, James Rawson, E. Stanford, Jonathan 
Warford, Nathan Bailey, Collins A. Beadly, E. Kinney, B. N. Call, Henry 
Stephens, Noah Parker, John Decker, Jeremiah Webber, Ira Protheroe, 
Leonard P. Walker, C. D. Wilson, Asa G. Nichols, A. J. Wolcott and others. 
In the early years meetings were held in various places and at 2 P. M. One 
place of meeting was the residence of James McCrea, 2 miles east of 
Caneadea village. They also met in Rushford and other places. For 3 or 4 



Belfast. 691 

years the lodge did good work and received considerable accessions to its 
membership. When however the "Morgan excitement" came, it shared 
the fate of many other lodges and endured a season of " suspended anima- 
tion." August 10, 1848, a new lodge was instituted with number 146. The 
officers installed ujjon resumption were: Alan son Burr, W. M.; Elijah Rey- 
nolds, S. W.; Cyrus H. Clement, J. W.; Rockwell Hopper, Treasurer; Simon 
Wilson, S. D.; George Parker, J. D.; David W. Reynolds, Tyler; Wm. Dean, 
Secretary. The lodge includes some of the most prominent business men 
of the place and influential citizens of the town. Its membership is 69, but 
it will soon be less as a number residing in Angelica will help form a lodge 
instituted there. The lodge has preserved its old books entire in spite of 
fire. The present officers are: A. P. Mcintosh, W. M.; V. I. Cook, S. W.; I. 
S. Hunt, J. W.; W. WilKs, Treasurer; R. G. Young, Secretary; J. L. Holden, 
S. D.; E. Carter, J. D.; J. H. Chamberlain, S. M. C; J. D. Shuart, J. M. C; 
E. Reynolds, Tyler. Their rooms are in the Lang Block. 

Genesee River Chapter No. 152, R. A. M. — The charter bears date Feb. 8, 
1855. The first officers were, D. A. Knapp, high priest; CM. Crandall, 
king; Jonathan Wafford, scribe. The high priests have been, D. A. Knapp, 
1855, '56; E. A. Wilson, 1857, '58, '66, '67, '75, '76, '79; Jonathan Wafford, 1859; 
C. M. Crandall, 1860, '61; W. W. Byrns, 1862, '63, '71, '72, '73, '74, '77, '83, 
'84, '86, '89, '90, '91, '94; J. Hendrick, 1864, '65; R. M. Wilhs, 1868, '69, '70, 
'80, '81, '82; H. H. Lyman, 1878; G. W. Tibbetts, 1885; F. H. Smith, 1887, '88; 
G. D. Miller, 1892, '98; W. L. Gibson, 1895; J. H. Chamberlain, 1896. 

A. K. Thorpe Post No. 86, G. A. R., was mustered inMay 14, 1879. Charter 
members: E. B. Cronk, F. C. Angel, V. J. McElheny, E. Hitchings, G. Wells, 
A. Hills, A. F. Smith, J. W. Clark, C. L. Ford, C. Miller, A. Hannstein, A. 
Johannes, J. Wetherall, S. P. Boss, B. J. Wert, G. Lowe, D. M. Dailey, R. 
W. King, S. A. Ford, R. R. Seeley. First officers, James Wetherall, Com,; 
R. R. Seeley, S. V. C; J. W. Clark, J. V. C; R. W. King, O. D.; C. Miller, 
Q. M.; G. Wells, O. G.; C. L. Ford, Adjt.; V. J. McElheny, S. M.;E. B. Cronk, 
Q. M. S.; S. A. Ford, Chap. The past commanders since have been, C. L. 
Ford, 1880, '81; R. R. Seeley, 1882, '83, '84, '85, '86, '87, '88; C. L. Ford, 1889, 
'90; W. Kelly, 1891, '92; W. E. Vaughan, 1893; R.C.Phelps, 1894; S. D. 
Travers, 1895. There have been fully 200 mustered into this post, and it 
has given of its members to form other posts, notably Wilber Haver Post, 
Angehca, and A. & J. Van Nostrand Post, Short Tract. The post holds 
meetings in G. A. R. Hall, Belfast, and now has 72 members. The post in 
1887, built a large public hall, which is rented by the town for town meetings 
and elections. The property is worth from |2, 500 to $3,000. The present 
officers are, W. E. Vaughan, Com.; E. R. Hitchings, S. V. C; B. C. Bacon, 
J. V. C; C. D. Shuart, Q. M.; C. L. Ford, C.;R. C. Phelps, Adit.;L. Stanton, 
O. D.;H. Hall, O.G. 

A. K. Thor2)e Relief Chrps, No. 173, was organized March 7, 1890, with 21 
members, and Martha E. Herkimer, president; Corinth Bartlett, S. V. P.; 
Emma Babcock, J. V. P. ; Harriet E. Johnson, Chap.; Jennie Babcock, Treas.; 



692 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Mary Phelps, Sec; Carrie Miner, Com.; Leona Comstock, G. The corps 
meets on the third Saturday of each month, has done a noble work, and now 
numbers 30 members. It has paid an indebtedness of $1,500 on the G. A. 
E.. hall, in 1894 sent $150 to the western sufferers, and in other ways it has 
done much charitable work. The present officers are, president, Martha 
Herkimer; S. V. P., Mary Comstock; J. V. P., Adel Shuart; Treas., Jennie 
Babcock; Sec, Delia Waterous; Con., Lottie Peck; Asst. Con., Jennie Her- 
kimer; Chap. Eva Kenney; G., Leona Crawford; A. G., Anna Wilkins. 

Belfast and Oramel Tent, No. 4-7, K. 0. T. M., was chartered June 3, 1887, 
and organized on the same day by District Deputy C. A. Flannagin of Cuba 
with these members: Warren E. Wilkinson, Daton Hendricks, Irwin S. 
Herkimer, W. W. Dort, Chas. L. Dailey, Wm. Bell, A. Stone, W. Rich, Chas. 
Rich, W. H. Wells, J. A. Reddish, F. E. Thompson, J. W. Covell, Isaac S. 
Hunt, P. J. Quinn, B. F. Waddington, Cass A. Mcintosh, R. Bruce Renwick, 
W. B. Renwick. In the hall over V. I. Cook's jewelry store, nearly opposite 
the Massasoit House, these officers were elected and installed: Past Com- 
mander, Cass A. Mcintosh; Commander, Isaac S. Hunt; Lieut. Commander, 
P. J. Quinn; F. K., Chas. Rich; P. K., B. F. Waddington; Prelate, W. B. 
Renwick; M. at A., F. E, Thompson; Sergeant, J. W. Covell; 1st M. of G., 
J. A. Reddish; 2d M. of G, W. H. Wells; Sentinel, W. Rich; Picket, A. 
Stone. The tent has increased to 107 members, one of the most prosperous 
in the county, always having meetings on the 1st and 3d Wednesday even- 
ings of each month in its hall, now over Ingleby's furniture store. Present 
officers: Commander, William Ingleby; Lieut. Commander, Samuel R. Hunt; 
F. K. and R. K., W. B. Renwick; Prelate, Addison G. Weaver; M. at A., 
George A. Worden; Sergeant, Edward Mahloon; 1st M. of G., Martin 
McMahan; 2d M. of G., George Allen; Sentinel, Sanford Allen; Picket, 
John N. Denniston. 

Belfast Hive, No. 77, L. 0. T. M., was estabUshed March 17, 1893, with 17 
charter members. The charter was kept open till the number reached 31. 
The first officers were: C, Ada M. Renwick; Lt. C, Tryphena T. Chamber- 
lain; R. K., Ida M. Chamberlain; F. K., Minnie E. Rich; Prelate, Emma 
Ingleby; Ser., Edith D. Vreeland; M. at A., Delia M. Hunt; Sen. Ellen E. 
Miller; Pic, Anna Wilkinson; P. C, Lillian S. Wilson. Present member- 
ship 48. The Hive is in a flourishing condition with a constantly increasing 
membership. 

W. C. T. U. — The Belfast local union was organized in September, 1883, 
with 9 members, and these officers: president, Mrs. L. F. Hull; vice presi- 
dent, Mrs. Henry Wilson; corresponding and recording secretary, Mrs. H. 
H. Marsh; treasurer, Mrs. J. S. Cavert. Its meetings are regularly kept 
up and well attended. The present membership is 50. Officers: Mrs. Jennie 
Babcock, president; Mrs. C. Thornton, 1st vice president; Mrs. K. M. Cavert, 
2d vice president; Mrs. E. P. Titsworth, treasurer; Mrs. I. S. Hunt, corres- 
ponding secretary; Mrs. E. M, Capron, recording secretary. 



Belfast. 693 

Belfast Telephone Company was lately organized with $600 capital stock to 
connect Belfast by telephone with Rockville, Wilkeson's Cheese Factory, 
White Creek, M. L. Brainards, Jas. T. Miirdough's on Crawford Creek, and 
other private residences. About 20 'phones have been taken at |5 per year 
for at least 10 years. The officers are: N. C. Saunders, president; T. E. 
Lewis, vice president; Herbert Gleason, treasurer; I. S. Hunt, secretary. 



Of THE Townsmen.— Smith Brainard came to Belfast in 1847 and settled on White 
Creek. He was born at Exeter, N. Y., in 1809, married Phila A. Purple, and had 5 sons and 3 
daughters. His son, Morrell L. Brainard, was born m Exeter in 1844. and has lived in Belfast 
since 1847. He has been assessor 9 years and supervisor of the town for two terms. In 1868 
he married Lucy A. Snider. They have 3 children. Mr. Brainard is a farmer and dealer in 
live stock, and the family is Baptist in its religious affiliations. 

Jacob Chalker, son of Jacob B. and Elizabeth Hinchman Chalker, was born Jan. 16, 1841, 
in Liberty, Pa. In i860 he came to Belfast a poor youth and to-day he is one of the leading 
farmers of the town. He held the office of highway commissioner of Belfast for 7 years and 
built the first iron bridge in town. He deals quite extensively in live stock. In 1873 Mr. Chalker 
married Sarah, daughter of Abram Post, one of the early settlers of Allen. They have two 
sons, Norman A. and Harry B. 

John S. Crowell, son of Lucius Crowell, born in Angelica, married Lorinda Oaks, and after 
a few years* residence in Angelica, settled permanently in Allen. He was a farmer and a very 
active member and deacon of the Baptist church. He died Oct. 4, 1874, his wife Oct. 18, 1878. 
Their children were Ezra, John S.. Melvin E., Frank P., Ellen M. Frank F. was born July 7, 
1853, and Sept. 4, 1878, married Aurelia, daughter of Hiram Gleason, and made his home in 
Allen as a farmer. In 1886 he moved to Belfast and became a dealer in agricultural imple- 
ments. His wife died June 22, 1893, leaving one son, Melvin G. August 28, 1895, he married 
Lizzie, youngest daughter of Henry K. Stebbins. 

Elisha Chamberlain, of Connecticut, married Hannah Twirchel. In 1801 he came to Bel- 
fast and located on the farm now owned by his descendants. He cut his road from Angelica 
to his lot, four miles, through the woods. He collected the taxes for the Holland Land Co., 
and went to Ellicottville for several years to deliver the money. 

Tunis Cole, son of Thomas, who settled and bought land in Allen in 1828 and became a 
permanent resident, was born in Pulteney, N. Y., in 182 1. He was justice of the peace, held 
many town offices, and was supervisor of Allen for 1883 and 1884, and in 1885 located in Bel- 
fast. He is a director in the Bank of Belfast and was its vice president for several years. 

James M. Davis comes from an English family who settled in Bedford, Mass., where his 
father, Elijah Davis, was born, and came to Allen in 1838, where he married xMary, daughter 
of James Crandall of Allen. Children, James M. born in Allen in 1841, Mary B. and Frances 
(Mrs. Henry Renwick). Elijah Davis died in 1844, and his widow married James C. Burr. 
James M. was educated at the Belfast Seminary, and became a farmer, and a dealer in horses 
and live stock. In 1864 he entered the mercantile business in the firm of Lewis & Davis, buy- 
ing his partner out in 1866. For the next twenty years he was the leading merchant in Belfast, 
building three stores, and dealing in dry goods, drugs, hardware and general supplies. He did 
a private banking business for several years which grew to be the present Bank of Belfast of 
which he has been president since it was founded in 1882. He married in 1865, Emma, daughter 
of Christopher Jennings of Belfast. Their children are, Sophie (Mrs. Lyman E. Crandall of 
Chicago) and Charles.' Mr. Davis w^as supervisor of Belfast in 1873-4, served as town clerk, 
and for 13 years was postmaster. He removed to Rochester in 1888, is now in Chicago, where 
he is president of the Fowler Cycle Manufacturing Company. 

N. G. Davis, .son of Malachi, was born in Milo, Yates Co., N. Y., in 1820, and was a small 
boy when his father came to Scio. He married, in 1843, Delilah Utter, oldest living daughter 
of Joshua Utter, aresident of Amity, and settled in Hume. In 1867 he made his home in Bel- 
fast where he has since resided. His only child, Florence, married A. J. Van Fleet and lives in 
Cuba. Mr. Davis was a millwright over 30 years. 

Dearing L. Dorman was born in Sherman, Chautauqua Co. His father, Dearing Dorman, 
married Huldah Perkins and came from Vermont to Sherman early and was its first settler. 



694 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

His oldest son was the first white child born in the town. Bearing L. enlisted in Co. E, 9th N. 
Y. Cav., in October, 1861, but after one year's service was discharged on account of sickness. 
He made his home in Allen and for a short time was a resident there, then removed to Canea- 
dea where he resided untirhe became a resident of Belfast. His wife's maiden name was Sarah 
Avery (dec.) They have four children During his residence in Caneadea Mr. Dorman was 
chosen one of the assessors of the town. 

Robert English was born in Ireland in 1797. His father, John English, came to America 
in 1 801. Robert came to Rushford, Allegany Co., in April, 1826, and purchased a farm. He 
married Abigail Williams. They had six children. Charles, son of Robert, was born in 1834. 
He married Frances, daughter of Harry Burns, and has 7 children. He is a farmer and has 
been president of the Board of Education of Belfast for nearly 10 years. 

Deacon Lewis Hart Ford, born in Woodbridge, Conn., in 1799, came to Belfast about 1816. 
He was, then 16, apprenticed to Mr, Raymond, a carpenter, and came here with him. At the 
age of 21 he commenced building, and there are many of the old houses standing that he 
built. He married Deborah Reynolds, daughter of Major Nathaniel, the first white child born 
in town. They had 10 children. Deacon Ford was assessor for many years and held a com- 
mission signed by DeWilt Clinton, as lieutenant of a militia company. He died Nov. 29, 1877. 
Mrs. Ford died Oct 22, 1884. Six of their children are living: Dr. Willis E., in Utica ; Prof. 
D. R. and Robert W., in Elmira ; Charles L., Sidney A., and Lucinda E., reside in Belfast. 
The latter taught school 30 years. Charles L. Ford was born in 1833, enlisted in 1862 in Co. 

F, 130th N. Y. S. v., and was mustered out in 1865. He is a member of A. K. Thorpe Post. 

G. A. R., and was its second commander. He married Mary Peckham. Their children are 
Edmund D. and R. Carlton. Charles L.Ford is a farmer. Sidney Ford, born in 1837, enlisted 
in September, 1864, in the U. S. Navy, and served one year. He is also a member of A. K. 
Thorpe Post. In 1886. he married Rozette Allen and had 3 children, Charles M., a physician? 
in New York city, Allen H., Nettie D. The Ford family are members of the Baptist church. 

William R. Gleason is son of Jonathan Gleason, who came to Belfast from Seneca county 
in 1825, and settled on and gave its name to Gleason's Hill, where, June 13, 1830, William R. 
was born. Jonathan died in 1854, after developing a fine farm. William in 1864 married Car- 
oline, daughter of Charles Lewis of New Hudson, and settled on the farm where his son Bruce, 
who married Daisy Franklin, resides. 

Samuel Guilford, born in Franklin county, Mass., came to Belfast before 1818, settled in 
the southern part of the town on White Creek, was supervisor and justice many years, and did 
much for the town. He married Sally Gray and had 14 children. He died in May, 1857. His 
son Burbridge, born in Massachusetts in 1816, came to Belfast with his father and lived his life 
here, dying in 1884. He married Electa Kendall Howell, who died in 1875. Six children. 
William Guilford, son of Samuel, was born in Belfast in 1826. He married Mary, daughter of 
Nathaniel Britton, and had 3 children : Mary E., wife of M. Hobart, William L. and Frank S. 
Nathaniel Britton came to Friendship, in 1833, from Lycoming county, Pa. He died in 1835. 
Mrs. Guilford, and a brother and sister residing in Bureau county, 111., are the only survivors of 
his 6 children. 

The Rev. Thomas E. Haire was born in Addison, N. Y., in 1861. After graduating from 
Addison public schools, he became a student of Canisius College at Buffalo in 1875, and was 
graduated in due time from the Niagara University of Niagara. In 1855 he went to Attica, 
was there 4 years, and in 1889 came to Belfast, where he had charge of the Catholic parish. 
Rev. Mr. Haire has recently removed to Olean. 

Ear! Herkimer, son of William, was born June 15, 1829, in Exeter, N. Y. In 1836 his 
father moved to Cameron, from there to Addison, and in 1847 to Belfast, where he died May 
18, 1874. Earl came here in 1842 wnth his uncle, Isaac Miles, and has since resided here. In 
1859 he married Martha Stuart. Their children are Julia A. and Hattie E. August 20, 1864, 
Mr. Herkimer enlisted in Co. F, ist Regt., N. Y. S. Dragoons, and served until the close of the 
war, and was discharged in July, 1865. He is a member of A. K. Thorpe Post, No. 86, G. A. R. 
Since the war he has been engaged in farming and lumbering. 

Isaac Miles purchased a farm of " old Bill Bennett," and remained on the farm until about 
1867, when he moved to Scio. He died in November, 1892. His wife was Julia A. Cable. Mr. 
Miles was conversant with the town affairs of Belfast, having served as supervisor, etc. 

Norman Holden, son of Thomas Caryl and Randy Drucilla (Damon) Holden, was born in 
New Hudson April 17, 1836, on the farm where his parents had settled in 1830, coming from 
Springfield, Vt. The children were John L., Norman, Harry, Gardner, Olive and Lawson C. 
Norman married Rachel Crawford Nov. 21, 1857, for a second wife, a sister, Melinda, in No- 
vember, 1871, and for a third wife, another sister, Sinda A., December 19, 1882. There were 
two girls by the first marriage, both are dead ; no other children. Mr. Holden was brought up 
on the farm, followed buying cattle for years, and is now proprietor of the Belfast House, Belfast. 



Belfast. ' 695 

Isaac S. Hunt, son of I. D., was born at Mt. Morris, N. Y., in 1858. In i860 his father 
settled in Belfast. Isaac S., after an education at Genesee Valley Seminary, " clerked " in a 
store for 4 years, then formed a mercantile partnership with B. T. Willis in a general store, 
which continued six years. Since then Mr. Hunt has been proprietor of a drug and grocery 
store. He was secretary of the school board of Belfast five years, is vice president of the Bank 
oi Belfast, and was elected supervisor of the town in 1893 and every year since. He is a mem- 
ber of Western Union Lodge, F. & A. M., Genesee River Chapter, and DeMolay Commandery 
of Hornellsville. He married Mira Seeley, June 20, 1882, and has four children. 

Samuel Hunt, a native of Vermont, came to Caneadea about 1S20 and bought a farm. He 
married Hannah Peasley and had tive children. Samuel P. Hunt, son of Samuel, born in 1823, 
married Caroline Green, and lived for years on the farm which he developed from a virgin for- 
est, making the first clearing and building the farm buildings. Here were reared their three 
sons and two daughters, and here May 2, 1884, he died. His widow resides in Belfast. Oren 
Hunt, son of Samuel P., was born July 11, 1846. In 1871 he married Sarah, daughter of Al- 
exander and Sarah Lang, located as a farmer in Belfast, but is now a stone mason on the W. 
N. Y. & P. R. R. He has 3 children, Lela M., Robert B. and Satie. He is a Methodist, and a 
Maccabee, 

William Ingleby was born in Lincolnshire, England, in 1845, and came to America in 1870, 
first locatmg at Castile for two years, then living in other places until 1890 when he established 
himself as a furniture dealer and undertaker in Belfast. He married Emma Willcockson and 
has one child, William. Mr. Ingleby is a member of Tent No. 47, K. O. T. M., and the family 
are adherents of the Methodist church. William Ingleby, Jr., was born in England in 1868, and 
is a printer by trade, but has been a partner in his father's furniture business in Belfast. He 
married Mabel, daughter of Clark Rice. 

James Jennings came to Belfast in 1809 from Lawrenceville, Pa. He bought several hun- 
dred acres of the Holland Land Company, on which there was an Indian clearing and a log 
house where town meetings were held. His wife was Mary Doty. They had 10 children. His 
death occurred in December, 1859, and that of his wife in December, 1862. James O'Hara 
Jennings, son of James, was born in Belfast in 1822, and was educated and remained through 
life a farmer. He was quite extensively connected with the lumber trade and a dealer in real 
estate. He died March 23, 1895. His wife, formerly Esther Sortore Howell, is still a resident 
of Belfast. Their 4 children were Mary Helen, Julia Sophia, James Volney and Christopher, 
who died in infancy. 

Christopher Jennings, son of James, was born in Lawrenceville, Tioga Co., Pa., Feb. 22, 
1808. Coming to Belfast with his parents in 1809, he attained maturity in the pioneer days, 
and was one of those by whose efforts civilization replaced the savage condition. F'eb. 4, 1838, 
he was married to Sophie Reese. They had 4 children, Charles, a Union soldier in the ist N. 
Y. Dragoons, who died of fever in November, 1862 ; Susan S., Emma J. and Jarnes, drowned 
in the Genesee river when nine years old. Mr. Jennings died April 26, 1892. His widow still 
lives in Belfast. Mr. Jennings was a large land owner and a progressive farmer. He built the 
first brick buildmg in Belfast, and always gave generously in aid of any improvement in the 
town. He was several times elected supervisor, and held that responsible ofhce for three years 
during the civil war. He was a man of sterhng integrity, and his influence was widely felt in 
the community. 

David Kinney, son of Alpheus, was born in Union, Tolland Co., Conn., Jan. 5, 181 3. His 
father came to Madison county, N. Y., in 1816. David married Betsey Sv.'eet in 1837. She 
died in June, 1847. She had i son, Eaton, and 3 daughters. Mr. Kinney married Esther A. 
Hanks for his second wife. They had 5 children. David Kinney settled in Belfast in Novem- 
ber, 1837, and has been engaged in farmmg. Eaton Kinney, son of David, was born in Belfast 
Sept. 25, 1843. He enlisted in Co. F, ist N. Y. Dragoons, was mustered into service Jan. i, 
1864, and served until the close of the war. He was wounded Oct. 14, 1864. He is a member 
of A. K. Thorpe Po^t, G. A. R., No. 86. In 1866 Mr. Kinney married Eva M. Conover and 
had 4 children. In company with E. W. Gunn, he built the first and largest cheese factory in 
the town. Mr. Kinney has been assessor one term, and supervisor 2 years. 

W. B. Manley, son of William Manley, was born in EllicottviUe, Cattaraugus county, in 
1859. He was educated at the public schools in his native town. When 16 years of age he 
learned telegraphy. In 1882 he was elected cashier of the I5ank of Belfast. He helped organ- 
ize the bank, and has been its cashier since its organization in 1882. He had previously been 
in the banking office of J. King Skinner, and in the Bank of Gowanda. Mr. Manley married 
Mmnie F. Reaser. 

Addis F. Perry, son of Josiah Quincy Perry, an early settler of Rushford. was born in Lin- 
den in 1848. When 19 years of age he learned the art of cheesemaking and has been in that 
business since. He owns 5 cheese factories and one-half interef-t in another. In 1874 he mar- 



696 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

ried Miss Carpenter and has 4 children. Ebenezer D. Perry, grandfather of Addis E„ and son 
of Josiah, was born in Massachusetts. He settled, in 181 3, in the south part of Rushford, and 
was elected overseer of the poor of the first town meeting. He was a farmer. He married 
Hannah Spear. Of their 10 children only 3 are living. Josiah Q- Perry, a son of Ebenezer P., 
was born Nov. 28, 181 2. He married Emeline M. Knickerbocker in 1840 and settled in Rush- 
ford. In 1845 he moved to Lyndon, where he now resides. His children are Addis E. and 
Ebenezer P.. who resides in EUendale, N. D. Mrs. Perry died in March, 1894. J. Q. Perry has 
been supervisor of Lyndon 6 terms, has held the offices of assessor, justice of the peace, high- 
way commissioner, etc. 

Rozel C. Phelps, son of John B. Phelps, who settled at Oramel over 40 years ago, was borr> 
April 15, 1840, at Mt. Morris. He was educated at the common schools and Genesee Valley 
Seminary, and was graduated from Bryant & Stratton's Business College at Buffalo in 1864, 
In i860 he received the nomination for a cadetship at West Point, but was unable to take the 
examination. October 11, 1861, he enlisted in Co. E, 76th N. Y, S. V. ; his company was trans- 
ferred to the 93d regiment. He was mustered out July 19, 1862, on account of sickness from 
which he never recovered. He is a member of A. K. Thorpe Post, G. A. R., was its adjutant 
6 years, and commander i year, and has held most of the offices. Durmg his army life he 
acted as quartermaster while the regiment was at Cortland and Albany, at Washington he was 
detailed to the medical department of Eckington Hospital, and also held an important position 
in Epiphany Hospital. From 1865 to 1869 he was in the employ of the Illinois Central R. R. 
at Cairo as forwarding clerk, and for 7 years he was engaged in cheese manufacturing at 
Oramel. In 1871 he married Mary E. Marble and has 2 children, George E. and Allie M. The 
family are members of the M. E. church. Mr. Phelps has resided in Belfast since 1882, has 
held the office of justice of the peace 3 terms, is now pension attorney, and is aid-de-camp on 
the staff of John C. Schott, department commander. 

John Quinton, son of Joshua Quinton, born at Fairhaven, Vt.. June 27, 181 8, came to Perry 
in 1840 and worked at his shoemaker's trade. Here he married Phoebe Waters May 31, 1841. 
(Joshua Quinton was privateer's-man on the " Gen. Armstrong," which sailed from I3oston 
against the British in the war of 181 2, and was one of six in charge of the " long Tom " 
6-pounder pivot gun). John Quinton enlisted in the regimental band of the 28th N. Y. at 
Darnstown, Md., Aug. 10, 1861, and served until it was disbanded by order of Gen. McClellan. 
His son, Ambert F., enlisted in 1862 in Co. F, 130th N. Y., which m 1863 was the ist N. Y. 
Dragoons, and served until the close of the war and was wounded May 8, 1864, at the battle of 
the Wilderness. He is a member of Stephen T. Bartle Post, No. 183, G. A. R., of Cuba. James 
K. another son enlisted in 1861, in Co. E, 93d N. Y., was discharged in 1862 on account of 
sickness and died at Belfast Nov. 18, 1862. A daughter, Florence A., married George Sherman 
and died in 1871. Another son, Edwin E., enlisted in 1863, in Bactery M., ist U. S. Artillery, 
and served during the war. Mr. Quinton himself belongs to A. K. Thorpe Post, G. A. R., No. 
86, of Belfast. He it was who, with J. S. Pitt of Short Tract, organized " The Allegany County 
Grand Army Corps," that attracts so much attention and applause. Every member is an 
" old vet." This corps has eleven pieces and a drum major, and is open for engagement at 
parades, drills, celebrations, etc. For terms, etc., address J. S. Pitt, Short Tract, N. Y. This 
drumcorps is perpetuated by Major McFlipp of the Elmira Telegram in a poem which con- 
cludes thus: 

I hear the fifer's shrill trill-rill-ra 

And the rat-tat-tat and rum-tum-trum 

Of the double drag and big bass drum 

Of the Short Tract Band — the Veteran corps 

Bowed and grizzled, who long before, 

Thrilled men's souls as they marched away 

From these same hills on a summer day. 

O, music of harps on the golden shore, 

When our lamp goes out forever more, 

As it floats along the shining strand, 

Not sweeter will be than the Short Tract Band ! 

Robert Renwick, Jr., was born June 29, 1804, in the Parish of Hobkirk, Roxborough Co., 
Scotland. He came to this country when he was 13 years old with his father Robert Renwick, 
3 brothers and 2 sisters, who settled in Angelica. He went to school winters and worked out 
summers chopping and clearing land till after he was 21 when he began teaching winters. He 
taught 2 or 3 terms at Caneadea, and one at Transit Bridge. About 1833 he commenced sell- 
ing goods for Sherman Bros, of Angelica, putting in his capital of $30, at Hopperviile. He 
soon commenced business for himself. In the big flood his store was carried away. He then 
occupied Dr. Davis' office until he built him a store on the hill, which was the second building 
built in what is now called Belfast. He was in the mercantile business over 30 years. He 



Belfast. 697 

married Aug. 13, 1835, Harriet Ketchum. They had 8 children ; 3 died in infancy, the others 
are: Margaret, Bowman, Bruce, George and Sabrina. Mr. Renwick died Jan. 19, 1865. Har- 
riet Renwick was born Nov. 10, 181 1, in Greene, Chenango Co., N. Y. Her father, George 
Ketchum, settled on a farm 2 miles below Belfast now Oramel when Harriet was 2 years old. 
When she was 19 she commenced teaching, and taught several terms on Gleason Hill. She 
and other ladies had the cemetery cleared and fenced, also the village park fenced. She and 
her husband worked hand in hand in helping the poor and those in trouble. She died March 
12, i860. 

Newland C. Saunders, son of Harvey, was born in Franklinville, Cattaraugus Co., in 1845. 
In 1857 he came to Belfast and clerked in the store of Saunders Bros. About 1845 he bought 
his brothers' interest and has since carried on a general store. He also has a drugstore and is 
one of the leading merchants of Belfast. Mr. Saunders has been a member of the school board 
for several years. In 1875 he married Julia Jennings. They have i son and 2 daughters. 

Captain Robert R. Seeiey, son of Eber S. (who with his twin brother Silas, natives of Ver- 
mont, settled in Allen), was born July 13, 1837, in Allen, and was educated at Genesee Valley 
Seminary. In i86t he was graduated from Bassini's Musical School at Geneseo, and has 
taught nmsic for 25 years. In 1862 he raised Co. I of the 160th N. Y. S. V., was its first lieu- 
tenant and was promoted to captain. He was wounded at the Battle of Pleasant Hill, April 9, 
1864. He served until the close of the war and was mustered out at Savannah, Ga. He is a 
charter member of A. K. Thorpe Post, No. 86, G. A. R., was senior vice-commander at organ- 
ization and for 8 consecutive years was commander. He was supervisor of Allen 2 years, and 
made his residence in Belfast in 1882, where he was elected justice of the peace in 1894. In 
1870 he married Jane Armstrong, and has 2 children, Frank E. and Charles R. Frank E. had 
scarlet fever when 18 months old, and his hearing was so impaired that he is being educated at 
the Western New York Institute for Deaf Mutes. 

John J. Shuart, one of the 1838 pioneers of Allen, was a native of New Jersey. He married 
Ruth Lounsbery, and had 9 children. In 1852 he moved to Belfast. He was a farmer. 
Charles D., son of John, was born Jan. 18, 1842, in Allen. He enlisted Sept. 3, 1864, in Co. F, 
ist N. Y. Dragoons, and served until the close of the war. He was a charter member of A. K. 
Thorpe Post, and is quartermaster, which office he has held several years. In 1865 Mr. Shuart 
married Gertrude D., daughter of Justus H. Neeley. They had 3 children, Ruth A. (Mrs. J. D. 
Swift), resides in town, Fred W. and Bruce C, both deceased. Mr. Shuart has held the office 
of assessor 4 years. He has been engaged in farming since the war. The family are members 
of the Baptist church. Matthew Lounsbery, born in New Jersey in 1799, came to Belfast in 
1824 and bought a tract of wild land in the southwest corner. He married Eliza Shuart, had 10 
children, and transformed the forest into fruitful acres and a pleasant home. He died April 19, 
1884, his wife June 14, 1886. 

Benjamin S. Snider, son of Benjamin, was born June 14, 1821, in Rushville, N. Y. In 
1824 his father moved to Centerville where he engaged in farming. His mother was Charity 
Green. She had 12 children. Benjamin Snider died in Granger. Benjamin S. Snider married 
Priscilla Very. They had 5 children, 2 died in infancy. He married, second, Hannah Webster. 
Mr. Snider enlisted in Co. D, 64th Regt., N. Y. S. V. He was discharged in November, 1864, 
by a special order of Hon. E. M. Stanton, U. S. Secretary of War. He was wounded at the 
battle of Chancellorsville by a gunshot in the right temple, was taken prisoner and was 20 days 
in Libby prison. He is a member of A. K. Thorpe Post, and has been a resident of Belfast 
since the war. 

Seth Weed Lowell, son of Gideon, was born in Portage, N. Y., in 1845. He was in trade 
as a harness-maker in Fillmore for ten years. In 1883 he engaged in evaporating fruit at 
Olcott ; in 1890 he was at Brockville, Canada. In 1891 he located at Whitby, Canada, where 
he does an extensive business, employing 75 hands in the evaporating season. In 1868 he 
married Jennie Snider, daughter of B. S. Their children are F. Fern and James Russell. The 
daughter graduated in 1894 from Geneseo Normal School and went as a teacher to Rockville 
Center. 

Rev. C. D. Swift was born in Burlington, Vt., Sept. 20, 1809. In 1823 his father, Wyatt 
Swift, brought his family to New Hudson. Rev. Mr. Swift has preached since 1832 and has 
been a resident of Belfast since 1839. He was ordained a clergyman of the Methodist church 
Oct. 14, i860. He married Rebecca Tibbetts and has had 12 children. 

M. D. Tarba was born in 1854 at Ontario, N. Y., was educated at the public schools of 
Ontario and Webster, graduating at the latter place in 1875. He possesses business and 
executive ability. He built the heading mills at Oakfield, and has been a burner and dealer in 
charcoal and owned the •' Tarba camp " at Oakfield. He was originator and organizer of 
" The M. D. Tarba Mf'g Co." of Rochester, ai d is a successful business operator. He married 
Frances M. Homer, and settled at Belfast in 'ae fall of 1894. 



698 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Cosanus Thurston, son of Nathan, was born in Farmington, Pa., in 1833. June 8, 1865, 
he located at Friendship, and pursued his trade of carpenter and joiner. In 1870 he married 
his third wife, Ruth A. Wales. They have two children. Mr. Thurston's first wife was Deb- 
orah Ann Watson, and his second Henrietta Burt. Since 1890 Mr. Thurston has been a resi- 
dent of Belfast. 

Elijah Very came to Belfast from New Hampshire when a lad with his father, Samuel, 
about 1815, and on attaining manhood married Olive Crawford. After a few years of life here 
he moved to a farm he purchased in Caneadea, where he died in 1883. Of his 7 children 3 are 
living. John C. Very, son of Elijah, was born March 17, i83f, and in 1852 married Mary 
Wheeler. He has been a butcher and farmer, and has lived in Belfast since i860, and has been 
constable and collector 3 years. The family are adherents of the Methodist church. Charles 
Very, only child of John C., was born in 1857, married Lillian Russell and has one child, Ella 
Irene. 

Benjamin T, Willis, son of Leonard and Mary M. (Wicks) Willis, was born in Minerva, 
Essex Co., June 2, 1830. He became a clerk in 1848, and 3 years later opened a store in his 
native town and was postmaster thereunder Pierce's and Buchanan's administrations. In 1857, 
with his brothers, Woodward and Rodney, he came to Belfast and opened a general store 
which he kept for 20 years until it was burned. Then, after 3 years' partnership in a meat 
market with E. Warner, Mr. Willis again engaged in merchandising with I. S. Hunt as Willis & 
Hunt ; after 4 years the firm became as now, B. T. Willis & Son. They sell drugs and groceries. 
Mr. Willis also does a general insurance business. He is a Democrat, and, although having a 
majority vote of 75 against him to overcome, he was elected supervisor in 1871, 1881, 1882, 
1883, 1884, 1885, and was appointed postmaster of Belfast in 1894. He married Mary F. 
Champney in 1858. Two of their three sons are living. 

Warren Wilkinson, son of Eber G., was born in Clarksville, Dec. 31, 1854. When 15 
years old he went to work in a cheese factory, thoroughly learning the business, and has all his 
life since been a practical and successful cheesemaker. In 1880 he purchased the White Creek 
cheese factory, and has smce conducted it. He married in 1880 Anna J. Drake. They have 
one child, Eber G. Mr. Wilkinson is a member of Western Union Lodge, F. & A. M., Van 
Campen Lodge, I. O. O. F., and Belfast and Oramel Tent, No. 47. K. O. T. M. 

Stephen Wilson, son'of Stephen and (Cogswell) Wilson, was born in Montrose, Susque- 
hanna Co., Pa., April 13, 1808. When 10 years of age his parents moved to Wysox, Bradford 
Co., Pa. They subsequently settled in West Almond, and in 1829, moved to Belfast, where 
Stephen Wilson lived until his death, Feb. 27, 1895. From his father he inherited much of the 
Scotch trait of character, and was a man of pronounced political and religious views. In his 
time he was prominent in local politics, and for many years without interruption held some 
town office, having been supervisor, highway commissioner and justice of the peace. During 
the early seventies he was one of the 3 leaders in a successful fight against bonding the town 
for a proposed railroad. In politics he was first a Democrat, second a member of the Free-Soil 
party and a Republican from the founding of that party ever after. In the early years of Uni- 
versalism in this county he was a prominent Universalist layman ; and there were few Univer- 
salist ministers in northern Allegany who did not partake of his hospitality. The " whirlwind" 
of 1838 tumbled his new frame barn down upon him and his team of horses, and hurt him con- 
siderably. The house, a nearly new frame dwelling, was unroofed and partially moved from 
its foundation walls, while pieces of the siding were carried into West Almond. These boards 
were pamted red, and the house was the only red one in the path of the cyclone. His infant 
daughter was taken from the cradle by her mother when the storm struck the house. A heavy 
stone from the chimney was subsequently found lying on the pillow where the infant's head had 
rested but a short time before. In 1832 Stephen Wilson married Martha A., daughter of John 
McKeen, who died in 1889. Mr. McKeen was a native of Belfast, Maine, and a member of the 
first board of assessors here. In 1839 he emigrated to Texas. Of the 5 children of Stephen 
Wilson, Oscar and George W. are living. Oscar Wilson was born in 1836, married Mary A. 
Crandall and has 2 children, E. Manley, who was educated at the Genesee Valley Seminary and 
graded schools, and Edith. 



Friendship. 699 



F-RI E/MDSH IP. 

BY L. C. ALDRICH, ESQ. 

CHAPTER LIX. 

LONG AGO in the early years of the century, when township 3, range 
1, of the Holland Purchase, formed a i)art of the old town called Can- 
eadea, the people of the various localities throughout the region exhibited con- 
siderable rivalry as against those of other places, sometimes friendly and 
occasionally of an unpleasant nature. In this township, tradition tells us, 
the inhabitants of the hills and the valleys were arrayed one against the other, 
and disputes frequently led to personal combat; and one locality, that where- 
on was built up the first hamlet called Friendship, was once designated 
Fighting Corners. In later years as settlement increased the differences 
and animosities of the past were amicably settled and friendship prevailed; 
and in allusion to this period of reconciliation the name "Friendship " was 
given the settlement and also the subsequent town. 'It is said on good 
authority that the town and settlement were named by pioneer Davis, father- 
in-law of Timothy Hyde, who came to Western New York from Vermont in 
1804 and settled one mile south of Belvidere. He purchased the first settled 
farm in Friendship from Frier, who came in 1806. Davis sent over to the 
people who were contesting about the name, the suggestion, which they 
adopted, that they should call it Friendship. As originally created on the 
24th of March, 1815, Friendship included all the territory of the town so 
named, and also the present towns of Cuba, Wirt, Clarksville, Bolivar and 
Genesee. Within its boundaries were the contents of six full townships, 
numbers one, two and three of the first and second ranges. Cuba was set 
off in 1822, Bolivar in 1825, and a portion of Wirt in 1838. The other towns 
mentioned as comprising original Friendship were the results of later sub- 
divisions. The mother of towns from which Friendship is descended was 
Leister, formed and named March 30, 1802, one of the original civil divisions 
of Genesee county. The name was soon changed to Leicester, in allusion to 
the christian name of Leicester Phelps, son of Oliver Phelps of the Phelps 
and Gorham proprietary. Angelica was formed from Leicester, Feb. 25, 
1805, and Caneadea was set off from Angelica, March 11, 1808. Reduced to 
its present area. Friendship contains 22,760 acres of land. Its location in 
the county is central, and in quality of soil, natural resources and general 
productiveness, it ranks among the best of the county's divisions. Indeed, 
nature dealt favorably with this locality, for in Friendship we have one of 
the best drained and watered towns of the region, while very little of its 
lands is not available for successful cultivation. The principal watercourse 
is VanCampen's creek, which crosses the town from southwest to north- 
east, and its main tributaries are the North Branch, the South Branch, and 



700 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Moss Creek, each of which discharges into the greater stream near Friend- 
ship village. The headwaters of White Creek are in the northwest part of 
the town. The land surface generally is rolling and hilly, but nowhere 
mountainous or difficult of ascent. From both north and south boundaries 
of the town is a gradual descent toward the central valley through which 
flows VanCampen's Creek. The soil is a good quahty, strong and durable, 
specially adapted to the growth of hay and pasture grass, yet produces 
abundantly in general crops in return to the intelligent efforts of the hus- 
bandman. 

Settlement.— Well settled authority accords the distinction of having 
been the pioneer of township three, range one, to Samuel Wardell, a native 
of Connecticut, born March 27, 1763. "Squire" Wardell, as he became 
known in later years, was an early settler in the upper Canisteo valley, but 
lost his lands there through some defect in the title. He then left the region 
and in 1807 came to this part of Angelica, hoping to re-establish a prosperous 
condition for himself and his family. He took up two hundred acres of land, 
a part of which is the present farm of Henry Babcock. The house in which 
the pioneer died, May 9, 1833, is now owned by D. T. Lyman. Pioneer War- 
dell made his first cflearing, built a log cabin and sowed a small field of winter 
wheat during 1807, and then returned to Canisteo for the winter. In the 
spring of 1808 he moved his family and stock to the town, and here he after- 
ward lived, a useful and respected citizen. He was justice of the peace many 
years, and possessing a good fund of common sense was frequently called 
upon to determine matters of controversy among the settlers. Mr. Wardell 
and his wife, whose maiden name was Anna Wheeler, and two of their chil- 
dren, are buried in Nile cemetery. Three daughters and a son moved west 
with their families and settled in Indiana and Illinois. The youngest daugh- 
ter, their only child born in this town, married Vaness Voorhies, of Nile. 
Another daughter, Abi, who was one year old when Squire Wardell settled 
here, married Jonathan Phinney and moved to what is now Wirt, where she 
died April 25, 1891. She was the last surviving member of her father's 
family. 

It is interesting to note in this connection that the lands whereon Sam- 
uel Wardell made the first settlement were originally " articled " to Simeon 
Gates, William Burnett, James Green, Seth Marvin, William Higgins and 
Levi Couch. Their purchase was made in 1806, and comprised a considera- 
ble tract of land in the vicinity. Not all of these, however, became residents 
of Friendship. The names of Green and Marvin have been preserved in the 
county, while settlers Gates. Burnett and Higgins remained in the town. 
The others pushed on westward and settled in new localities. This colony 
came to Friendship in 1807, and at the same time came Zebulon Gates and 
John Harrison. Wilham Burnett hved a little south of what is now the 
Christopher Blossom farm. 

Peter Frier was another early settler, but those who were destined to 
most thoroughly perpetuate their names were Henry Utter, who came from 



Friendship. 701 



Delaware county in 1808, and Josiah and John Utter from Otsego county in 
1809. The few Axtells now Hving in Friendshii? are descended from Aaron 
Axtell, who came in 1809. Many of his descendants moved to the western 
states. Axtell, and his son Harry, bought 300 acres of land on the South 
Branch, and in company with Sylvanus Merriman erected a gristmill about 
half way between Friendship and Nile villages. Aaron Axtell lived in what 
is now the George Reed house in Nile, formerly owned by Esquire J. J. 
Stebbins. The Axtell purchase extended to the town line on the south. 

Josiah Utter, a settler in 1809, was one of the most prominent of the 
pioneers, and more familiarly known as " Captain " Utter. He left seven 
sons and two daughters, ail of whom tilled positions of prominence in society 
or business life. Also among the early settlers were Adam R. Renwick, 
who came in 1810; Ambrose Willard, a Massachusetts Yankee, in 1812; Dr. 
Pearse, the pioneer of the locality east of the Townsend Flats, who made his 
improvement in 1812. and in whose family were three afterward wellknown 
sons, Benjamin, Levi W. and Alonzo, all closely identified with the later de- 
velopment of the town. In the same year Justin Cook came from the eastern 
part of the state and settled on what afterward became the Colwell farm. 

The year 1813 witnessed few arrivals in the new community, the events 
of the war then in progress having the effect to check the westward tide of 
emigration. The sons of American pioneers were either with the army or 
on the frontier defenses, and the possible result of the war was then quite in 
doubt. The scattered Indian occupants of the region were restless through 
British importunities, and there was little in the general situation on the 
Holland Purchase at that time to attract settlement. In this year, however, 
Benjamin Crabtree came to township three, range one, and established a 
home for an afterward prominent family. He was a native of Massachusetts, 
but a former resident of Mongomery county, in this state. He died in 
Friendship in 1848 However, when in 1814 the tide of victory turned in 
favor of the American arms, westward emigration was quickly resumed and 
all this portion of the state was flooded with prospective settlers and land 
speculators. Among the settlers that year we recall the names of Tolcut 
and Samuel Gold, father and son, Samuel and John Thomas and Obadiah 
Rouse, all of whom came in company during the spring and early summer. 
Tolcut Gold was the first town clerk of Friendship, and from the early records 
kept by him is learned many interesting events of local history. Another 
settler in the same year was Chester Scott, from New Hampshire. In 1815, 
according to personal records, the comers to the town were Ira Cotton, who 
purchased seventy acres from Zebulon Gates, and whose family name is still 
known in the locality; and also Ebenezer Steenrod, the head of a large fam- 
ily. He came from Delaware county. Other settlers of about the same 
period, though perhaps later, were William Niver (1816), Casper Niver, Hugh 
J. Higgins (1818), and John W. Baxter, the latter in 1820. RusseU Porter 
came in 1821, and about the same time William Mapes and Joseph Gorton. 

The old state road through the town was ready for use in 1815, although 



702 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

the bridges were not built until later. This great highway of travel and traffic 
opened the way for more rapid settlement, and within the next half score of 
years after its completion it is said a tavern was opened and maintained on 
almost every mile section of land. Farm lines were unknown and fences 
were an unheard of convenience. The settlers were fully occupied in clear- 
ing the land, planting crops and preparing outbuildings for the coming 
winter. At town meetings the freemen assembled to discuss current topics, 
elect officers and frequently to pay the tax collector. Every settler possess- 
ed at least one cow, a few swine, a yoke of cattle, or, in case he happened to 
be prosperous, he might boast ownership of a team of horses. In the absence 
of lot and farmfence lines the inhabitants registered their cattle and swine 
mark in the town clerk's office. Hogs were declared in open town meeting 
to be "free commoners," if properly yoked. This custom of recording cattle 
brands and marks under the declaration of the owner enables us to furnish 
the names of other early settlers in Friendship, which otherwise might have 
been lost. Tolcut Gold, during his term of office, recorded the marks of 
many of the settlers in old Friendship not before noted, although some of 
them may have lived in that part of the town afterward set off to later form- 
ations. In this connection may be mentioned George and John Higgins, 
Sylvanus Merriman, Squier Marvin, Ralph Ingersol, Othello Church, Bethu- 
el Clark, Azel Buckley, Ezra T. Peters, Obediah Rouse, Chauncey Cotton, 
Mark Hickox, Ira Hickox, Luther Axtell, Elisha Strong and Ira Cotton, all 
*' householders" living in the town as early, it is believed, as 1819. At a 
little later date we find the names of Calvin T. Chamberlain, Nathan Gilbert, 
John, Russell and James Harrison, "Hyra" Ardell, Alvin Richardson, Elias 
Steenrod, William Niver, Comfort Hicks, Joseph Barnhart, Hugh J. Hig- 
gins. Samuel King, John Steenrod, Simeon Wilbur, Samuel Darby, Joseph^ 
G. Gleason, Justin Cook, Edward Steenrod, Jonathan Hickox, Samuel 
Thomas, Peter G. Chapman. Ambrose Willard, Talent Banks, Daniel Willard 
and James Maxson. Still others, some of them as late as 1830, were William 
Noble, Asa Cowles, James Scott, Ebenezer Hyde, John Scott, David B. 
Banks, Samuel Yapp, William Potter (on the last farm in Friendship on the 
Cuba road), John Mills, Abel Maxson, Moses B. Sherwin, Joseph Wilcox, 
Harvey Stannard, Amos Thacher, Joel Wakefield, Homer Kindle, James 
Van Horn, Anthony Fuller, Abraham Crandall, Joseph Van Horn, Clark New- 
ton, Newman Crabtree, Benj. Crabtree, Cary Crandall, Joseph Allen, Sam- 
uel Crandall, James Wheeler, Matthias Lyon, Samuel S. Carter, Valentine 
Perry, Benj. F. Sisco, Frederick Lombard, Joel Kenyon and Harvey Eames 
These settlers, with the pioneers whose names are mentioned elsewhere, 
laid the foundation upon which has been built up the substantial success of 
the town, and to their early efforts is due the gratitude of the present gen- 
eration of inhabitants. They were both lumbermen and farmers, the latter 
by choice and the former by necessity. The lands must be cleared before 
they could be successfully tilled, and good authorities state that at one time 
in its history the town had in full operation twenty-five sawmills. With 



Friendship 703 



these industries and a local population of nearly 1,500 it was only natural and 
according to the order of things that the inhabitants of the locality sought a 
new town organization separate from the mother town of Caneadea. 

Organization.— The formation of the new town under the name of 
Friendship was accomplished on the 24th of March, 1815, and on the 7th of 
April following the lirst meeting for election of officers was held. Ebenezer 
Steenrod was chosen moderator, and Samuel Derby clerk. Town officers 
were elected: John Higgins, supervisor; Tolcut Gold, town clerk; Samuel' 
Derby, Sylvanus Merriman and William Hungerford, assessors; IraHickox^ 
constable and collector; Timothy Hyde, constable; George Higgins and Ben- 
jamin Crabtree, overseers of the poor; Bethuel Clark, Elisha Strong and 
Ebenezer Steenrod, commissioners of highways; Samuel Derby, Sylvanus 
Merriman and William Hungerford, comissionersof common schools; Bethuel 
Clark, Elisha Strong and Ebenezer Steenrod, inspectors of common schools. 
The path-masters and "damage prisers "' chosen at the time were Bethuel 
Clark, Othello Church, Zebulon Gates, MarkHickox, John Utter, Azel Buck- 
ley and Captain Culver. It was at this meeting that hogs were voted to be 
" public commoners, " subject to the restriction of a proper yoke. The old 
town records furnish occasional amusing proceedings. A measure adopted 
in 1822 is worthy of reproduction, viz.: "Voted, that every man that had 
any Canada thistles on his farm shall cut them by the first day of June, and 
keep them cut so they shan't blow or forfeit to the town $5." 

As is indicated by our narrative thus far progressed, it must be seen 
that the early settlement of this town was accomplished rapidly and effectu- 
ally. The pioneers were a sturdy and determined class of men who came to 
the new country for the purpose of improving their condition, and subse- 
quent results have shown that their labors were not in vain. The character 
of the lands in this vicinity was made known throughout the east by 
the land speculators, sub-agents of the representatives of the proprietary, 
and we have yet to note the occasion on which these energetic workers rep- 
resented the land to be less desirable than it in fact was. However, the 
land agent was not always an unscrupulous shark, and in this region his 
work was for the ultimate benefit of the people; and it is estimated that in 
1815 the newly created town of Friendship contained a total population of 
1,500. Yet the reader must remember that the original territory of the 
town comprised all that part of the county lying west and south of Friend- 
ship as now constituted. The most energetic land operator in this locality 
was Colonel Samuel King, acting for and promoting the enterprises of Jo- 
seph Ellicott, the latter the direct agent of the Holland Land Company. The 
weight of authority accords to agent Ellicott a general reputation for fair- 
ness in his dealings with settlers, and occasions are not wanting on which 
he felt it necessary to check some of the more bold acts of his subordinates. 
Colonel King dealt in his own interest, and while some of his transactions 
were criticized and questioned, he nevertheless proved a valuable factor in 
the early settlement of this special regien. 



704 History op Allegany County, N. Y 

Population. — We haA^e no reliable authority by which can be deter- 
mined the number of inhabitants on township three, ran^ one, at the time 
the town was formed. The town was reduced to its present limits after the 
formation of Wirt, on April 12, 1838, and only since that time can the census 
reports be regarded as a true index of local population. In 1840 the inhabit- 
ants numbered 1,244, 'from which time to the present the increase and 
changes have been as follows: 1845, 1,401; 1850, 1,675; 1855. 1,838; 1860, 1,889; 
1865, 1,725; 1870, 1,528; 1875, 1,871; 1880, 2,127; 1890, 2,216; 1892, 2,199. Thus 
we notice an almost constant increase in population during the last half 
century, a remarkable contrast in comparison with the great majority of 
interior towns in the state. These things indicate thrift, progressiveness 
and intelligence on the part of the people. While other towns have suffered 
a gradual decrease in number of inhabitants, the results of decline in agri- 
cultural pursuits and the profits of farm labor, Friendship, subject to the 
same influences, has steadily grown and increased both in population and 
wealth. 

Development. — But this is peculiarly and distinctively an agricultural 
town, the chief staples being butter and cheese, with all farm products yield- 
ing well in return to proper cultivation. How changed is the situation in 
comparison with three score years ago, about 1830, when the whole territory 
of Western New York was in a state of turmoil on account of the famous 
anti-rent conflict; and while Friendship was practically exempt from the 
distressing influences of the period the people were nevertheless affected by 
it and its occurrences were a subject of comment for many years afterward. 
For full thirty years following 1830 no untoward event occurred to mar the 
tranquillity of domestic life or check the onward march of progress in every 
local business channel. In 1850 the lumbering period had passed into history 
and in place of the primal forest there appeared fine and well cultivated farms, 
with excellent dwellings and good out buildings. The whole people seemed 
to be imbued with a desire to become prosperous, and parents aimed to edu- 
cate and train their children in useful branches. Schools w^ere established, 
churches were founded and the opportunities of knowledge were within the 
reach of all the people. Indeed, the claim has been made, and with much 
reason, that the inhabitants of Friendship have ever earnestly looked to the 
educational and spiritual welfare of their families, even from the days of 
pioneer settlement. As early as 1810 Pelatiah Morgan taught a primitive 
school, and Samuel Vary and Rev. Robert Hubbard conducted religious 
services about the same time. A Presbyterian church organization was 
effected as early as 1815, and soon afterward the Methodist Episcopal work- 
ers gained a permanent foothold. There wese first events in local annals, 
which mention suggests the first marriage, that of James Sanford and Sally 
Harrison, in 1809. The first birth was that of Sherman Haskins, in 1808. 
The first death is said to have been that of Hattie Frier, also in 1808. The 
first gristmill was built in 1810 by pioneer Aaron Axtell and Sylvanus Mer- 
riman, on the South Branch. Othello Church, the prominent early settler, 



Friendship. 705 



built a gristmill on the village site in 1815, and thus laid the foundation for 
the subsequent municipality. Col. King, the land operator, built the third 
grist mill, later known as the Baxter mill, in 1825. The first sawmill was 
also built in 1815, by Ebenezer Steenrod, and in the next year a carding mill 
and also fulling mill were in operation. Squire Wardell was the pioneer of 
the distilling industry. Among the numerous early tavern keepers, the 
pioneer w^as probably Simeon Gates, who opened public house in May, 1808. 
However, a few years later, after the opening of the " State " road through 
the town, at least a dozen taverns keepers began business. One of the first 
of these was young Hugh J. Higgins, another Ira Hickox, alsoElisha Strong 
and still others until the tide of travel began to subside, upon which the 
tavern stand was put to other use, wiiile its ever accompanying distillery 
was removed from the land. 

War of 1861-5. — As we have stated, the history of Friendship from 
1830 to 1860 was an uneventful period, an era of peace and progress for the 
people, in which the resources of the town were fully developed, and the 
industrious husbandman reaped the rich fruits of earlier toil. Therefore 
when the storm of war came with all its destructive fury, this town was well 
prepared to withstand the shock, and we here recall the names of the brave 
sons of Friendship w^ho joined the ranks, and many of whom are now sleep- 
ing in graves on southern battle fields. According to the best authority 
obtainable, the town of Friendship contributed for the service an aggregate 
of eighty-one men. These were scattered through the several regiments 
in the county, while a number enlisted in commands raised elsewhere in the 
state and other states. Through the thoughtful care of interested persons 
there has been prepared a reasonably reliable roster of Friendship soldiery, 
a Roll of Honor, as appropriately designated, to which the w^riter has 
been given free access, and from which the following list is taken: 

Jeremiah Hatch (Prof. Hatch), enlisted July lo, 1862 ; commissioned captain 130th Regt. 
(ist N, Y. Dragoons); in camp at Portage, N. Y., Aug. 18, 1862; joined Regt. Suffolk, Va., 
Sept. 12, 1862; died Dec. 21, 1862; buried Friendship, Dec. 27, 1862. William M. Marvin, en- 
listed Sept., 1861, Co. C, 85th N. Y.; captured Plymouth, N. C, April 20, 1864, prisoner 11 
months ; died Goldsborough, N. C; buried Union Cemetery, Raleigh, N. C. Lieut. Samuel 
Sortore, enlisted 1861, 5th N. Y. Cav. ; re-enlisted 1864; killed near Centerfield, Va., while lead- 
ing his company; buried on field. John D. Sortore, enlisted 1861, 5th N. Y. Cav. ; served one 
year; re-enlisted 1862, 136th N. Y. ; died Elmira from amputation of limb. Charles \V. Sortore, 
enlisted 1863, ist N. Y. Dragoons; injured Wilderness ; died hospital; buried Philadelphia. 
Charles A. Miner, enlisted Sept., 1861, 5th N. Y. Cav.; killed Winchester, Va , 1864; buried 
Friendship. George Voorhees, enlisted 1863, 85th N. Y. ; captured at Plymouth, April 20, 1864 ; 
died Andersonville Aug. 23, 1864. Edwin R. Voorhees, enlisted 1861, 85th N. Y. ; captured 
Plymouth, April 20, 1864; died Andersonville, Oct. 25, 1864. Evart Voorhees, enlisted 1862, 
136th N. Y. ; killed Reseca, Ga. ; buried on field. William O. Church, enlisted 1862, 136th N. 
Y. ; killed Reseca, Ga. ; buried on field. James Braedon, enlisted 1862, Co. K., 136th N. Y. ; 
killed near Atlanta, Ga., 1864 ; buried on field. (Brave Comrade Braedon well knew the cruel 
treatment of Union prisoners by the enemy, and told his companions he would never surrender ; 
and when called upon by the confederates to do so, emphatically refused, and was ruthlessly 
shot down.) Addison Howell, enlisted 1862, Co. K. 136th ; killed Chancellorsville, 1863. Perry 
Smitli, enlisted April, 1861, 23d Inf. ; died and buried near Arhngton Heights, Va., 1862. Alick 
Matthews, enlisted Aug., 1862, Co. K, 136th N. Y. ; mortally wounded, Reseca, Ga., 1864 ; buried 
Chattanooga. John Eldridge, enlisted April, 1 86 1 , 23d N. Y. ; veteran ; re-enlisted Jan., 1 864, i st N. 



706 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Y. Dragoons ; killed Travillian Station, Va., June ii, 1864. Jefferson Scott, enlisted April 21, 1861, 
Co. B. 23d N. Y., for two years ; re-enlisted Jan., 1864, Co. F, ist N. Y. Dragoons ; wounded right 
knee Cold Harbor, May 31, 1864 ; died June 18, 1864; buried Friendship. Newton Rew, enlisted 
1861, 5thN. Y. Cav. ;captured i863;died Andersonville March, 1864. William Mandeville, enlisted 

1 861, 85th N. Y. ; captured Plymouth, April 20, 1864; died Andersonville, Aug. 21, 1864. Je- 
rome Tyler (colored), enlisted Sept., 1861, 85th N. Y. ; captured Plymouth ; died Andersonville, 
July 19, 1864. Marshall Strong, enlisted 1861, 85th N. Y. ; captured Plymouth ; died Anderson- 
ville. Stillman Baker, enlisted Dec, 1863. 5th N. Y. H. A. ; killed by cars near Harper's Ferry, 
Va. Frederick Osborn, enlisted 1861, 23d N. Y. ; veteran ; re-enlisted 1863, 5th N. Y. Cav. ; 
killed Piedmont, Va , June 5, 1864. He was ten rods m advance of his company, waving his 
sword. Buried on field. Leander Phillips, enlisted 1861, 85th N, Y. ; died Meridian Hill, 1862 ; 
buried Nile. Ocellas Lanphear, enlisted 1861, 85th N. Y. ; captured Plymouth April 20, 1864 ; 
died Andersonville. Chauncey Stebbins, enlisted 1861, 85th N. Y. ; captured Plymouth, April 
20, 1864; died Andersonville, Aug. 22, 1864. W. Henry Potter, enlisted 1861 ; captured Ply- 
mouth, April 20, 1864; died Andersonville, May 9, 1864. Wallace Clapp, enlisted 1861, 85th 
N. Y. ; died Friendship, 1864. Francis Henry, enlisted 1863, 5th N. Y. Art.; died hospital 
Elmira, Feb., 1864. George B. Tanner, enlisted 186 1, 85th N. Y. ; captured Plymouth ; died 
Andersonville, June 7, 1864. George Phelps, enlisted 1861, Co. C, 85th N. Y. ; died Anderson- 
ville, July 28, 1864. Silas Clark, enliste.d 1862, 85th N. Y.; captured Plymouth; died 
Andersonville. Perry V. Sisson, volunteer substitute for Orrin Sisson home on sick leave ; 
Perry discharged ; re-enhsted ; captured Plymouth ; died Andersonville. William D. Bradley, 
non-enlisted volunteer; captured Plymouth, April 20, 1864; prisoner 11 months Andersonville, 
Milan, Charleston and Florence; died March, 1865, Fortress Monroe. Ira Bassett, enlisted 

1862, 13th H. A.; died Norfolk, Va., Oct. 9, 1862. George Dallas (colored), enlisted 1864, 31st 
N. Y.; killed Virginia, 1864. Henry Morgan, enlisted 1861, 5th Cav. George Coon, enlisted 
1862, Co. K, 136th N. Y.; died Dec, 1872. John Stickney, veteran; enlisted Oct. 21, 1861 ; 
re-enlisted Sept. 20, 1864, 189th N. Y.; died March 23, 1870. Nathan Merritt, enlisted Sept. 
28, 1864, Co. K. 136th N. Y.; discharged June 15, 1865 ; died Friendship. DeWitt Voorhees; 
drowned in Shenandoah at Snicker's Gap. James McCarthy, ran away from home and enlisted 
at 16 years ; killed at Travillian Station June 12, 1864 ; last words : " Tell father I did not die a 
coward." Thomas L. Pollard, enlisted Co. B, 189th N. Y. ; record unknown. Alpheus Vars, 
record unknown. Isaac N. Strong, enlisted Co. K, 136th N. Y. ; record unknown. Erastus 
Pardy, enlisted 1861, Co. K, 85th N. Y. ; captured Plymouth ; died Andersonville July 14. 1864. 
Daniel Sortore, enlisted Co. F, 104th N. Y. ; died Salisbury Feb. 14, 1864. Almeron Hazzard, 
enlisted Aug. 14, 1862, 109th N. Y. ; died Nov. i, 1864 James B. Pierce, enlisted 1861 ; died 
Nashville, Tenn., 1862. H. L. Piper, enlisted 1861 ; died Roanoke Island April 20, 1862. 
Robert H. White, enlisted Oct. 23, 1863, private Co. E, 3d Wis. Cav. ; died Jan. 20,1874. 
Chas. C. Steenrod, enlisted January, 1 864, Co. F, i st N. Y. Dragoons ; killed battle of Wilderness, 
at Todd's Town, May 7, 1864. Charles McOmber, enlisted April 21, 1861, Co. F, 23d N. Y. ; 
killed Fredericksburg, Va., 1862; buried on field. Talcott B. Cotton, enlisted April, 1861 ; 
served during war ; died Friendship. Capt. Charles R. Cotton, veteran : enlisted April, 1861, 
for 3 months ; re-enlisted August, 1861, 69th N. Y. ; Com. captain Co. G, i6oth N. Y. ; killed 
Pleasant Hill, La., April 9, 1864; buried on field. LeRoy Rogers, enlisted Sept. 16, 1864, Co. 
B, 189th N. Y. ; died Hinsdale Nov. 5, 1873. George Snyder, enlisted Aug. 13, 1862, Co. K. 
136th N. Y. ; died of wounds received Rocky-Faced Ridge, Ga. ; buried Louisville, Ky. Zach- 
ariah Barber, enlisted August, 1862 ; wounded Gettysburg July, 1863; died Washington, D. C. 
William S. Howard, enlisted Scio, ist L. I. ; died January, 1863. Patsey Madden, enlisted ist 
N. Y. Dragoons; died in prison. Charles H. Witter, enlisted 1861, 85th N. Y. ; captured Ply- 
mouth; died Andersonville. Julius Crandall, enlisted May 21, 1862, 127th N. Y. ; died Tusca- 
loosa, Ala., a prisoner. Alvordo Eastman, enlisted 136th Inf. ; died at Fairfax C. H., Nov. 17,. 
1862. William P. Carmer, enlisted Aug. 29. 1862, i6oth Penn. Vol. Inf. ; died rebel prison, 
Jan. I, 1864. Oscar Dana, enlisted Jan. 14, 1863, Battery L, 4th U. S. Art.; died Friendship, 
May 12, 1880. Spencer France, enlisted 19th N. Y. ; died March 2, 1883. Frank Van Arsdale, 
enlisted Dec. 28, 1863, 141st N. Y. ; died May 14, 1882. Joseph Smith, enlisted 1861 ; buried 
Friendship. Clarence Hatch, enlisted ist N. Y. Dragoons; died at home. Samuel K. Osborn, 
enlisted 52d Penn. ; died Friendship. Elias Coats, enlisted 23d N. Y. ; died Friendship. Ly- 
man McHenry, regiment unknown; buried Nile. Andrew I. Allen, regiment unknown; buried 
Nile. Andrew J. Cornwell, enlisted August, 1862, Co. B, 136th N. Y. ; wounded Gettysburg, 
July 3, 1863 ; died Feb. 5, 1888, Port Allegany. Pa. Luther B. Main, enlisted 1861. 23d N. Y. ; 
died at home. George W. Stout, enlisted Co. C, 76th N. Y. ; died March 2, 1864. Milton 
Pearce, enlisted in 1863, in Indiana; died at home ; buried Friendship. E. R. M. Rigdon, en- 
listed 1862 ; died at home. W. Ward Rice, enlisted July 22, 1862, 121st N. Y, ; died Aug. 14, 
1891. Shedrick A, Evans, enlisted Sept. 16, 1861, 76th N. Y. ; died April 30, 1892. Col. Abi- 



Friendship. 707 



jah Wellman, entered service as major, 85th N. Y., September, 1861 ; died Friendship. (See 
bio^^raphy.) Capt. A. A. Crandall, enlisted Feb. 25, 1863, 53d Penn. ; wounded Chancellorsville 
and Spottsylvania ; prisoner Andersonville 9 months ; escaped ; discharged March 20, 1865.* 

Prom 1860 to 1890 the population of Friendship increased from 1,889 to 
2,216. This was the natural and permanent growth that has characterized 
the town's history from its organization, and has been divided between the 
village and outlying localities so far as benefits are concerned. The village 
is in no sense a manufacturing center, but a trading point of importance in 
the heart of a rich agricultural region. There has never been any separa- 
tion for purposes of local government, and the one was dependent upon the 
other for its maintenance. The lumbering period in the town's history is 
now a thing of the past, the numerous sawmills have long since disappeared 
and in their stead we have now large agricultural interests and their equaUy 
valuable adjuncts, the creamery and the cheese factories. The Herkimer 
county methods of successful dairying were introduced to this section by 
the Messrs. Rice and developed by them to the great advantage of the general 
public. The Friendship Creamery, located at the village, is the only indus- 
try of its kind in the town, while the cheese factories are 5 in number, distin- 
guished and owned as follows: The Nile factory, owned by Costello & Wyant 
(600 cows, 200,000 lbs. cheese annually); the Barr factory, about 3 miles 
southeast of the village, owned by Barr & McCarthy; the East Friendship 
factory, Costello & Wyant, proprietors, and the North Branch factory, the 
property of Fred Harbeck (300 cows). 

Schools. — Of the educational system of the town at large the records 
furnish but little information that may be regarded as reliable, while ever 
doubtful tradition is equally untrustworthy. However, all past writers 
have agreed that the first school was taught by Pelatiah Morgan, beginning, 
it is said, about 1810 or 11, but its location is now unknown. Under com- 
petent authority, the first school was opened soon after the formation of the 
town, and the voters in townmeeting appropriated for school support "all 
the money which the law allows." The first division into districts was 
somewhat informal, and only 2 were maintained previous to 1818. when a 3d 
was added; and in 1819 No. 4 was created from Nos. 1 and 2. Nos. 5, 6 and 
7 were laid off in 1820, and No. 8 in 1821. The districts at that time differed 
materially from those of more recent years, for we must remember that 
previous to 1822 the town comprised the entire southwest part of the county. 
After a portion of Wirt had been taken off the territory of Friendship was 
re-districted, and from the order of things then established the present 
school system of the town has grown and developed, now more perfect and 
beneficial in practical results than at any time in its history. As now con- 
stituted the districts number 8, each provided with a good comfortable 
schoolhouse, while the village high school ranks among the foremost educa- 

* Jonas G. Wellman, son of Dr. Jonas, born Aug. 31, 1838, enlisted April 30, 1861, Co. I, 27th N. Y. ; 
.shot through leg July 21, 1861, at Bull Run, captured and prisoner at Libby until Oct. 5, 1861, paroled, reach- 
ed Friendship Oct. 15, i86i, leg amputated Nov. 5, i86i ; discharged Dec. 15, 1862. 



708 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



tional institutions of the county. During the current year ending July 31, 
1895, 15 teachers were employed, while the number of children attending 
school was 497. The value of school property is estimated at $35,000, and 
the town's assessed valuation is |1, 008,216. Of public school moneys there 
was apportioned to the town $2,024.71, and by local tax the additional sum of 
$7,214.48 was raised. 

Supervisors. — John Higgins, 1815-16; Samuel Derby, 1817-19; Sylvanus Merriman, 1820-25 ! Asa Le- 
Davidson, 1826 ; Josiah Utter, 1827-37 ; Samuel S. Carter, 1838 ; Martin Scott, 1839-40, and 1842 ; Galen B. 
Everts, 1841 ; Henry Baxter, 1843 ; Luther Stowell, 1844 ; William Pardy, 1845 ; Wm. H. King, 1846-48 ; 
Samuel C. Cotton, 1849; F- L. Stowell, 1850-51 ; Jerome B. Harrison, 1852-53, and 1856; Wm. H. King, 
1854-55, 1857, 1862-63, and 1865 ; Roderick Stebbins, 1858-61, and 1873 ; George W. Robinson, 1864 ; Abijah 
J. Wellman, 1866-72 ; Robert A. Scott, 1874 ; W. Ward Rice, 1875-76 ; Asher W. Miner, 1877-78 ; S. 
McArthur Norton, 1879-81 ; Herman Rice, 1882-83 ; Philip W. Coyle, 1884 ; Fred C. Mulkin, 1885, 1887-88 ; 
F. L. Dayton, 1886 ; Christopher S. Blossom, 1889-90 ; Manley W. Hobart, 1891-93 ; Ralph D. Rowley, 
1894-96. 

Town Officers, 1895-96. — Ralph D. Rowley, supervisor ; William A. Hart, town clerk ; (he served in 
1854, '55, '58, '59, '82, '90, '91, '92, '93, '94, '95, '96.) John B. Whitford, Edgar A. Hewitt, William H. Scott 
and Frederick A. McKee, justices of the peace ; Ambrose P. Willard, Nicholas Wetherbee and Alonzo C. 
Taft, assessors ; Abner Smalley, highway commissioner; James W. Jordon, overseer of the poor ; Horace 
Corwin, collector ; Rev. Francis M. Alvord, James M. Bullard and Albert G. Hinman, commissioners of 
excise. 



CHAPTER LX. 

FRIENDSHIP VILLAGE. 



PREVIOUS to the construction of the State Road through this town the 
settlers reached the interior lands by a primitive highway running 
along the south bank of Van Cam pen's Creek from Belvidere to the Lewis 
Utter farm; thence crossed to the north side and continued on west through 
the town, following the course of the creek more closely than the new thor- 
oughfare. About the first step in the direction of a hamlet settlement was that 
taken by Othello Church in the erection of a gristmill on the bank of the 
creek in the year 1815, near what may now be described as the foot of Water 
street. In the next year two log dwellings were built near the site of the 
Baptist church, and soon afterward Mr. Church built his own dwelhng 
where the American House now stands. Here he met a tragic death in De- 
cember, 1823, at the hands of David Howe. However, previous to his death 
Mr. Church sold or leased the mill to Samuel S. Carter, who changed it to 
a carding and fulhng mill, and for several years afterward it was one of the 
most conspicuous enterprises of the region. Col. Samuel King, the land 
speculator, also proved an active factor in early events, and about the year 



Friendship. 709 



1820, possibly a little later, built a large and pretentious tavern in the settle- 
ment, at what is now the corner of Main and Water streets. Truman Hill 
kept the house and its reputation as a place of entertainment spread far and 
wide. Here were held the meetings of the masonic lodge, while the place 
was famous in other ways for its notable assemblages. The building was 
burned about 1828, and its site was afterward used for other purposes. In- 
deed, for many years this eastern part of the present village was the chief 
center of trade and all business, and it was not until the construction and 
operation of the railroad that the location was changed. Still, among the 
early factors in village life, who have not been mentioned, were Peter G. 
Chapman. Holhs Scott, Mr. Davidson, Stephen Smith, Damon Church, 
Orange Church, Smith Church, Rufus Scott, and others, perhaps equally 
worthy of mention, but whose names are now lost to memory. 

A fruitful and reliable source of information concerning early events of 
village life is found in the almost remarkable memory of William A. Hart, 
who came to the locality in March, 1842, with Josej)h P. Reynolds and wife, 
the latter being sister to Mr. Hart. He was then 13 years old and what he 
saw and learned from older inhabitants were boyhood facts and became 
firmly impressed on his memory. Editor George W. Fries, of the Register, 
with the tastes and inclination of the antiquarian, made written data of Mr. 
Hart's reminiscences and recollections and the present writer is kindly fur- 
nished with them. 

About the time indicated the Colwell ashery stood near the site of the 
brick house afterward owned by Prof. Miller, while Mr. Colwell's store stood 
near the Benjamin Robinson place of later years. Colwell also built another 
*' potash " near the Thomas Pierce house. The most pretentious dwellings 
of the hamlet were those of Mr. Colwell and Deacon Stowell. Bradley's 
hotel was on the site of Deacon Robinson's house. The centre of business 
and hamlet population was about where Judge Norton now lives. William 
Colwell. Rufus Scott and son Martin, and W. J. and Arba Wellman had 
stores, each keeping a large stock of general merchandise, and doing a suc- 
cessful business for many years. The only other store in town at that time 
was on the site of the " old brick store," away up west of the four corners, 
on land now owned by Mr. Mulkin. In 1825, according to the memory of 
Mr. Steenrod, Rufus Scott kept hotel, Martin Scott sold goods, one of the 
Churches run the gristmill, and Samuel Carter operated the carding and full- 
ing mills. Local interests in the lower village were never greater than those 
noted, although as years passed the business places changed hands. P. and 
J. D. Hartshorn did business in 1852 where Edward Newton now lives, Jar- 
vis Alger had a harness shop, Robinson & Wingate run the carding and 
clothmill, Edward Hatch kept a tin shop and stove store. 

On the west side of the North Branch another settlement sprung into 
existence, though perhaps of less importance than the lower village. The older 
residents will remember the famous hostelry kept by Josiah Morris, and the 
racing and wrestling events of every Saturday afternoon. Opposite to the 



710 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Morris tavern Henry D. Babcock kept store. However, with the completion 
of the railroad these interests naturally removed to the center, and both, 
east and west villages declined in business importance. 

At the Four Corners, as then called but now the corner of Main with. 
Depot and Mill streets, the first business enterprise was the store building 
erected by Stephen Smith, as early perhaps as 1830. On the site was after- 
ward built the " brick store," then owned by Elisha Strong. The building 
was burned in April, 1868. In 1842 Damon Church built the large frame 
flourmill, on the west side of Mill street, south of Mr. Hart's corner. The 
building still stands and is occupied for business and dwelling purposes. 
About 1846 Arba Wellman moved up from the lower village and opened store 
near the Corners, and in 1852 built on the site of the First National Bank. 
This corner, and a considerable tract of land north and west of it, was pur- 
chased in 1851 from Dr. Dana by William Colwell and Roswell Spear, and by 
them was cut up into village lots. February 14th in the same year, the first 
locomotive came into the town on the Erie road. The company designed 
erecting a depot near Samuel Cotton's house, upon which the people at the 
Corners at once purchased and gave for a site the widow Galen Evarts lot. 
Here the statron was built and has ever since been maintained. Morris C. 
Mulkin began business in the village in 1854, and is stiJl in trade, the oldest 
merchant in the town At that time J. W. Rowley & Co. were in the " brick 
store," selling dry and dress goods and groceries. Other merchants of 
about the same period, says Mr. Mulkin, were George W. Robinson, Arba 
Wellman, Albert F. Wells, jeweler, and possibly one or two others of less 
note. Gen. Robinson began business about 1850, with a stock of dry goods. 
In 1852headdedabankingdepartment, and in 1855 was exclusively in thelatter 
line in the old brick store. William A. Hart opened store in 1859 in the build- 
ing now occupied as postoffice, and for the succeeding twenty-four years was 
one of the most active business men of the village. His dwelling is one of 
the oldest buildings of its class in the village, and was erected by Peter G. 
Chapman. 

Such was the situation and condition of business life in Friendship half 
a century and more ago. During the twenty years following 1850 few 
changes were made except in ownership, a new generation of actors succeed- 
ing the old. Between 1870 and 1880 the village suffered serious losses 
through fire, yet we are told that fire is a great "purifier and renewer. " The 
old burned structures were replaced with new, many of the latter being of 
brick, substantial and ornamental. The same is also true of the dwellings of 
the village, all " built from the stump," secure in construction and pleasing 
in appearance. Twenty-five years ago, says Judge Norton, the leading mer- 
chants were Price & Bradley, William A. Hart, and M. Scott & Co., Higgins 
& Lewis (druggists), Calvin Cross, also Morse & Cross, hardware, M. C. Mul- 
kin. grocer and banker. The First National Bank was also doing successful 
business, succeeding Miner & Wellman, bankers. In 1868 Ephraim Fair- 
banks built the American Hotel, but through loss by fire the old building ha& 



Friendship. 711 



been twice rebuilt. The Mansion House, now burned, was built in 1877. 
Having- thus traced the growth of business interests through different 
periods, we may with propriety refer by name to the present mercantile 
bouses of Friendship, and then turn to other elements of municipal being 
and note them briefly. 

At present the representatives of the dry goods business in Friendship 
are: Robert A. Scott, D. A. Daniels, and Price & Rose; the clothiers are: M. 
Unger and E. A. Hewitt; hardware dealers. Drake Hardware Company, and 
Corbin, Carter & Co.; druggists, A. V. Jones, and F. H. Mason; grocers, 
Graham & Robinson, Jordon & Stevens, C. B. Wales, M. C. Mulkin, and E. 
B. Fairbanks; meat and provision dealers, VanHorn & Jordon, and E. J. 
Norton; boat and shoemakers, George W. Smith, C. Kershaw, and J. L. 
Moll; saddler and harnessmaker, O. G. Sherman; ladies' wear, Mrs. E. M. 
Stoneman; millinery, Miss L. J. Cross and Misses O. & B. Briggs; furniture 
■dealer and undertaker, F. A. McKee; bakers, Charles Niver, Mrs. L. B. 
Scott, and Mrs. Wm. Dougherty; tailors, H. L. Dwight, and John J. Tun- 
nington; confectioners, Simons & Steenrod, and Charles Brisco; jeweler, 
Chas. S. Lane; variety store, J. E. Beebe; grist and sawmiller, F. L. Hull. 

Manufactures. — As a manufacturing center Friendship has attained 
little prominence among the villages of the county, and at no time in its 
history have the industries been more than a few in number. The old grist 
and carding and fulling mills at the lower village were pioneers in their 
respective lines of production, but of these only the gristmill now remains 
in operation. Its present owner is F. L. Hull, who is also owner of a saw- 
mill on the same location. The Damon Church mill, on Mill street, did a 
successful business for many years but it is now a thing of the past and put 
to other uses. 

The Friendship Sash aiid Blind Co., (Liniifed), was formed in February, 
1886, and was under the active management of A. B. Vorhis, employing 
about 75 men. The second proprietors were Pitt & Bradley, who were in 
time succeeded by Mr. Hollister. Under the latter the concern went into 
the hands of a receiver and eventually was owned by the First National 
Bank. It is now operated by Park, Rowley & Reese and doing a successful 
business. 

The Friendship Creamery was established in 1889, and for about 2 years 
v\;^as conducted on the co-operative plan, but with indifferent results. In 
1891 the plant was purchased by Latta & Hobart, and for the next 5 years 
was operated by that firm on correct business principles, therefore with a 
fair measure of success. The equipment was so changed that cheese could 
be made w^hen the butter market was depressed, and during the year 1895 
the firm manufactured about 50,000 pounds each of butter and cheese. 
Manley W. Hobart became sole proprietor of the business on Jan. 1, 1896. 

The Morse & Willis M'fg Co. was started in 1893 as a cheese box factory 
but closed in 1895. 



712 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

John Thurston is proprietor of a planing and sawmill and lumber yard, 
located on Elm avenue. 

Schools. — In the early history of the town a little log- school stood 
southeast of the village south of the creek, at the foot of the hill. Another 
was located over on the west side of the North Branch, near the Nile corner, 
as commonly known. In later years the district school was a frame building 
on Water street, and here many of the youth of the town received their 
early training. A good school was always maintained in the district, yet in 
1848 a number of the progressive men of the locality determined to estab- 
lish an institution of higher order, and afford the masters and misses of 
Friendship the advantages of a thorough education at home. 

Friendship Academy. — This once noted institution was brought into 
existence through the public spiritedness of a number of the leading citizens 
of the village and its vicinity, Roswell Spear, the fame of whose axes and 
other edged tools extended over a wide area, donating the site it is said. 
The organization took definite form in February, 1848, and in December 
following the academy was opened for pupils. The first score of years of its 
operation witnessed a fair measure of success, but later on, by reason of 
dissensions in the board of management and among the stockholders, there 
came a decline in profit and interest with ultimate dissolution and abandon- 
ment. Other causes than those mentioned contributed to the perhaps 
untimely end of the academy enterprise, among which may be mentioned 
the growing standard of the free school system and the increased number 
of tuition academic schools in the state. At the organization meeting Feb. 
5, 1848, Roswell Spear was elected president; Luther Stowell, vice presi- 
dent; Hazen Hughes, clerk, and Arba Wellman secretary. At the next 
meeting William Colwell was chosen treasurer, and trustees were designated 
as follow^s: Roswell Spear, Solomon S. Abbott, Hiram Abbott, E. H. Willard, 
William Colwell, Martin Scott, Samuel C. Cotton, Luther Stowell, Frederick 
Lambert, John F. Olney, Daniel Miner, Solomon Silsbee, Cady R. Walker, 
Joseph C. Sibley and Daniel Willard. The building was erected during the 
summer and fall of 1848, and on December 1st was opened for its intended 
use. It was located on the south side of Main street, about midway between 
the old and new villages. The first principal was Dennis C. Walker, followed 
in succession, by Prof. Jeremiah Hatch, Prosper Miller, Wm. H. Pitt, Pros- 
per Miller, Charles Spaulding and Frank W. Stevens, and Richard Lee 
Thacher. The latter was the last of the principals under the old regime. 
In fact he conducted the school independent of the trustees, and in the rela- 
tion of proprietor. Prof. Miller was compelled to resort to law to enforce his 
claims against the owners, and the result was he became possessed of the 
property. For a time the building was leased to the trustees of the free 
school district, and in the fall of 1893 was destroyed by fire. Prof. Jeremiah 
Hatch, whose name is doubly identified with Friendship as an able principal 
of the academy and as the gallant soldier whose name is borne by the local 
Grand Army Post, has been mentioned on page 263. Born in Vermont in 



Friendship. 713 

1820, he entered Middebury College in 1836, graduated in 1840, taught in the 
Southern states in 1841 and 1842, traveled and lectured for several years, 
and in 1849 took charge of Friendship Academy. He taught here 5 years 
"a most competent and enthusiastic instructor, displaying executive powers 
of a high order. " In 1855 he moved to Oramel, was appointed canal collector, 
read law with A. P. and B. Laning, and later formed with them the law firm 
of Laning, Hatch & Laning. From 1858 till 1862 he was in partnership with 
Samuel Hayden. In 1862 he was prominent in raising and organizing the 
130th N. Y. (1st N. Y. Dragoons), in which he was captain. He died of 
typhoid pneumonia in December, 1862, and was buried in the "old " ceme- 
tery of Friendship (see Roll of Honor). He had a rare power of attaching 
men to him and bore prominent part in the educational work of this county. 
His teaching was inspiring and thorough. " These nobler inliuences were 
preparing young men for trying times and momentous action." Prof. Wm. 
H. Pitt says, "Prof. Hatch was a fine scholar and natural orator. Of splen- 
did physique, graceful movements, polished manners, one can readily see 
why the young men under his instruction tried to copy his diction and style. 
His lovable qualities, buoyant spirits, encouragement and kindly advice 
made a lasting impression on his pupils. . He was a ready writer and for a 
time an editor. While listening to his eloquent lectures on geology at Friend- 
ship I was first awakened to a love of that science." Hon. Hamilton Ward 
says: "He was an exceedingly able man, with a high sense of honor, and one 
of the most eloquent men I ever knew." 

The Friendship Academy and Union School was in a measure the outgrowth 
or continuation of the old academy enterprise, though on a materially dif- 
ferent basis. The old district school had ever been maintained in the village, 
but the enlargement of local interests demanded an advance in the character 
of the system of instruction. The dissolution of the academy corporation 
offered an oppportunity, therefore trustees A. B. Bradley, W. A. Hosley 
and F. P. Merriman called a meeting of the qualified voters of district No. 1, 
on July 27, 1887, to determine upon the propriety of a Union Free School. 
The vote showed 172 for, and 51 against the proposition. The first board of 
education comprised S. McArthur Norton, Emmett G. Latta, Mrs. Stella E. 
Rice, B. F. Williamson, Charles H. Hammond, Mrs. A. A. Pearse, Chas. S. 
Lane, Mrs. Kate M. Wellman and George W. Fries. The officers of the board 
were S. M. Norton, president, and Charles H. Hammond, secretary. Sept. 
27, 1889, the board purchased the Smith Church property on Main street, 
west, whereon was erected in 1890 the splendid academy building, which now 
graces its site, one of the most complete structures of its kind in the county; 
and in 1895 an annex was built and equipped in the most modern style, with 
every desirable feature of the model preparatory school. The original build- 
ing cost about $18,000, and the addition about $10,000. Indeed, the state re- 
gency has raised this institution to the dignity and standing of theHigh School, 
by which name it is hereafter to be known. The first principal of the Union 
School was A. H. Lewis; he was succeeded by Frank Cuddeback, and the 



714 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

latter by the present principal, Thomas Hoyt Armstrong, who entered upon 
his duties in September, 1893. On Sept. 3, 1888, George W. Fries was 
elected president of the board of education, and served in that capacity until 
Sept. 5, 1893, when he was succeeded by Emmett G. Latta. The present 
board is composed of Bensley Wilhamson, M. D., Emmett G. Latta, George 
W, Pries, George A. Eaton, Charles B. Wales, Harmon A. Corbin, Frederick 
A. McKee, Darius A. Daniels and Manley W. Hobart. The officers are Em- 
mett G. Latta, president; George A. Eaton, secretary; W. C. Kingsbury, 
treasurer. 

Baxter University of Music. — In a small room on Main street in the 
village of Friendship, in 1853, James Baxter laid the foundation for one of 
the most worthy and beneficial institutions ever established in the town, and 
possibly in the state. In later years, as the school became more 
thoroughly known and understood, the village merchants profited greatly 
by its presence, while local society circles were for the time a constant 
source of entertainment. Had the intention of the founder been preserved 
in the management of the institution it might to-day have been as flourishing 
as in the past, but foreign and unfortunate influences worked disaster and 
the ultimate termination of its life. The original name of this institution 
was " Baxter's Music Rooms," but the first five years of its existence were 
so gratifying in results that the more dignified designation of "Baxter's 
Musical Institute " was adopted. Soon afterward a building was erected 
for the exclusive use of the school, occujDied first in 1861, whereupon the 
name was changed to " Baxter's Institute of Music." However, still greater 
successes were in store for the founder, and at the end of another 5 years 
an addition was made to the building and the name then changed to "Alle- 
gany Academy of Mu.sic." On the 17th of March, 1870, the name " Baxter 
University of Music " was adopted, and continued as long as the institution 
was in existence. As high as 151 pupils have been in attendance at one 
time, from 16 states, 2 territories and Canada. 

Lawyers. — See Courts and Lawyers. 

Physicians. — See Medical Chapter. 

The Fire Department. — In 1881, after much discussion of the subject, 
a village fire department was organized. Among the leading factors in the 
enterprise were A. B. Bradley, Charles S. Lane, S. McArthur Norton, W. 
Ward Rice, Herman Rice and A. J. Wellman. At that time there existed a 
manifest desire to secure an order of incorporation for the village, but no 
direct attempt was then made to do so. However, a fire district was estab- 
lished according to law, by the board of supervisors, in which body Mr. 
Norton was then the local representative. This secured to the department 
maintenance by the district, but the apparatus was purchased by a fund 
raised among the enterprising business men of the village, who contributed 
about $10,000 for the purpose and for the department building. The latter 
cost about $3,000. It was erected in 1881. The first apparatus comprised 
a first-class Silsby steamer, and the A. L. Elliott Hose company's cart and 



Friendship. 715 



hose. The first officers were A. B. Bradley, chief engineer; H. M. Lang, 
Istasst. ;and Theron Cross, 2d asst. The subsequent chiefs have been, E. 
G. Latta, F. A. McKee and T. J. Rose, in the order named. The present de- 
partment is supplied with all necessary apparatus for extinguishing tires, 
and is indeed a well organized and prudently managed body. The equip- 
ment consists of Friendship Steamer Co., No. 1, 32 men; Joe Gorton Hose 
Co., No. 1, 28 men; J. Raymond Wellman Hook & Ladder Co., 30 men; and a 
Steamer Supply company, composed of 18 youths and young men. The 
officers are T. J. Rose, chief; A. L. Wicks, 1st asst.; and A. M. Wellman, 2d 
asst. In the department social organization, M. W. Hobart is president, F. 
R. Utter treasurer and H. A. Corbin secretary. 

Banks. — In 1852 George W. Robinson established a banking depart- 
ment in connection with hfs mercantile business, and after a few years gave 
his exclusive personal attention to the banking interests. Later on, at an 
exact date now lost, Asher W. Miner and Abijah J. Wellman also estab- 
lished a banking house in the village, under the firm name of Miner & Well- 
man. In fact this firm are understood to have succeeded to Gen. Robinson's 
banking business and continued it. At the same time these partners were 
merchants and lumbermen. 

The First National Bank of Friendship (No. 265) was the first bank orga- 
nized in Allegany county under the national banking act. Moreover, it was 
also the direct outgrowth of the former private banks of the village, and A. 
W. Miner, A. J. Wellman and Gen. Robinson were the chief promoters of 
the enterprise. The capital was $55,000, but was soon afterward increased 
to $75,000. At the organization. Feb. 1, 1864, Gen. Robinson was elected 
president; Asher W. Miner, vice president; and A. J. Wellman, cashier, 
The first directors were Geo. W. Robinson, A. J. Wellman, A. W. Miner, 
Wilham Colwell, S. W. Cole, Hugh J.Higgins, M. C. Mulkin, I. D. Hartshorn 
and William H. King. Mr. Robinson was president until Feb. 14, 1870, then 
being succeeded by Mr. Miner, while Mr. King was at the same time elected 
vice president. Mr. Miner was president until the time of his death, May 
30, 1892, and the vacancy in that office was then filled by the election of 
William L. Bowler of Little Genesee. On Jan. 15, 1892, B. Frank Drake was 
elected vice president to succeed Mr. King. This office, however, was 
vacant from March, 1890, to June 15, 1892. The history of this bank is a 
continuous record of business success, the result of careful yet energetic 
management. Much of this success was due to the superior business quali- 
fications of Col. Wellman, who was cashier from the day the bank opened its 
doors for business until his death, June 7, 1889. He was succeeded by his 
son, A. Miner Wellman, the present cashier, who has followed the same 
general lines of operation adopted by his father. During the period of its 
history the net earnings of the First National have about $256,000. The 
present surplus and undivided profit account aggregates $57,000. The pres- 
ent directors are Wm. L. Bowler, B. Frank Drake, M. C. Mulkin, J. W. Scott, 
H. F. Wells, H. A. Corbin, W. C. Kingsbury and A. Miner Wellman. The 



716 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

officers are Wm. L. Bowler, president; B. Frank Drake, vice president; and 
A. Miner Wellman, cashier. 

Tlis Citizens' National Bank of Friendship (No. 2632) was organized Jan. 
25, 1882, with a capital of $50,000. The first directors were S. McArthur 
Norton, W. Ward Rice, Herman Rice, Emmett G. Latta, George L. Skiff, 
George W. Fries, Robert A. Scott, Isaac Amsden, Sidney P. Morse, Alfred 
Whipple and Mortimer W. Potter. Judge Norton was the first president, 
and has continued in office. The same is also true of Mr. Potter, cashier. 
The first vice president, Herman Rice died May 29, 1894, and Robert A. 
Scott was elected to fill the vacancy. Since its organization the Citizens' 
Bank has paid $36,000 in dividends, and its present surplus is $10,000; un- 
divided profits, $13,102.09. The present directors are Emmett G. Latta, R. 
A. Scott. A. H. Wolcott, G. W. Fries, Charles J. Rice, Peter B. Reid, S. M. 
Norton, JohnC. Reed, E. D. Loveridge, A. S. Whipple and M. W. Potter. 

Morris C, Mulkin began private banking in connection v/ithhis mercan- 
tile business about 1868, and continued fifteen or twenty years. He issued 
" shinplasters " in denominations of 5, 10, 25 and 50 cents, every note of 
which ultimately returned for redemption. 

The AUefiarnj Gas Company (limited), incorporated in 1884, with capital 
stock $85,000, and J. H. Snow president. J. M. Finch secretary, Thomas M. 
Towl treasurer, supplies Friendship and Belmont villages with natural gas 
from wells in the town of Wirt. 

The Press. — The Friendsliip Hegister m.a,de its firstappearance in the field 
of journalism on Jan. 1. 1870, under the management of J. J. Barker. It was 
a four page paper, 9x12 inches in size, but was issued somewhat irregularly, 
and as best suited the convenience of its publisher. However, the Register 
soon (1871) passed into the hands of R. R. Helme, who issued it as a Repub- 
lican paper, enlarged its size, improved its " dress and make up " and pub- 
lished it regularly. (He died March 15, 1896.) In November, 1888, it was 
purchased by George Wolf Fries, its present owner and editor, and under 
whose management it has become one of the best independent weekly family 
newspapers in the region, and the largest but one in the county. It circu- 
lates chiefly in the towns of Friendship, Wirt and Clarksville and also has a 
liberal subscription list in other towns and outside the county. 

The Friendship Chronicle, a weekly Democratic newsx>aper under the 
sole projorietorship of Raymond C. Hill, was first issued Feb. 11, 1880. In 
August following, J. Welland Hendrick became associated with the founder 
but in January, 1881, Mr. Hill retired and Mr. Hendrick conducted the pa- 
per until August of that year and then suspended publication. 

Societies and Orders. — Allegany Lodge, No. 273, F. d- A. 31., one of the 
oldest bodies in the county, was organized under a charter bearing date Jan. 
22, 1817. and included in its membership some of the most substantial pio- 
neers and early settlers of the county. The first master was Sylvanus 
Merriman; senior warden, Samuel Derby; and junior warden, John Higgins. 
Among the original members in addition to the officers mentioned, were 



Friendship. 717 



Tolcut Gold, Ira Hickox, Timothy Hyde and Ebenezer Steenrod (these mem- 
bers are named by Washington Steenrod). Early meetings were held at 
Sylvanus Merriman's house and also at Deacon Hill's tavern. This 
lodge was forced to suspend meetings during the excitement of the 
anti-masonic period. The old charter was preserved by Obadiah Rouse 
and the jewels by John W. Baxter. Re-organization was not effected 
until April 25, 1851, when by dispensation. Allegany Lodge, No. 225, 
was brought into existence, with these officers: George W. Robinson, 
W. M.; Josiah Utter, S. W.; Jeremiah Hatch, J. W.; John Utter, treas- 
urer; Obadiah Rouse, secretary and Solomon Scott, tiler. The Masters 
have been: Jeremiah Hatch, John P. Olney, Obadiah Rouse, E. B. Wingate, 
Martin Scott, Jehial Wasson, A. E. Willard, J. B. Harrison, Warren Scott, 
B. L. Wright, W. M. Steenrod, R. McQueen, J. Parish, M. McCormick, R. 
E. Middaugh, R. A. Scott, Don McClure, R. V. Scott, A.E. Willard, H. P. 
Allen, R. A. Scott, Levi C. Pearse, Chas. W. Wasson, A. L. Weeks, D. A. Dan- 
iels and A. Miner Wellman. The lodge now numbers one hundred and two 
members. The present officers are: A. Miner Wellman, W. M.; Frank R. 
Utter, S. W.; Harmon A. Corbin, J. W. ; Charles B. Wales, treasurer; Don 
McClure, secretary; Nelson Reynolds, chaplain; J. M. Britton, S. D.; A. B. 
Hyde, J. D.; T. H. Armstrong, S. M. of C; F. H. McKee, J. M. of C; Alonzo 
Mabie, tiler. 

Va7i Gampen Lodge, No. 258, I. O. O. F., was organized Dec. 2, 1870, with 
seven charter members, and the following officers: W. M. Steenrod, N. G. ; 
J. Parish, V. G,; Wm. H. King, secretary, and Wm. A. Hart, treasurer. The 
lodge now numbers about forty members. The officers are W. H. Gillette, 
N. G.; George Clark, V. G. ; A. J. Gilbert, secretary; M. W. Potter, treasurer. 

HatcJi Post, 'No 241, G. A. R., was organized in pursuance of a charter 
dated Oct. 28, 1881, with these members: Marshall Allen, Hyrum Corbin, W. 
H. Hoff'man, James Witherell, George Benjamin, J. C, Crandall, Hathan 
Lamphear. A. J. Wellman, A. B. Bradley, L. B. Crocker, E. G. Latta, John 
Welch, George Clapp, Theron Cross, S. O. Sawyer, Marshall Wilcox, Alfred 
Coon, C. C. Deming, Chester Scott, W. S. Wilkinson, D. L. Corbin, James 
Howard, Russell Scott and Benjamin Wood. The post now numbers thirty- 
four members, and meets in the old Baptist church building which was re- 
moved from Main street to Mill street for the purposes of the organization. 
Connected w^ith Hatch Post is an efficient and well organized Womans' Relief 
Corps. The present officers of the post are: Charles D. McKee, Commander; 
W. B. Vorhis, S. V. C; Marshall Allen, J. V. C; John Fisher, Q. M.; Laverne 
Burdick, Adjt.; Wm. Wightman, Chaplain; J. T. Burdick, O. of D.; Aaron 
Gayton, O. of G.; J. H. Howard, Q. M. Sergt. 

The Womans' Christian Temperance Union of Friendship, was organized 
Jan. 3, 1882, with the following officers: Mrs. Helen M. Barker, president; 
Miss Cora Norton, recording secretary; Mrs. W. H. Scott, corresponding 
secretary and treasurer. Since its organization the following persons have 
acted as president, viz.: Mrs. H. M. Barker, Mrs. Marion Davis, Mrs. Martha 



718 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

C. Deming, Mrs. Phebe Cross, Mrs. Nellie Wait and Mrs. Eliza B. Fries. The 
present officers are: Mrs. E. B. Fries, president; Miss Mary Britton, vice 
president; Mrs. Ella H. Wells, recording secretary; Mrs. Ella B. Wells, cor- 
responding secretary and treasurer. 

Cemeteries. — From somewhat incomplete records it is learned that the 
first burial ground in the town was that at Nile, though laid out at a now un- 
known date. The cemeteries at East Hill, called the Sortore burial ground, 
and that near the old Baptist church, were opened about the same time, 
probably about 1819, and the first interment in each is said to have been made 
in 1823. However, a still older burying ground existed in the village, the 
land said to have been donated by Othello Church. It was near where Wm. 
Colwell afterward lived. The town cemetery was laid out in 1852, on land 
purchased from Samuel C. Cotton, and was situated in the west part of the 
village. The Catholic cemetery was laid out in 1878. 

Maple Grove Cemetery Association was organized Feb. 17, 1879, but then 
known as the Friendship Cemetery Association. The name was changed in 
the early part of 1886. The grounds include about seven acres of land and 
are beautifully laid out and adorned. 

Mount Hope Cemetery Association was incorporated June 21, 1881, and was 
fully organized by electing officers a few days later. The grounds were ded- 
icated to their sacred purpose, Sept. 14, 1882, and in extent include about 
forty-six acres. They are located southeast of the village. It was in this 
cemetery that Asher W. Miner caused to be erected the beautiful soldiers' 
monument, his free and voluntary gift to Hatch Post, No. 241, G. A. R. The 
unveiling ceremonies were celebrated Aug. 26, 1885. 

The First Congregational Church of Friendship, was organized on the 14th 
day of August, 1835, and was the outgrowth of a Presbyterian branch church 
formed in 1815. However, as early as the year 1813 Presbyterian services 
were conducted in the settlement by Rev. Robert Hubbard, a missionary 
worker in Western New York. The earliest members were Tolcut Gold and 
wife, Mrs. Ira Hickox, and Mr. Holcomb and wife. The first church edifice 
was built in 1836, and was dedicated by Rev. M. May. The first pastor was 
Rev. Wm. Bridgman. The present church edifice was built in 1850. The 
pastors of the Congregational church, in succession, have been Revs. Wm. 
Bridgman, J. F. Bliss, S. Cary, William RusseU, C. Cary, Chas. Crocker, 
Wm. Backus, A. A. Kidder, J. N. Hubbard, Mr. Crittenden, J. Wyncoop, J. 
A. Wells, Wm. P. Jackson, H. M. Higley, Moses Alley, C. S.Leeper, Mr. 
Emmons, Mat Gafney, T. H. Griffith, G. P. Thomas and Chas. H. Silhman. 
The pastor last mentioned died during the year 1895, since which time 
meetings have been irregularly held, the church being without a leader. 

The First Baptist Church of Friendship had its inception in the early mis- 
sionary meetings held in various parts of the town beginning about the year 
1813. One of the many devoted workers in the new region was Rev. Jesse 
Braman, a Baptist, through whose earnest efforts a church organization was 
perfected on the 10th of July, 1822. The original members were Mr. Bra- 



Friendship. 719 



man and his wife, and pioneers James Reed, Moses B. Sherwin, Jonathan 
Savage and Harry Hayden. The first baptisms were those of Mrs. Polly 
Baxter and Nancy McQueen. This being the first regularly organized 
church of the town, it received a deed of a hundred acre tract of land from 
the Holland Land Company. The land was sold for the benefit of the society 
and the avails used in the purchase of a parsonage lot. The first church 
edifice was erected in 1825, and although twice substantially remodeled in 
later years, it was sufficient for the purposes of the society for more than 
half a century. In 1890 it was replaced with the present charch house, one 
of the largest and most complete church structures in the county. Indeed, 
this is the strongest and most religious society in the town, and one of the 
strongest in the county. The present members number 258. In the past 
four new church organizations have been formed from this society. The 
ministers and pastors of the Baptist church have been: Jesse Braman, 
James Reed, Chester Coburn, Benjamin Oviatt, Absalom Miner, J. G. L. 
Haskins, Henry Wightman, Timothy Fuller, Varanes Bemis, J. Halliday, 
Wm. Storrs. O. B. Call, Eliab Going, L. W. Olney, Z. A. Bryant, S. J. Olney, 
S. T. Dean, J. Trowbridge, B. H. Carrier, Moses Livermore, J. Judson 
White, Moses Barker, Wm. R. Baldwin, T. S. Leonard and Nelson Reynolds. 

The Methodist Einscopal Clmrch of Friendship had its origin in the early 
meetings for public worship in the town, and a formal organization was 
eifected soon after the year 1820, although, owing to the loss of the records, 
the date is not accurately determined. However, from first to last, the 
growth of the society has been gradual and continuous, the present member- 
ship numbering about 160 persons. The first church edifice was erected in 
1829; the present edifice in 1853. The early preachers on this circuit were 
Josiah and Austin Cowles, and the first class leader was Isaac Brownson. 
The first pastor after the church was erected w^as Rev. Samuel Woster. 
The present pastor is Rev. S. W. Arnold, who came to Friendship in 1895. 

The Universalist Church of Friendship was formally organized at a meet- 
ing held in the village on the 22d of May, 1854, although Universalist meet- 
ings were held in the town as early as the year 1830. The prominent believ- 
ers in this faith in this locality in early days were Rufus Scott, Casper Niver, 
Squire Leonard and Lewis Smalley and their families. An informal organ- 
zation was made soon after 1840, and the first pastor after that time was 
Rev. I. B. Sharpe. Revs. Judah Babcock, Jason Lewis and Linus Paine had 
previously preached in the town. The permanent society was formed under 
the pastoral care of Rev. F. M. Alvord. The church edifice was erected in 
1855, and was dedicated in February, 1856. In addition to those mentioned 
the pastors of this church, in succession, have been as follows: Rev. Nelson 
Adams, T. C. Eaton, F. M. Alvord, E. W. Fuller, S. T. Aldrich, F. M. Alvord, 
W. H. McGlaughlin, William Knott, Charles Palmatier and J. J. Brayton, the 
latter of whom closed his connection with the church in 1895. 

A society of Spiritualists was formed in Friendship Jan. 1, 1876, and a 
reorganization was effected in 1879. Mrs. Flora Gorton was regularly 



720 History of Allegany County. N. Y. 

ordained a minister of the church. Among the early and prominent Spirit- 
uahsts in the town may be mentioned Phebe Gorton, Samuel Sherwood, 
S. E. Latta, Mrs. Thos. Clark, W. I. Hewitt, Darius Thurston and Adrian 
Latta. 

The Church of the Sacred Heart, Roman Catholic, was organized, and a 
church edifice built, about the year 1880, although previous to that time 
masses had been said in the town by visiting missionary priests. This 
parish has no resident priest, the church being attended from Cuba twice 
each month. 

Nile. — In the early history of the town the southern portion, particularly 
in the vicinity of the creek, was called South Branch, in allusion to the stream 
now so designated. A number of years later a postoflice was established 
here and was named "Nile," in deference to the wishes of the inhabitants, 
a large proportion of whom were Seventh-day Baptists. A tavern was 
opened in this part of the town early in the century, and one of its first land- 
marks was "Bill" Fairbanks. The earliest storekeepers were Green & 
Axtell, and Luther B. Whitwood, who kept a general store from 1840 to 1886, 
and was postmaster most of the time. Ebenezer Steenrod also had a card- 
ing and fulling mill and a sawmill. However, among the hamlets of the 
county, Nile has attracted but little public attention. Indeed, the inhabi- 
tants here have never sought prominence, and are in all respects a quiet, 
industrious, thrifty people. Nearly all are devotedly attached to the 
Seventh-day Baptist faith and live in strict conformity with their belief. 
The present business interests of this locality comprise the gristmill, two 
stores and a few small shops. The merchants are Daniel J. Brown and J. B. 
Whitford, the latter being also postmaster. 

The Seventh-day Baptist Church of Nile was organized chiefly through the 
efforts of Abraham Crandall. The first settlers of this faith came into the 
town in 1821, and in 1824 their religious society was formed. The first 
members were: Abraham Crandall (founder), Samuel and Mary Yapp, Na- 
than Truman, Cary Crandall, Mehitabel Crandall, Benj. and Mary Wigden, 
Edith Aj'-ers, Micah F. and Anna Randolph, Elizabeth Noble and Henry 
Green. Elder John Greene came to the town in 1825 and was the first pastor 
of the church. A lot of land was secured (the gift of Lewis Titsworth) in 
1827, whereon a house of worship was soon afterward built. In 1851 this 
edifice was sold, and the present church home provided. It was raised -and 
enlarged in 1884. This church has a present membership of 166. The suc- 
cession of pastors and supplies has been: Elders John Greene, W. B. Gillette, 
Zeurial Campbell, A. A. F. Randolph, B. F. Robbins, J. C. West, Leman 
Andres, Lewis A. Platts, J. L. Hoffman, B. F. Rogers, U. M. Babcock, Leman 
Andres, W. B. Gillette, C. A. Burdick, L. C. Rogers, H. B. Lewis, M. B. 
Kelly, and G. B. Shaw, the latter being the present pastor. 



Friendship. 721 



About vSome of the People. — Prof. Thomas H. Armstrong was born at Pompey, N. 
Y., Nov. 15, 1864, was graduated at Brockport Normal School in 1890 as president of his class. 
He taught at Pompey Academy for i year, after which he removed to Andover and there 
remained as principal of the school until he came to Friendship in 1893, since which time he 
has been principal of the Friendship High School. Professor Armstrong is superintendent of 
TuUy Assembly and secretary of the summer school. Dec. 29, 1891, he married Caroline M. 
Shourds of Wayne county. She was graduated from Brockport Normal School in 1890. 

Prof. James Baxter, son of John W., and grandson of John Baxter, a maimed soldier of the 
Revolution, was born at Palatine, N. Y., Nov. 28,1819. Family tradition says he descends 
from a Capt. Richard Baxter, of the 6th Irish Vol. Regt., sent to America by the English 
government in 1634 to protect the colonies from the Indians. Both his grandparents were 
brought by their parents to this country from Scotland in infancy. Two brothers of his pater- 
nal grandmother, Seth and David Whitlock of Connecticut, were quite prominent violinists. In 
June, 1820, John W. Baxter and family made their home in Friendship. Here James grew to 
manhood, the third of his parents' 12 children. He had more than the usual hardships of pio- 
neer children, for his was a delicate, sensitive temperament, keenly alive to suffering and enjoy- 
ment and peculiarly susceptible to the many diseases incident. His musical talents early mani- 
fested themselves in attempts to manufacture various musical instruments. At 14 he was 
apprenticed to a master millwright for 7 years study, at 16 he was playing the violin at parties, 
the bugle at '• trainings " and " singing in the choir." He early began to teach singing classes 
gratuitously. These classes developed into paying ones of vocal and instrumental music, which 
by the time he was 21 occupied the entire winter season. He had never seen a music teacher 
(aside from the church chorister), nor a book of instruction except church music books and one 
on bugle music. In 1847 he was sent to Rochester to purchase instruments for a brass band. 
While driving back he mastered each instrument and prepared a score of the new kind of 
music, was competent to teach it, and at once organized in Bolivar the first brass band in the 
county. Before 185 1 he personally organized and instructed brass bands in Friendship, Phillips- 
ville, Angelica, Almond, Nunda, Pike, Rushford, Cuba, Hinsdale, Limestone, Bradford, James- 
town, Smethport and Coudersport, and taught singing schools at Friendship, Phillipsville, Scio, 
Wellsville, White Creek, New Hudson, Nile, Richburg, Ceres, Bolivar, Genesee, Farmer's Val- 
ley, Smethport, Middaugh Hill and elsewhere. He purchased in the 40s (and still owns) the 
first piano forte known in this section. His skill and fame as an instructor had become wide- 
spread, and in deference to urgent requests from many he opened in Friendship, on March, 
1853, the first institution of musical learning in the United States, (see page 714). Prof. Bax- 
ter's methods were original and successful. In connection with his institute he had a publish- 
ing house, from which several musical works written by him were issued, Baxter University 
Record, a monthly magazine, and other publications. Prof. Baxter has had the usual fate of 
men far in advance of their age. He has met with many obstacles and many persecutions. 
But it is pleasant to note that he is now beginning to be appreciated as never before, that as 
musical progress has advanced, he is seen in a clearer light as a true benefactor of the people, 
as a high priest at the Temple of Music, one whose name should be revered and honored. For 
the last 12 years he has given his time to the preparation of a series of instruction books based 
on his methods and 40 years of experience. Eight volumes are now in hand. 

Christopher Breadon, son of Christopher and Margaret Breadon, was born June 17, 1829, 
near Belfast, Ireland. His father died there in 1867 and his mother in 1878. Christopher 
Breadon came to America in 1850, and settled in Friendship and has since made his home here. 
He worked for a few months on the Erie railroad, then purchased a farm a mile and a half 
west of Nile, and now has 220 acres, and conducts farming. In March, 1855, he married Fanny, 
daughter of John Brown, of Ireland. They have 3 children, Hugh J., Wealthy M. (Mrs. Ho- 
mer Kellogg, of Michigan), and Freddie R. Mr. and Mrs. Breadon are members of the M. E. 
church. 

Lavern Burdick, son of Silas and Phebe (Crandall) Burdick, was born in Brookfield, Madi- 
son Co., Nov. 4, 1843. He attended the common schools, worked on the farm and at carpen- 
tering. In 1864, Sept. I, he enlisted in Co. B, 189th N. Y. V. In the winter of 1865 he was 
severely injured in Virginia while building winter quarters, and honorably discharged for that 
disability in March. Mr. Burdick was ill for 2 years after leaving the service. He is a member 
of Hatch Post, No. 241. In 1868 he wi°.nt to Rhode Island and was engaged in the milling 
business there until 1877, he then came to Nile, purchased a gristmill (built by Jacob Stebbins 
over 50 years ago, and has 3 " run " of stone), and has operated it since. In 1875 Mr. Burdick 
married Adelaide E. Hofer. Their children are Floyd M. and Zora F. Mr. Burdick is a mem- 
ber of the Knights of Maccabee's Tent, No. 13, of Friendship. Mr. Burdick is a member of 
the Seventh-day Baptist church of Friendship, and a Seventh-day Baptist in his religious belief. 



722 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

James T. Burdick, son of James T. and Lucinda (Green) Burdick, was born Dec. 12, 1843, 
educated at Alfred Academy, and learned the painter's trade which he st'll follows, employing 
several hands. In 1862 he was one of the org^anizers of Co. G, i6oth N. Y. Vols., and was first 
corporal, next sergeant, then acting first lieutenant. April 8, 1864, he was captured at Pleasant 
Hill, La., and held six months in Texas as a rebel prisoner. In 1865 he returned to Alfred and 
married Lucy Beebe, who died in 1868. Their only child Leana is also dead. From 1874 he 
has lived in Friendship. In 1875 he married Frances Witter. He belongs to Hatch Post, G. 
A. R. Col. James T. Burdick, son of James, born in Alfred, was colonel in the militia for many 
years, and kept the hotel at Alfred some years. He married Lucinda Green. Of their five 
children James T. is the sole survivor. Col. Burdick died in 1843, his wife in March, 1893. 
Both were Seventh-day Baptists. 

Samuel D. Burdick, born in Berlin, N. Y., in 1843, came with his father, William Burdick 
to Wirt in 1836. William died at Nile in 1886. In 1862 Samuel enlisted and served first in, 
Co. B, 23d N. Y. Vols., next in Co. E, 20th N. Y., until discharged in June, 1865. Is a farmer 
and member of Hatch Post. 

David Cornwall came from Otsego county to Friendship in the spring of 181 8. He had 12 
children. His oldest son, Samuel, born 1810, came with his father, married Nancy, daughter 
of Caleb Hazzard, had 12 children, and has always been a farmer, but crippled since 1872 from 
the effects of a tree falling on him. Merritt and Andrew, sons of Samuel, were soldiers in the 
War of 1861-5. 

David F. Carnahan, son of David, was born in Columbus in 1808. His father came to 
Friendship in 1826, and here David F. found and married Rhoda, daughter of Rufus Green, 
who also came here in 1826. David had four children. He died in 1876. His only surviving 
son, Myron W., was born Feb. 23, 1848, and has always lived on the place where he was born. 
In 1872 he married Mary, daughter of Ezra Green. Their only child, Mary, died at two years 
of age. Mrs. Carnahan died July 30, 1874. Myron was engaged in carpentering for many 
years, but now devotes himself to the culture of his farm of 300 acres. Rufus W. Carnahan, 
brother of Myron, was shot April 30, 1890, at Clarksville by Henry Smith and died the same 
day. He has two sisters, Mary J. (Mrs. Merritt Sortore of Wirt), Amanda, (Mrs. Orrin Corn- 
wall of Burtville, Pa.). 

David C. Chadwick, son of John and Caroline (Rouse) Chadwick, was born Aug. 15, 1841, 
at Liverpool, Ohio. His father dying when David was six years old, the lad lived with an 
uncle, Joseph Chadwick, until he was 14, then commenced life for himself. While drilling oil 
wells at Mecca, Ohio, the news of the fall of Ft. Sumter reached him, and with others he walked 
12 miles to Warren and enlisted, first for three months, but soon after for three years, in Co. 
F. 24th Ohio. He was with his regiment in the battles of Cheat Mountain and Greenbrier, 
Va., and went with it to Louisville. Ky. He was in hospital at Cincinnati most of the summer 
of 1862, and was discharged for disability at Louisville, Ky., Dec. 17, 1862. He then went to 
Saginaw, Mich., where he lived 1 1 years and married Carrie L., daughter of John atid Rhoda 
Staples. Children, Eva M. (Mrs. F. C. Reid, of Salamanca), Charles C, John, and Alice (dec.) 
Mr. C. owned a stave and shingle mill in Michigan and dealt extensively in staves. He came 
to Friendship, Aug. 18, 1878, and has been hotel proprietor most of the time since. Is a 
Republican and Odd Fellow. 

Ezekiel R. Clark, (son of Waite Clark), was born m 1816, in Waterford, Ct. In 1823 his 
father moved to Wirt. Ezekiel was educated at Oxford Academy, taught 27 terms of school, 
was justice of the peace for 20 years, merchant and postmaster for 20 years, and notary for 
many years. He married Olive, daughter of Isaac Byam, of Ulysses, Pa. His widow is the 
wife of W. H. Stillman. He also held office of school commissioner and transacted much public 
business. He died July 5, 1889. 

Milo Corbin was born in Chenango county, Oct. 16, 1831. His father, Daniel, came to 
Friendship when Milo was a lad. Milo Corbin married Ellen M. Foster. They had 5 children. 
He died July 16, 1880, his widow survives him. His oldest son, Harmon A., was born in May 
1858, was educated at the public schools of Friendship, and married Myra Miner, adopted 
daughter of Hon. A. W. Miner, and has 2 sons and 2 daughters. Mr. Corbin was unanimously 
elected supervisor in the spring of 1896 of the town of Friendship, where he now resides, re- 
ceiving the nominations of the four political parties for the position. 

John C. Corwin, son of Edward and Olive (Colgrove) Corwin, was born in Cazenovia, Jan. 
5. 1817. In 1822 his farther moved to McKean county Pa., and lived in that state until 1879. 
In 1840 John C. Corwin married Julia A. Robbins of Salem, N.J. They had 8 children, 5 
survive. Their oldest son, Oscar A., who served in the late war, was in the regular army. In 
1879 the family located in Friendship, where Mr. Corwin at once engaged in farming. Ed- 
ward Corwin was born Feb. 13, 1759, on Long Island, and when 17 years old enlisted in the 
Revolutionary army, and served over 6 years and received a pension. He died at the age o£ 



Friendship 723 



91 years. Sept. 15, 1849. His father, Edward Corwin, grandfather of John C, was pressed into 
the service during the French and Indian War, and never returned to his family. John C. 
Corwin departed this life at his home in Friendship, Feb. 9, 1896, having attained the age of 79 
years, Jan. 5, 1896. His widow, 3 sons and 2 daughters survive him. 

Ira and Chauncey Cotton, sons of Thomas, and natives of Middletown, Conn., settled in 
Friendship in Jan., 1816. Ira married Sallv, daughter of Talcott Gould a Revolutionary soldier. 
Their daughter, Sally A., married, first. Deacon Franklin Taylor, and resided in Friendship, 
where he died. She then married his brother. Dr. Austin Taylor, and moved to New Hudson 
and later to Appleton City, Mo. She died in 1890. Her brother, Samuel C, born April 7, 
181 5 in Delware county, came here with his parents and has since made his home here. He 
married when 19, Almira, daughter of Cady R. Walker of Cuba. Children. Helen (Mrs. C. 
Drew), Hubbard and Henry. Mr. Cotton was " justice " for 30 years, and held prominent local 
offices. In 1855 he was chosen sheriff on the first Republican ticket nominated in the county 
and has been an active Republican since. He helped organize the first temperance society of 
Friendship Ira was assessor many years and died Jan., 1864, his wife some years earlier. 
Chauncey Cotton, son of Thomas, married Anna Gould and had 7 children. Their son Charles 
was a captain in the civil war, killed at Pleasant Hill, La. Talcott, also a soldier, died soon 
after the war. Cyrus H., son of Chauncey, now in Minnesota, was a prominent teacher in the 
Academy here more than 40 years ago. Samuel C. Cotton has lived in the town probably 
longer than any other man except Kendrick Hyde. Hubbard Cotton, son of Samuel C, owns 
the original Cotton homestead. 

Samuel P. Crandall. son of Paul and Prudence Chapman Crandall, born Dec. 13, 1792. m 
Rhode Island, married Jan. i, 1818, Anna, daughter of Ezra and Anna Park Crandall (born in 
Connecticut Nov. 9, 1797, died at Friendship March 22, 1869) and died at Friendship Sept. 17, 
1878. In 1822 he located as a farmer in Wirt, as it is now called, purchased and developed 150 
acres of land. Children : Samuel P., born Sept. 7, i5i8, married Marian A. Weber ; Ezra, 
born June 8, 1820, married Mary Smith, who died in Milton, Wis., in 1888 ; Anna (Mrs. Rod- 
ney T Smith), born Dec. 13, 1 821, died May 6. 1855; John C, born Oct. 22, 1824. married 
Mrs. Sarah A. Green (widow of Philo), who died Nov. 3, 1889; Almira (Mrs. W. W. Gardner), 
born Aug. 19, 1827; Rosena (Mrs. Elisha Hyde), born Sept. 30, 1829; William D., born March 
4 1832, married Sarah C. Coon ; Charles C, born April 3, 1834, died Oct. 24, 1895 ; Henry W., 
born June 22. 1836, died Julv 31, 1856 ; Laura M. (Mrs. M. T. Mills), born Feb. 8, 1840. The 
first three were born in Brookfield, N. Y., the others in Friendship except Mrs. Mills, who was 
born in Wirt. John C. Crandall. fourth of above children, attended common schools and Alfred 
Academy, learned the carpenter trade and was engaged in it until 1864 when he enlisted in Co. 
A, 85th N. Y. Regt., and served until the close of the war. He built the Crandall opera house 
in' 1 866, by contract, for James Ba.xter, and is its present owner. Forming a partnership with 
Professor James Baxter and A. N. Johnson under firm name of J. Baxter & Co., they estab- 
lished the Allegany Academy of Music. Mr. Johnson retired in 1870, and the school became 
the Baxter University of Music. The firm published musical books, etc. Mr. Crandall is now 
a dealer in real estate and musical goods. 

Abram C. Crandall, born in Rhode Island, came to Alfred in 181 5, and six years later set- 
tled in Friendship. His wife was Sarah Maxson, of Brookfield, N. Y. He was agent for the 
Holland Land Company, and sold 50,000 acres for them. He was also an extensive farmer and 
died about 1870. He was a Seventh-day Baptist. His sons were Enoch A. and Enos P. 

William A. Dayton, son of Stephen, was born in 1829, in Pittstown, N. Y. He came to 
Wellsville in 1851, and was a farmer and teamster. In 1852 he married Cynthia S. Harrison. 
They have two children, Frank L. of Buffalo, Clara (Mrs. S. V. Vaughn of Cuba). Mr. Day- 
ton has been highway commissioner of Friendship for two terms, and has been selling agent 
for the East Friendship cheese factory, which was built by a stock company about 1870, and 
makes about 75,000 pounds of cheese annually from the milk of 200 cows. 

John Fisher, son of John and Clarissa (Palmer) Fisher, was born March 3, 1832, m Willet. 
He lived on his father's farm until of age, when he moved to Triangle, and was engaged in 
farming until Sept. 4. 1861. when he enlisted in Co. D. 76th N. Y. Inf. He was discharged Oct. 
29, 1863, on account of wound received at the battle of Gettysburg. Mr. Fisher was in most 
of the battles in which his regiment was engaged, and was captured at the battle of Bull Run, 
but was paroled on the field. He was sergeant major, then 2d lieutenant, and, when discharged, 
was I St lieutenant. He is a member of Hatch Post. After the war he lumbered in Broome 
county In 1866 he settled in Friendship, and in 1880 engaged in the foundry business. He is 
a member of Cuba Lodge. I. O. O. F. His children are, Sarah (Mrs. George Castiday of 
Lincoln, Neb.}, Ross and Kate. _ ^ xt ^r 

Henry N. Foster, son of Hosea, was born May 7, 1846, in Greene, Chenango Co., N. Y. 
The same year his people settled in Clarksville, and he has since been a resident of the county. 



724 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



In 1872 he married Frances Pearse, daughter of Levi Pearse, and settled in Friendship. He is 
a farmer and dealer in live stock. Children : William H., Charles L., and Clarence C. The 
family attend the Baptist church. 

George W. Fries, born at Mifflinburg, Pa., Oct. 17, 1836, was educated at Lewisburg (now 
Bucknell) University, from which he was graduated in 1856. In June, 1857, he was appointed 
station agent of the Erie railroad at Friendship and held that position until his resignation in 
May, 1888. In November, 1888, he purchased the Friendship Register and has since been its 
editor and proprietor. He married first, Oct. 21, 1871, Mary Fredonia Sisson, of Friendship. 
She died May 22, 1882. Children : Alice Wolfe, born July 30, 1874, died Oct. 29, 1880, and 
William H., born April 21, 1878. On Oct. 3, 1883, Mr. Fries married Eliza B. Crandall, of 
Little Genesee. No children have blessed this union, and they adopted a babe, Pearl, who has 
reached 10 years. Mr. Fries has been long connected with the Board of Education and was 
some years its president, is in accord with those elements that promise the uplifting and better- 
ment of mankind, and has been secretary of the County Historical Society from its organization. 

Albert E. Gray, son of Sylvester and Harriet (Wood) Gray, was born in NevV Hudson, 
Aug. 26, 1865. Receiving common school advantages of education, he commenced business 
for himself when but 19 as a farmer. In 1893 he established a livery business in Friendship 
where he resides. 

William Akers Hart was born in Groton, Tompkins county, March 30, 1829, the fourth of 
seven children of Joseph S. and Theodosia (Stout) Hart. The father was a hatter, a thrifty 
man, who gave his children a fair common school education. However, when thirteen years 
old William came to Friendship with Joseph R. Reynolds and wife, arriving here March 22, 
1842. In 1848 he became a permanent resident of Allegany county and in 1850 began to 
" clerk it " for Arba Wellman, and later worked for I. D. Hartshorn and Colwell & Co., in the 
same capacity, but in 1857 bought Colwell's interest and became partner with Mr. Hartshorn. 
In 1859 he sold and soon established a general store on the present postoffice site, where he 
continued business until 1886. For many years Mr. Hart has been connected with the local 
postoffice as postmaster or deputy, and also has been town clerk for several terms. Jan. 16, 
1855, William A. Hart married Mary S. Hickok. They have three children: Lewis Eugene 
(died Jan. 30, 1883), Bertha (died in infancy), and M. Grace, of Friendship. 

Lansing Hobart, a native of Cortland county, settled in this town, and conducted farming. 
He died in September, 1884. His widow is a resident of Friendship. His children are, Charles, 
an engineer on the Erie railroad, lives in Hornellsville ; Arthur, Harriet, Ella and Manley live 
here. Manley W. Hobart was born June 12, 1849, and has been a lifelong resident of the 
town. He owns and occupies the old homestead and has been principally engaged in farming. 
In 1891, in company with Mr. Latta, he bought out the original stockholders of the Friendship 
Creamery, organized in i89r, put in a separator which has a capacity for making 1,000 pounds 
of butter per day. In 1893 it averaged 300 pounds per day. In 1880 Mr. Hobart married 
Mary Guilford of Belfast. Their children are, Lotta, Ruth and Seth. Mr. Hobart was elected 
supervisor in 1891 and 1892 on the independent ticket. He is a member of the society of 
Maccabees. 

Abel Hosley. who married Mary E., daughter of William Niver, was born in Massachu- 
setts, in 1822, came to Friendship at the age of 15 with his parents who settled on a farm on 
East Hill. After his school education was finished he engaged in lumbering in Bolivar where 
he resided for several years, then returned to Friendship where he died in 1879. The children 
of Abel and Mary E. (Niver) Hosley are, W. A. Hosley of Seneca Falls, Mrs. I. E. Briggs of 
Erie, Pa., Mrs. B. G. Sisson of Cuba and Miss Lillian Hosley of Friendship. 

James H. Howard, son of Leonard and Nancy (Wood) Howard, was born June 9, 1831, in 
Kirkland, Oneida Co. In 185 1 he married Mary E. Osborne, came to Friendship and worked 
at all kinds of mason work. They had one son Olon G., who married Cornelia Brown, had one 
child, Edith A., and died in 1889 aged 42. Mr. Howard married, second, Mary, daughter of 
Wm. Potter, Aug. 8, 1862. Mr. Howard enlisted in Co, K, 136th N. Y. S. V., served through 
the war being mustered out Sept. 22, 1865. He was in 22 battles, and was made a prisoner 
March 19, 1865, and confined two weeks in Libby Prison. After the war he continued mason 
work until 1888. In 1869 he bought the farm which has since been his home. Is a member of 
Hatch Post, G. A. R., and has belonged to Van Campen Lodge, I. O. O. F., since 1871. 

Timothy Hyde born in Vermont, settled 1804 at Belmont as a farmer. His wife's maiden 
name was Philcna Davis. They had six children. Evander Hyde, son of Timothy, was born 
in Friendship, April 9, 1818. His business has been farming and lumbering, devoting over 11 
years to the latter. He married Amanda, daughter of Wiiliam Niver, in 1831. Children, Nellie 
(Mrs. Lorenzo Waite), Mary C. Mrs, Hyde is a daughter ot one of the pioneers, and is con- 
nected with numerous early families. 



Friendship. 725 

Alvia Jordan, son of Andrew and Charity (Nessell) Jordan was born Jan. 5, 1838, in Cherry 
Valley, N. Y. When ten years old he came with his father and family to Wirt and was brought 
up a farmer. Andrew Jordan died in 1879, his wife in 1869, 8 children. Alvia enlisted in 
September, 1861, in Co. C, 85th N. Y. Vols., was made serq:eant, was with his regiment in its 
numerous engagements until he was captured in April, 1864, at Plymouth, N. C, was held 
prisoner in Andersonville prison several months, then at Charleston, S. C.andwas transferred to 
Florence, S. C. From this prison Mr. Jordan and others escaped in December, 1864, and while es- 
caping lived for 22 days on raw meat, etc. When within 40 miles of Union troops they were recap- 
tured, placed in the state prison at Wilmington, N. C, and confined in a room eight feet square 
with no light except what came through tne keyhole. In a few days they were taken to Salis- 
bury, N. C. from whence Mr. Jordan again escaped and reached the Union line at Goldsbor- 
rough, N. C, was exchanged and reached home March 28, 1865, "a living skeleten." He was 
wounded in the right thigh at the battle of Fair Oaks. Is member of Hatch Post, G, A. R. 
He married in 1865 Hannah, daughter of Thomas J. and Nancy M. (Thurston) Van Velser. 
Five children, three living. 

Nathan Lanphear, son of Samuel, was born in Alfred. Sept. 8, 1825. His father came 
from Rhode Island in 1820 with wife Hannah Potter, and a cart and yoke of oxen. He was 
both tailor and farmer and built a gristmill in 1836 which he conducted for years. He died 
Jan. 17. i860, his wife Sept. 24, 1878. They had 13 children. Nathan attended Alfred Academy, 
came to Nile in 1841, learned carpentry, and followed that and merchandising until he enlisted 
in September, 1861, in Co. C, 85th N. Y. V. He was in the numerous engagements fought by 
his regiment until April 20, 1864, when he was captured at Plymouth. N. C, conveyed to An- 
dersonville prison and confined until Sept. 11, 1864, then taken first to Charleston, S. C, then 
to Florence. He was paroled Dec. 6, 1864, when his weight had been reduced from 164 lbs. to 
90. He was mustered out Feb. 10, 1865, as commissary sergeant to which he was promoted in 
1862 Mr. Lanphear married Susan, daughter of Harvey and Polly Axtell. Six children. Is a 
member of Hatch Post, G. A. R., and has been assessor 13 years. 

Isaac S. Latta, son of Samuel and Elizabeth (Shults) Latta, was born in Geneva, N. Y., in 
1706. He had 3 children by wife Polly Ford. He settled in Friendship Feb. 13, 1833, and 
died in 1867, his wife survived him 9 years. Their eldest son, Samuel E„ born in Geneva Aug. 
II, 1822, came to Friendship with his parents, and Sept. 12, 1844, married Orpha E., daughter 
of Joseph Gorton. Their children are, Emmett G., patent expert, Adrian C, inventor, Samuel 
S., machinist, Frank F., bank cashier, George, an engineer of the Erie railroad, Sheridan G., 
telegrapher for the Erie railroad, and Mrs. Lillie Hinman. Mr. Latta has cleared ovar 100 acres 
of land, is a farmer, and has also kept a store of agricultural and dairy implements for 12 years. 

E. G. Latta, son of S. E. and Orpha (Gorton) Latta, was born in Friendship in 1849. He 
received a common school education, and, in 1864, when but 15, enlisted without his parent's 
consent. His father went to President Lincoln and obtained a special order for his discharge. 
After staying at home two months he re-enlisted and served until the close of the war. He 
then enlisted for the third time, and served a full term in the regular army, finally leaving the 
service in 1869. His first enlistment was in Battery A, ist U. S. Art., the second, Co. I, ist 
N. Y. Dragoons, the third, Co. A, 4th U. S. Infantry. He was with the engineers who located 
the first Pacific railroad through the Rockv Mountains, and was one of the first organized party 
of white men who explored the Yellowstone Park, was in the Black Hills before the discovery 
of gold there and was twice wounded by Indians in that country. In civil life he has become 
known to the mechanical world as the inventor of more improvements in bicycles than any two 
other men. Over 100 patents have been granted on his inventions, 80 of which apply to bicy- 
cles, and there is not at present made a bicycle that does not contain some of his inventions. 
He has been a member of the Board of Education since it was organized in 1887, and president 
of the board for several years. He has been chief engineer of the Fire Department, and is a 
member of Hatch Post, G. A. R., Allegany Lodge, F. & A. M., and Van Campen Lodge, I. O. 
O. F. In 1889 he married LuraM. Brown of Wilcox, Pa. Children, Jefferson B., F. Raymond 
and Hubert I. 

Adrian C. Latta, second son of S. E. and Orpha E. Latta, was born Dec. 5, 1851. Being 
of ingenious turn of mind he made many practical improvements. Among those coming into 
general use was the twisted barb wire fence, twisting together two wires and inserting barbs. 
In 1 86 1 he constructed 10 rods of wire fence on posts driven by his father. This fence stood 
many years in front of the farm homestead in Wirt. After leaving the farm he engaged in the 
furniture, harness and patent business in Friendship with his older brother, E. G. Latta. He 
was a charter member (April 6, 1881) of the Friendship Fire Department. A. C. Latta and M. 
W. Hobart constructed and equipped the first successful creamery in the county, and also intro- 
duced the Babcock milk test, paying the patrons the real value of the different grades of milk. 
This factory runs the year round and is one of Friendship) 's best enterprises. Mr. Latta married 



726 History op Allegany County, N. Y 

April 6, 1887, Josephine, daughter of Nathaniel and Sarah Brown of Elmira. Their children 
are : Adah E. and Jo Gandhi. 

William McClumpha, son of William (a native of Scotland), was born in Florida, N. Y., 
Nov. 20, 1 82 1. He married Charlotte A. Davis of that town, and in 1852 they became residents 
of Angelica. Three years later Mr. McClumpha purchased the farm he has since made his 
home." He has long been an agent for Westinghouse & Co., sells threshing machines, and 
other farming implements. He was the first president of Mt, Hope Cemetery organization and 
still occupies that position. He and his family are members of the M. E. church. He has one 
child, Mary. 

Hiram McClure, son of James, came from Pompey, N. Y., where he was born, to this town, 
locating 2^2 miles from the village, where he lived until 1830, when he retured to Pompey and 
died in 1857. He gave his farm here to his sons, James and Hiram. In 1857 the latter sold his 
interest to James who died in 1867. Then Don McClure, youngest son of Hiram, born Dec. 

11, 1845, at Pompey, bought the place, the same year married Helen Mather ; one child, Leo- 
nore (Mrs. Alonzo B. Hyde). Mr. McClure was made a mason at Binghamton in 1866, where 
he took the chapter degrees also. He has been secretary of Allegany Lodge F. & A. M. since 
1878, was S. D. in 1872. J. W. in 1873 and 4, Master 1875 and 6, P. S. of Valley Point Chapter 
1895 and 6. 

Henry Niver, of German descent, came from Sidney, Delaware Co., to Friendship in 1816. 
His wife was Catharine Badger. They had 8 children. Mr. Niver was a farmer. He and his 
wife both died m town. William Niver, son of Henry, came with his father, married Keziah, 
daughter of Josiah and Mary (Ketchum) Utter in 181 8 and settled in Friendship on the farm 
where his father resided, now owned by Wm. Crandall. Mr. Niver was a farmer and lumber- 
man. He died April 29, 1875. Mrs. Niver died July 21, 1864. Four of their 3 sons and 5 
daughters are living : Amanda (Mrs. Evander Hyde), Mary E. (Mrs. Abel Hosley), Experience 
(Mrs. Joseph Cole of Jamestown), Emma (Mrs. Charles Knight of Brockwayville, Pa.), William 
(a leading physician of Brockwayville, Pa., where he died in November, 1893, after a long and 
very useful life). 

Timothy Pearse, M. D., was born in Bristol, R. I., Feb. 14, 1774. and died in Friendship, 
Feb. 27, 1852. He was a graduate of Yale College, made a specialty of surgery. He was the 
first physician of the town coming here when the country was a wilderness, and had a large 
practice extending many miles. He married Rhoda Holbrook, of Uxbridge, Mass., who died 
April 4, 1 841. Of their nine children three survive : Alonzo, now living in San Bernardino, Cal., 
Lydia, widow of Francis Graves, and Marilla, widow of Rev. Nathaniel Hammond. These 
ladies reside in Friendship. Their brother Richard, born in 1799, died in 1894 at Moline, 111., 
at the age of 95 years. Levi W. Pearse, son of Dr. Timothy, born Dec. 11, 1805 in Sudbury, 
Vt., came when a small boy with his father to Friendship, married Sarah C. Heath, of Pike, 
Wyoming Co., and was an extensive lumberman and farmer. He was a leading Baptist, and 
died Dec. 22, 1892. His wife died Jan. 31, 1870. Two of their children attained mature years ; 
William W. (died in 1866), Frances (Mrs. Henry N. Foster). Rev. Nathaniel Hammond was 
born at Newport, R. I. He was educated for the ministry, was a Congregationalist and preached 
many years in this county. Ten years at Wellsville, 5 years at Belmont, and 8 at Scio. Mr. 
Hammond married Marilla, daughter of Dr. Pearse. They had two children, Mary, a graduate 
of Geneseo Normal School, and Wm. C, who died in 1855, 3 years old. Mr. Hammond died in 
1864. Francis Graves was born in Rupert, Vt. He married Lydia, daughter of Dr. Timothy 
Pearse. He was a farmer, and for many years (21) resided in Warsaw. He died August 27, 
1888. His widow resides in Friendship. 

John C. Reed, son of Milton and Hannah (Swartwood) Reed, was born at VanEttenville, 
N. Y.. April 8, 1827. About 1847 his father, who was a cloth dresser by trade, settled in Boli- 
var and engaged in farming. Milton Reed died in May, 1893, aged 95 years, his wife died Dec, 

12, 1893, aged 91. Their married life covered a period of 69 years. John C. Reed married in 
1867, Parthenia J., daughter of Joseph and Eliza Rolfe. They have 2 daughters: Lelia M., 
and Susie A. Mr. Reed is a broker and a farmer. He was supervisor of Bolivar 2 years, town 
clerk 6 or 7 years, 3 terms justice of the peace, 9 years assessor, road commissioner 3 years, and 
assessor in Friendship 2 years. Politically he is a Democrat and has taken an active part in 
politics. 

Peter B. Reid, son of James and Lilley (Boyd) Reid, was born Oct. 22, 1831, in TynTwll, 
Penbedw Hall, Wales, during a short residence of his Scotch parents at that place. The family 
emigrated from Scotland to Quebec in 1834 and finally located in Lockport where Mr. Reid was 
educated and a resident for 40 years. Here he married, Feb. 23, 1865, Carrie Hess, who died 
Feb. 24, 1880, leaving two children. Carrie A. (Mrs. H. F. Macomber of New London, Conn.) 
and Frederic C, now telegraph operator for the Erie Railroad at Salamanca. Mr. Reid mar- 
ried, April 23, 1884, Mrs. Elizabeth L.KIole, widow of Stephen W. Cole, and has since been a 



Friendship. 727 



resident of Friendship. Mr. and Mrs. Reid dispense a generous hospitality in their pleasant 
home, and are quite extensive travelers, making frequent trips to the south, west and the east. 

Walter D. Renwick born in Ontario county, April i8, 1825, came with his father, Adam 
Renwick, to Cuba in 1826. Educated at Friendship and Alfred Mr. Renwick commenced in 
1845 his long career as teacher, teaching 72 terms in Friendship, Belmont, Cuba and Scio, part 
of the time in Friendship Academy. He was school commissioner of the Southern District of 
the county six years and town superintendent of Amity four years. Oct. 18, 1853, he married 
Mrs. Abigail Gorton, daughter of Joseph S. Norton, also a successful teacher. (Her son, Sheri- 
dan Gorton, Esq. of Smethport, Pa., has been district attorney of McKean county.) Mr. Ren- 
wick has 4 children, Ellena (Mrs. Frank L. Dayton). Lizzie (Mrs. W. H. Flint), Walter Norton 
and Edwin McArthur. 

Clarence D. Robinson, son of David S., was born in Ceres, Pa., March 23, 1848. His fathei' 
was a blacksmith, followed that trade for years in Wirt, settled in Allentown in 1859, where he 
died Feb. 3, 1888. Clarence D. married, first, Clarissa Howe, second, Mary Goodell, third, 
Nettie Reed. Commencing business life as a merchant in Allentown, Mr. Robinson was later 
an oil producer and is both a farmer and a carpenter. He has resided in Friendship since 1883, 
and was elected assessor in 1892. 

Rufus Scott, a native of New Hampshire, came from near Burlington, Vt., to Friendship in 
1807, where ultimately four of his brothers, Chester, Waitzell, Justice and another, settled very 
early. Rufus was a pioneer farmer and a merchant in the little country crossroads hamlet 
which is now Friendship village. He had a large family and three sons, Alfred, Rufus and 
Hollis. The latter removed to Hinsdale, Cattaraugus county, in 1835, where Scott's Corners 
bears his name, and became prominent as a business man and in politics. Rufus was a lum- 
berman on the Honeoye. Alfred Scott was about 21 when he came with his father to this 
county. He developed a fine farm out of a tract of the primeval forests. In 1840 he became a 
hotel keeper at Friendship village, removed to Wirt in 1844 where he was owner of a large 
tract of land which he transformed into broad cultivated acres, temporarily, however, removing 
to Bolivar, where for two years he conducted lumbering in California Hollow and was owner of 
the Lower California mills. Returning to Wirt he resided on his farm until 1870, when, the 
family circle being broken up by the death of his wife, he made his home among his children 
until his death, which occurred in Friendship in 1880. He was an Universalist, and a Jefferso- 
nian Democrat until 1856 when he became a Republican. He married Anna Harrison, a native 
of Massachusetts and a distant relative of the Presidents Harrison. Their children were 
Malvina, Warren L., Irene (Mrs. L. C. Newton), Rufus (see Courts and Lawyers), Russell H., 
Henrietta, Walter, William H., Charles and Anna. 

Solomon T. Scott, son of John the Scotch emigrant, was born in Pittstown, N. Y., married 
Lucy Washburn, daughter of Daniel, in Saratoga county, and moved westward, locating first in 
Ontario Co., then in Yates Co., and last, in 1831, in Friendship, where they developed a fine 
farm from the forest. Mr. Scott died about 1862, aged 88, and his wife about 1858. Joel W. 
Scott, son of Solomon T., was born Sept. 4, 1824, and when 13 was put out to work for Dr. 
Dana and for 9 years he labored for him and Levi Pearse, his father receivmg his wages. Liv- 
ing then with his father until 1852 he purchased the homestead which was his home until 1883, 
when he made his residence in Friendship village. He is extensively acquainted throughout 
the county as he was a large dealer in stock, and known as one of the county's best farmers. 
He has been 3 times married, in 1850 to Mary Phillips who died in 1854; in 1856 to Phebe, 
daughter of Rev. Chester Coburn, who died in June, 1892 ; Jan. 10, 1892, to Mrs. Alice Stout. 

Russell H. Scott, son of Alfred and Anna (Harrison) Scott, was born Nov. 8, 1840, in 
Friendship, where he attended the common schools, and assisted in the farm labor. At the 
age of 20 he enlisted in the 85th Regt. N. Y. V., as a member of the regimental band and was 
with it until discharged Aug. i, 1862. He re-enlisted in 1865 as a member of the brigade band. 
November 12, 1864, Mr. Scott married Martha, daughter of David and Susannah McCorniick, and 
in 1873 he settled on the farm where he now resides. He has 2 sons, Alfred and Ralph. 

Don C. Scott, son of Wm. H. and Helen (Purple) Scott, was born in Friendship, Sept. 14, 
1869. He descends from the numerous family of Scotts who early settled in Friendship. He 
attended Friendship academy, then as a musician accompanied various theatrical troupes 
through all the United States and Canada. He finally became a photographer through his 
artistic tastes cultivated by his experiences with a kodak. He made his first professional sitting 
July 8, 1894, and has now an assured position as an artist and a fine gallery. He married, Dec. 
22, 1892, Rowine Wellington of Presque Isle, Maine. 

W. L. Smith, D. D. S., son of Simeon B. and Minerva E. (Mix) Smith, was born June 25, 
1867. He was a student of Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn., and was graduated from 
the dental department in i8gi. The same year he located in Friendship, where he is now in 
practice. In 1892 he married Lizzie Oliver of Wellsville, one child Oliver. Stephen R, Smith, 



728 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

grandfather of W. L., born in Berlin, N, Y., married Hannah Baker, and settled in Alfred in 
1826 or 7. They had 7 children. Simeon B. was born in 1832, married Minerva E. Mix, and 
had 4 children of whom survive Ida A. (Mrs. A. Hood) and Dr. W. L. Smith. 

William Stevens, born in Berkshire Co., Mass., July 4, 1808, married Hannah Hosley, 
settled in Friendship in 1834 as a shoemaker, had children : Nancy E. (Mrs. Asahel Sprague), 
Helen (Mrs. Wesley Lambert), Arthur, Alice (Mrs. George Young), and Frank. Mr. Stevens 
died Nov. 24, 1868, his wife April 12, 1881. 

Benj. Stickney from Boston, Mass., came here about 1823, located two miles north of the 
village. He was a Harvard graduate and son of a wealthy Boston merchant. He married 
Sarah Van Horn and had nine children. The youngest son, Lewis, born Feb. 20, 1841, served 
from 1 861 to 1863 in Co. B, 23d N. Y. Vols., and in 1866 married Sarah, daughter of David 
and Lavinia (Cooper) McGibeny of West Almond. Is a farmer and member of Hatch Post 
G. A. R. 

William H. Stillman, son of Clark G. and Electa (Howard) Stillman, was born in Norwich, 
Ct., July 31, 1828. In 1829 his father moved to Ceres where they lived until 1840, when Mr. 
Stillman moved to Wisconsin. In 1849 William H. Stillman came to Genesee and worked at 
shoemaking until 1862, when he enlisted in Co. C, 85th N. Y. Vol. April 21, 1864, he was cap- 
tured at Plymouth, N. C, taken to Andersonville prison, was kept there until November, then 
went to Charleston, S. C. and after remaining 4 weeks was taken to Florence, S. C, and re- 
leased March i, 1865, and discharged June 6, 1865. From 1885 Mr. Stillman was a citizen of 
Friendship. In 1854 he married Susan Tanner of Genesee. They liad 5 children. 
She died July 5, 1887. His second wife was Mrs, E, R. Clark. Mr. Stillman was assessor 
of Friendship 3 years, prominent in the G. A. R. circles and adjutant of the post. 

Judge Josiah Utter, son of Josiah and Mary (Ketchum) Utter, was born in Delaware Co. 
In 1809 his father brought his family to Friendship where he passed his life. Josiah, Jr., received 
the educational advantages of the common schools only and engaged in farming. Elected a 
justice of the peace he soon attracted attention by his decisions and was kept in this office 25 
years, and was appointed by the governor judge of the county court, holding that position three 
terms. He was an early Freemason, and an active Democrat until 1856, when he became a 
Republican. In 1819 he married, and had 11 children. He died in 1877, his wife in 1886. 
Lewis Utter, oldest son of Judge Josiah, was born Sept. 27, 1820. He has always been engaged 
in farming in this, his native town. Owns a farm of 150 acres, has held offices of highway com- 
missioner, assessor and collector. He has always been a Republican. He married in 1851 
Sophia, daughter of Justice Scott. Three children : Ellen (Mrs. Chas. L. Blossom of Hinsdale), 
Elizabeth (Mrs. M. L. Middaugh),Fred L. who resides with his father. 

A Miner Wellman, son of Col. A. J. and Kate (Miner) Wellman, was born in Friendship, 
Nov. 13, 1866, was graduated from Yale University in the class of 1888, and the same year 
entered the employ of the First National Bank of Friendship. In January, 1890, he became its 
cashier and now holds that position. He married June 28, 1893, Hattie Prior Baldwin of 
Saxton's River, Vt. They have a daughter, Kathryn Ivel. Mr. Wellman is a Baptist and 
Republican. 

William Wightman was born in Herkimer Co.. Oct. 31, 1823. His father. Dyer Wight- 
man, was a soldier of the War of 18 12, and son of Zerubbabel, a soldier of the Revolution who 
attained to 105 years of age. In 1828 Dyer Wightman came to Steuben Co., with wife, Phebe 
A. Ormsby, and family. William learned and pursued harness-making until 1864 when he 
enlisted in the 85th N. Y., was corporal, and served until the close of the war. With this 
exception he has carried on harness-making at Nile since 1849 •" the same shop. Is member 
of Hatch Post, G. A. R., and has been its chaplain since 1891. He married in 1849 Amelia 
Enos, daughter of Harry. Three children. Harry Enos, son of Joseph and Amelia (Holcomb) 
Enos, was born April 14, 1805, in Sheffield, Conn. In 1867 he married Sarah, daughter of 
Abram Crandall and made his home on the farm he then purchased where he now resides. 
His wife died Dec. 9, 1883. Both were Seventh-day Baptists. Children : Sarah A. (Mrs. Henry 
Rogers of Genesee), dec, Amelia (Mrs. Wm. Wightman), Antoinette (Mrs. Edward Potter of 
Independence) dec, Henriette (Mrs. Samuel T. Burdick). 

Alvan Richardson, who passed the last years of his life as a resident of Friendship, was 
earlier a prominent citizen of Wirt. His portrait and biographical sketch appears in connectioa 
with the history of that town in this volume. 



-teS^^ 





//-U-^t. 



Friendship. 729 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

HON. ASHER W. MINER. 

Eon. Asher Wetmore Miner descends from the Connecticut Miners 
whose first American ancestor was Thomas Miner, who, born at 
Chew Magus, England, in 1608, came to America 1630, settled in New Lon- 
don 1645, was a most prominent man in Eastern Connecticut until his death 
in 1690. The name dates back to about 1350 when Edward III. bestowed it 
upon "Henry the Miner " of Mendippe Hills, Somersetshire, for his prompt 
efficiency in furnishing the King's escort as he embarked on that famous 
invasion of France in which he won the noted battle of Crecy. Mr. Miner 
was son of Absalom and Mary (Gorton) Miner, and was born Dec. 15, 1814, 
in Brookfield, Madison county, and in 1829 came with his parents to the 
wilderness region now developed into the charming town of Friendship. 
(His father was born at Guilford, Conn., and his mother in Rhode Island.) 
The journey was attended with more of difficulty than would now appertain 
to a journey around the world. The young lad met the difficulties of pioneer 
life with self-reliant courage, acquiring a practical education at the primi- 
tive schools, and at the home fireside, under the teachings of his religious 
parents, the principles of a Christian faith, broad, deep, humanitarian, 
which ever inspired and controlled his actions through a long and useful 
life. The environments of his youth tended to form a strong, self-restrainedj 
well-balanced character, the hardships and dangers stimulating his innate 
energy, indeiDendence, industry and frugality, until in manhood he combined 
the best elements of a successful business life with rare soundness of judg- 
ment and keen financial ability. In his twenty-third year, Sept. 21, 1837, he 
married Electa R., daughter of Dea. Samuel S. and Lydia Carter, a lady em- 
inently fitted for a helpmeet for him.* In 1844, Mr. Miner became an ex- 
tensive lumberman at Richburg, and soon engaged also in merchandising. 
He was successful. His business relations brought him into the best social 
circles in an extensive area, and he won the leading men to a personal regard 
that uniformly developed into warmest friendship. In 1860 he made his 

* Mrs. Electa R. (Carter) Miner was born at Victor, N. Y., Nov. 20, 1819, and came with her parents to 
Friendship in 1S23. She was more than an ordinary woman. In the 55 years of her wedded life thcisands 
of friends and strangers passed in and out of her presence and bore loving testimony to the simplicity, sereni- 
ty and kindness that were innate parts of her nature. Baptist by birth and education she was a mother in 
Israel to the Friendship church. To her the sisters first came for counsel and aid, and under her roof the 
Baptist minister and missionary found warmest welcome. Her liberality claimed the good of all sects as her 
brethren, numbering many of them as warm friends, and by her amiability and charities she illustrated the 
virtues that all sects hold in equal esteem. " For a woman to live a long life like Mrs. Miner, employing the 
intimate and confidential service of many domestics and others, and to have them all pay warm tributes of 
love and admiration to her, is the highest test of character and the highest flight of eulogy." For many years 
the Miner homestead, " Welcome House ", was the center of the social manifestations at Friendship, and here 
her great motherly heart lovingly poured its choicest treasures upon the circle of children and friends and dis- 
pensed a regal hospitality to " the strangers within her gates." When she died in October, 1892, the whole 
community was wrapped in gloom. 



730 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

home in Friendship and never after changed his residence. He now had 
many hnes of business activity, but he was a natural financier and became 
largely interested in banking. In 1870 he was elected president of the First 
National Bank of Friendship (which he aided in organizing in 1864) and held 
that position until his death. May 30, 1892. He was a stockholder and a di- 
rector in the First National Bank of Cuba, First National Bank of Salaman- 
ca, First National Bank of Franklinville, Citizen's Bank of Arcade, and First 
National Bank of Exeter, Neb. He was a stockholder in the First National 
Bank of Olean, and in other banking institutions. He was one of the larg- 
est operators in the Allegany oil field, and realized much wealth from his 
investments in this direction. He was a strong Republican in politics, held 
many positions of local trust in his party, stood high in its councils, repre- 
senting it frequently in county and state conventions, and in 1888 was a 
member of the Electoral College from New York. His Republicanism came 
from his intense patriotism. Many a soldier's heart was cheered by him, 
many a veteran can tell of kindly remembrance, and the magnificent sol- 
dier's monument crowning Mt. Hope cemetery, erected by his munificence, 
is a perpetual memorial of his loyalty. He was public spirited in all matters 
and expended thousands of dollars to advance the growth and importance 
of his village and town. With his death the Baptist society lost its chief 
pillar. His purse was ever open to its demands and he discharged every 
yearly deficit with ostentatious generosity. He paid one-half the cost of 
erecting the beautiful church, and his wise counsels and fatherly sugges- 
tions were important factors in the prosperity of the denomination. In the 
home circle was most completely shown the loving intensity of his nature. 
He was a tender and devoted husband, an affectionate father and a most 
gracious entertainer, ably seconding his charming wife in her charming 
hospitality. Without children, and with hearts overflowing with parental 
affection, they lavished it upon the children of others. They adopted three 
daughters, who are now Mrs. Kate M. Wellman, Mrs. Myra E. Corbin and 
Mrs. Ella Lockwood. These were given the recognition, the rights, and the 
affection of real children, and they returned the love they received in full 
measure. Mr. Miner's private gifts were many and munificent to individu- 
als, to churches and to schools. The soldiers' monument cost $5,000, the 
new church received $14,000, and Cook Academy was given in no stinted 
measure. Among the bequests in his will were these : to the Baptist church 
$3,000 and a cancellation of $2,000 indebtedness held by him, to Mt. Hope 
Cemetery Association $10,000 and a cancellation of a large indebtedness, to 
Rochester Theological Seminary $5,000, to the Baptist Home Mission Society 
$5,000, to the Baptist State Convention $5,000, to Cook Academy $3,000, to 
the Home of the Friendless, New York city, $3,000. Mr. Miner was one of 
the i^lain people, who sympathized deeply with all men as long as they re- 
spected their own manhood. With wise and discriminating liberality the 
truly needy found in him one ready to listen to their appeals and take their 
cases into helpful consideration. His acquisition of wealth was largely 






d^^^^^^^O^-^L-^C^^^^-^ 



Friendship. 731 



achieved by following his early formed habits of persevering diligence, 
strict economy and thoughtful investigation, and he was a notable specimen 
of the American growth which starts from poverty and develops into 
wealth, statesmanship, wide personal influence and financial control. When 
he was stricken down with heart disease on May 30, 1892, Memorial Day, 
one of the strong men of Western New York passed away, and the sun 
never set on a sadder day to his personal friends. 

HON. ABIJAH J. WELLMAN. 

Col. AbijaJt Joslyn Wellman, son of Dr. Jonas and Keziah (Joslyn) Well- 
man, was born at Friendship, N. Y., on the 6th of May, 1836. His father was 
born in Vermont in 1799; removed to Friendship in 1829; was an eminently 
successful physician, and died in 1844 in the prime of manhood and in the 
midst of a highly useful career. Col. Wellman engaged in mercantile busi- 
ness in 1855, before he was of age, in banking in 1860, and in lumbering in 
1864, in all of which pursuits he was actively engaged up to the time of his 
death, June 8, 1889. In 1882 he invested heavily in the oil business and was 
a large and successful operator in the Allegany oil field. At the organiza- 
tion of the First National Bank of Friendship in 1864 he was chosen its 
cashier, which position he held continuously to the time of his death. The 
great success of this fii-m and reliable banking institution is due largely to 
his wise judgment and financial ability. In September, 1861, he was ap- 
pointed captain of a company of volunteers, recruited by himself, and which 
subsequently became Company C, 85th N. Y. Vol. At the organization of 
the regiment he was appointed major. His comrades in the army bear witness 
at once to his soldierly and patriotic zeal; his determination to magnify his 
office and not let his office magnify him; and his incessant care for the rights 
and comfort of the individual soldiers. He rose to the rank of lieutenant-colo- 
nel, March 14, 1862; was soon entirely in command of his regiment. Under the 
hot fire of the battle of Fair Oaks, May 31st, where he was leading his regi- 
ment, he received a double wound in the head, and for more than 26 years 
carried a conspicuous scar as a reminder of that memorable and desperately 
fought engagement. By reason of disability resulting from this wound, he 
was honorably discharged March 24, 1863, with the rank of lieutenant- 
colonel, and the privilege of re-entering the army at any time with the same 
rank. Colonel Wellman exhibited the forethought, the fertility of resource 
and the quick adaptation of ends to means, that mark the successful states- 
man, and his services were demanded for public office. For seven succes- 
sive years, commencing in 1866, he was supervisor of Friendship and the 
last three years of the time was chairman of the board of supervisors. In 
1872 he was a delegate to the national Republican convention at Philadelphia 
that nominated Grant and Wilson. In 1873 he was elected state senator 
from the 30th senatorial district, which then comprised the counties of Alle- 
gany, Wyoming and Livingston. His service in the senate continued from 



732 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



1874 to 1877. He was assigned to four committees, being a member of the 
one on banks and internal affairs of towns and counties, also chairman of 
those on militia and state prisons. In the latter capacity he had much to do 
with the framing of the legislation relating to reform in the state prison sys- 
tem under thcamended constitution, which resulted in a change very favor- 
able to the revenues of the state. Mr. Well man was the leader and stay of 
the Baptist church of Friendship; was long one of its trustees and its clerk; 
was deacon for 14 years. He was Sunday school superintendent for 24 
years, and bore the expenses of the school with lavish outlay. He was a 
benefactor of Cook Academy, of Rochester Theological Seminary, and of 
numberless other objects of Christian aid and charity. Colonel Wellman 
married, Sept. 17, 1863, Kate, daughter of Hon. Asher W. Miner, who, with 
four children, A. Miner, Blanche, Roy and Guy, survive him. A son, Ray- 
mond, died suddenly some years since just as he was entering a promising 
manhood. Thus briefly is recalled the public life, military and civic, of one 
of God's noblest men. In whatever he undertook, he showed not only far-see- 
ing and practical wisdom, but a pertinacity of will that never yielded, a pa- 
tience in investigation that never wearied, a system and order that brought 
others to his standard of efficiency. He had an integrity that was never 
questioned, a loyalty to home, family and friends that was never excelled. 
He was faithful to every trust and left the rich legacy of a pure and stainless 
record. 

" We see him as he moved, 
How modest, kindly, all accomplished, wise, 
With what sublime repression of himself. 
And in what limits, and how tenderly ; 
Not making his high place a lawless perch 
Of winged ambition, nor a vantage ground 
For pleasures: but through all this travel of years, 
Wearing the white flower of a blameless life." 

STEPHEN W. COLE. 

The Coles were among the early families in America. In 1637, James 
Cole was an inhabitant of Plymouth, Mass., and was granted lands on the 
south side of Leyden street. Cole's Hill, Plymouth, probably takes its name 
from John Cole who was there in 1699. The Pilgrims who died in the winter 
of 1620-1 were buried on that hill, and the survivors planted corn over their 
graves that the Indians might not perceive how their number was diminish- 
ing. Members of this family subsequently removed to Scituate, Plympton 
and other towns in Plymouth county. The Coles were early in the eastern 
part of Connecticut, and Ambrose Cole who died in Norwich in 1690 came 
from Scituate, Mass. A branch of the family settled in Hopkinton, R. I., 
and here, Dec. 7, 1814, Stephen Welcome Cole was born. His parents be- 
longed to that plain, intelligent and very worthy people known among them- 
selyes as Friends and to the outside world as Quakers, and when, at the age 
of four, Welcome was left fatherless, the mother showed wonderful qualities 



Friendship. 733 



of intelligence, industry and parental care in the bringing up of her nine 
children so that they should be fairly well educated for the arena of life. 
Welcome received the advantages of a two years' course at the noted 
Friend's School at Providence, R, I., and it never had a more attentive or 
receptive student. He chose civil engineering as his profession and in 1835 
was employed on the first projection of the Erie railway and was one of the 
civil engineers whose skill and labor established a feasible grade for the 
passage of the iron horse through the almost unbroken wilderness of the 
Southern Tier. Mr. Cole purchased a farm of 700 acres in Cuba about four 
miles from. Friendship, and marrying in New London, Conn., July 27, 1839, 
Elizabeth L., daughter of Rowse B. and Ruth (Morey) Browning, he brought 
his young bride thither and made this farm his home until 1867 when he re- 
moved to Friendship. (On her mother's side his wife descended from one of 
the earliest families of Newiwrt. R. I.) Their children were Stephen W., 
Jr., born Dec. 26, 1842, died in Rochester, March 11, 1864, and Sands, born 
April 6, 1848, died Aug 3, 1879. Mr. Cole survived his youngest son but 
three months, dying Nov. 5, 1879. Mrs. Cole later married Peter B. Reid, 
and is still living, one of the best types ever existing of the warm-hearted, 
generous, noble women of the pioneer period. She can look back and in her 
recollections trace step by step the transformation of this county from a 
forest wilderness to a smiling series of farms, gardens, villages and other 
manifestations of the highest civilization. Mr. Cole possessed a winning 
personality with great kindliness of heart, and rare business sagacity. As 
a farmer his untiring energy early gave marked results in abundant crops 
and choice herds, and fortune smiled upon his labors. About ten years 
previous to his death he sold the farm on which he had so long resided and 
purchased the Levi Pearse farm two miles west of Friendship village which 
was his home until his death, which occurred while he and his family were 
boarding at the American House in Friendship. During his residence at 
Friendship he aided many a poor man in building a home, and was one whom 
such sought for counsel and advice. His circle of acquaintance extended 
far and wide and among all classes, and by his death the public, and especi- 
ally the Congregational church, of which he was an exemplary member, 
suffered a great loss. He was a man of wonderful strength and endurance, 
of fine and cultivated intelligence. He could accomplish the work of two 
ordinary men and yet keep in touch with the best literature and the current 
events of the day. This great activity was combined with unswerving in- 
tegrity and purity of character, and the world was truly better for his 
having lived. 

HERMAN RICE. 

Herman Rice, son of Josiah and Sophronia (Tuttle) Rice, was born of 
English ancestry in Salisbury, Herkimer county, June 28, 1837. In the fer- 
tile county of his birth he attained his majority as a wide-awake, progressive 
farmer, making agriculture not only his occupation but a scientific pursuit. 



734 History of AlleCxAny County, N. Y. 

He loved the fields, the out-of-door life, the comfort of the large herds of 
cattle under his care, and, when he and his young wife made their home in 
Cuba in 1867, it was to apply his cultivated intelligence in the demonstra- 
tion of what an argiculturist might and could accomplish ou Allegany soil. 
He purchased the John Cole farm, in a few years made his home in Friend- 
ship, and, as his increasing needs demanded, added farm after farm to his 
possessions, until his accession of broad acres made him the largest land- 
owner of the town. These farms were conducted by him with unvarying 
annual success, and he so educated his tenants that many of them became 
successful farmers on their own lands. He was one of the few agriculturists 
who possess the secret of successful tenant farming. He was not merely a 
farmer but also a keen business man. His farms were conducted on busi- 
ness principles, and in all departments of industry he left the impress of 
a mind of more than usual perception and sagacity. During the first few 
years of his residence here he made weekly trips throughout this section to 
purchase cheese, and became thoroughly conversant with the county, its 
resources and its people. Perhaps no other resident of the county had so 
wide an acquaintance. When Cuba became an established weekly cheese 
market Mr. Rice was regularly in attendance as the selling agent of several 
factories. From his wide acquaintance with the various sections of Alle- 
gany county no one was better acquainted with its resources and their pos- 
sibilities of development, and he frequently stated that its natural condi- 
tions of soil, water, and climate fitted it to become the equal of the rich 
dairying section of Herkimer county. The truth of this he demonstrated 
in his own success. He was a leader in other business fields. Among the 
first to profit by the discovery of oil in the Allegany oil field, his sagacious 
power of forecasting events led him to sell his holdings when prices were at 
their highest. He had a natural and intuitive grasp of the principles under- 
lying financial success and would have acquired an assured position in the 
front ranks of operators on Wall street had circumstances located him in 
their midst. He was an active, busy man, V7as twice supervisor of Friend- 
ship, served on the village board of education from its organization, was one 
of the organizers and president of the Farmers' Co-operative Insurance 
Company for many years, and was director and vice president of the Citizens' 
National Bank of Friendship from its organization. He was among the 
founders and one of the first vice presidents of the Allegany County His- 
torical Society, was greatly interested in preserving all things appertaining 
to the pioneer period, and had a large store of historical reminiscences of 
early days in the Mohawk Valley. He was an extensive reader of good lit- 
erature and a discerning critic of merit in authors. He possessed fine per- 
sonality, courteous and winning manners and a host of friends. He w^as con- 
servative, careful and of sound judgment, had a fine legal and judicial mind, 
weighing values and possibilities with an accurate mentality, and, as a re- 
sult, was rarely the victim of a poor investment. When he died. May 29, 
1894. the town and county lost one of its ablest citizens. Mr. Rice married 




d4 



J^To^'v--". (a--u^ 



CZ-Cx.^ 



Friendship. 735 



Stella E., daughter of Col. T. H. and Eliza (Salisbury) Ferris, Sept. 29, 1862.* 
Their children were Joseph F. (see Courts and Lawyers) and Charles. 

WILLIAM H. PITT, A. M., M. D.. PH. D. 

Prof. Will la ill H. Pitt was born at Short Tract, Sept. 8, 1831. (See Gran- 
ger.) He was the oldest boy in a farmer's family of ten children, and his edu- 
cation was acquired by himself through sheer pluck and energy in the con- 
stant face of difficulties. He left the farm when 16, "clerked" in a store 
some years, attended Alfred Academy three years, taught at Friendship 
three years, was graduated at Alfred in 1857, and entered Union College in 
1858, graduating therefrom in 1860. He was then principal of Spencer, N. 
Y., High School for two years (1861-2), held the same position in Angelica 
Academy in 1863-4-5, was superintendent of education at Warren, Ohio, in 
1867-8, principal of Friendship Academy in 1869-70-71, was professor of 
physics and chemistry in Buffalo High School from 1872 to 1890, was State 
Analyst of Foods and Drugs in 1881 and 1882, and has been professor of 
chemistry and physics in the Medical Department of Niagara University 
since May 26, 1884. Union College gave him the degree of A. M. in 1863, 
the Medical College, University of Buffalo, that of M. D. in 1879, and Alfred 
University that of Ph. D. in 1886. He has contributed papers to the Buffalo 
Medical Journal and other periodicals and to the published proceedings 
of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and has been 
a member of the Buffalo Society of Natural Science since 1872, doing origi- 
nal work on the Journal and adding specimens of his discovery to its col- 
lections. He has described and illustrated several new fossils found near 
Buffalo, among them the first pteregotus (it is believed) found in this coun- 
try. His greatest fame has been acquired in his applications of geology and 
chemistry to petroleum. In both these fields he is high authority. His 
declaration that oil existed north and east of the Oil Creek district was fol- 
lowed in 1876 by the opening of the Bradford field. In 1880 he published a 
map of the region along the line dividing the head waters of the Allegany 
and Genesee rivers where he also declared oil to exist. His theory guided 
O. P. Taylor in opening up the Allegany oil field. After many fruitless ex- 
periments Prof. Pitt discovered a method of extracting the sulphur from 
the nearly valueless Ohio and Canadian oils. The result has been to revolution- 
ize the petroleum industry in those fields and to many times enhance their 
value. His process is in successful operation at the Paragon Oil Refinery at 
Toledo, Ohio, of which he is consulting chemist. His scientific knowledge 
has been rewarded with a handsome competency, which neither tends to 
slacken his desire for study nor to change his genial unostentatious nature. 
He is and ever will be a thorough student. He married Miss Elizabeth 
Church of Friendship, May 18, 1861, and their summer home in this village 
is one of the attractive centers of society. 

* The name Ferris is from Leicestershire, England, from Henry, son of Gualchelme de Feriers, house of 
Feriers, to whom William the Conqueror gave large grants of land in the three shires of Stafford, Derby and 
Leicester. Jaffrey Ferris, made freeman in Boston in 1635, was one of the first settlers of Greenwich, Conn., 
and is the ancestor of many of the name now in America. 



736 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



HUME. 

BY JOHN S. MINARD. 

(mAPTER LXI. 

HUME, one of the north towns of the county, named probably from the En- 
ghsh historian, Hume, is bounded north -by Pike and Genesee Falls in 
"Wyoming county, east by Granger along the northern part, the Genesee 
river forming the boundary, and along the southern part, the Transit Meri- 
dian or eastern line of the Holland Purchase; south by Caneadea and west by 
Center ville. In the subdivision of the " Purchase " Hume was township 6. 
range 1. Augustus Porter in 1798 ran the boundary hnes of the Caneadea 
Indian Reservation which forms a large percentage of its area, and in 1805 
William Peacock subdivided all that part not included in the Reservation, 
the Cottringer and Church tracts and "Brooks Gore," into lots and made 
no mention of any white man in its territory. The rich flats along the river 
■were then sparsely populated with Seneca Indians who had quite a village on 
land now the farms of the late Ebenezer Kingsley. Jim Hudson, the chief, 
lived in a hut where Dwight Gillett's house is. This village was called Wis- 
coy, an Indian word which Geo. H. Harris said signifies "under the bank." 
I however think it took its name from Wiscoy creek, " Wis " being the fifth 
Indian numeral, and "Koya," or "Coy," a stream or creek. Wiscoy, the 
creek of five falls. The early whites called it " Indian Town," and also the 
"Lower Caneadea Village." 

At the first settlement Hume was part of the then extensive town of An- 
gelica. Nunda was created March 11, 1808. and Hume was part of its terri- 
tory until March 6, 1818, when Pike was erected. The first town meeting 
of Nunda was appointed to be held at the house of Peter Granger in present 
Pike. From 1818 our town was part of Pike until March 20, 1822, when 
"Township 6, Range 1," was organized as the town of Hume, and the first 
town meeting was " to be held at the house of Gardner Cook " (on the farm 
now owned by Stanley MiUs.) In 1846 the "Gore " was added. This is that 
portion of Hume lying east of the Transit, made up of parts of the Church 
and Cottringer tracts. The population of the town was largest in 1860, 2,142. 
From 1870 when it was 1,920 it has remained nearly stationary being 1,922 in 
1875, 1,905 in 1880 and 1,913 in 1890. 

The surface is largely hilly upland, watered by the Genesee river, the 
East Koy, Wiscoy, Cold and Sixth- town creeks which empty into it from the 
west, the Sixth-town discharging into Cold Creek and Rush Creek (Indian 
Shon-ivit-te-ye) on the east, and by several smaller streams. Many mill sites 
were found on these streams, notably the Wiscoy, which affords one of the 
finest water privileges in the county. The soil along the river was deep and 



Hume. 7; 

very rich, especially adapted to the growth of corn. The hills presents 
almost every variety of soil. Some of the best uplands in the state are foun- 
within its limits, and some of the poorest. The original timber was of grea 
variety, comprising nearly every kind to be found in the state. The rivei 
flats varying in width are bordered by hills rising more or less abruptly 
from 150 to 200 ft. Hume contains 24,274 acres and has an equalized assessed 
valuation of real and personal estate of $619,663. Owing to its numerous 
streams and water powers it has a number of business centers. Since the 
abandonment of the canal and the construction of the railroad along its line, 
the village of Fillmore has made considerable growth and ranks first of ail 
the shipping points between Rochester and Olean. Rossburgh, in early cana 
days " Mixville Landing," later Wiscoy Landing, is another railroad statio: 
whose shipments are considerable. There are five postoffices in the town. 
Hume, Fillmore, Rossburgh, Wiscoy and Mills Mills. 

Roger Mills from Canajoharie was the pioneer of Township 6, Range 1, 
if not of the whole town. He stopped for a time in Pike, then a hamlet of 
half-a-dozen families, and there hired one Olin for $1 to pilot him through the 
Wiscoy valley in search of a mill site. The " upper falls," with its splendid 
water power, facilities for dams, mills, etc., determined his location, an' 
going to Batavia in the spring of 1806, he "articled" lots 36 and 37 am. 
returned at once to build his log cabin. In 1807 a dam was made and a saw- 
mill erected, the first in a large extent of country, to which settlers of Arcade 
even came for lumber. (Elisha Johnson in his report of his survey of the 
Cottringer tract made in 1807 says, "The last season a sawmill was erected 
on Wiscoy creek and is now in operation," but I find no verification of this 
statement.) A gristmill was built in 1808. The castings and stones were 
brought from Albany on sleighs the winter before by George Mills and Zach. 
Keyes. Men came from Geneseo, 30 miles away, to aid in the " raising," as 
did also some of the Caneadea Indians. This mill was of quite primitive 
construction with its gearing, cog-wheels, etc, mostly made of wood. Its 
erection was however an important event, and the first products of many a 
new settlement were ground at this mill, people bringing grain of their first 
crop even from Great Valley, 40 miles, fetching their "grist" on the 
" drag," the only vehicle the wild wood paths admitted to pass. This was 
a small crotched tree of which the prongs or branches served as runners 
and the body as tongue. Upon this a yoke of oxen could draw quite a 
"grist " in winter or summer. Many grists were carried in bags on horse- 
back. The Indians also used this mill, abandoning their mortar and pestle. 
They called it "Tes-e-o-na," and the sawmill "Kan-is-te-o-ni." This th-\v 
never patronized. Too much labor was needed to cut and draw the logs. 

It was in this old mill that Elisha Mills in 1809 offered for sale the firsv 
stock of goods. Part of it was used as a dwelling, and it is said that Goodwin 
Mills was there born. In early winter months a stock of venison and deer 
skins accumulated, quite a trade being driven with the Indians, with a loaf 
of bread given for a ham and two for a saddle of venison. When a load of 



History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



7?^' 
enison, deer skins and peltry had been collected, some enterprising mem- 

'.'BT of the " settlement" took the best team and marketed them in Philadel- 
jhia or in Albany. The mill was also the pioneer hotel, those coming from 
^reat distances to the mill would (if detained) be furnished with food by the 
£niller, and would use sacks and bags of grain for beds. Here also were 
distributed the few letters and fewer papers brought from the nearest 
postoflfice. 

Many were the purposes served by that historic old mill. Soon after 
the War of 1812-14 laeonard Smith sold army clothing here. The same old 
w \l and frame stands to-day, having been added to and altered from time 
'\ Ume. For over 80 years its "noisy wheel" has seldom ceased its 
^ \lutions, and seldom, until within 10 years, have other than some of the 
tVLillses run it. The builder of this mill returned to Montgomery county in 
1811 where he died. His son Roger came the same year with his family and 
moved into the mill, adding a shanty for a kitchen. A frame house was soon 
built, the first, or one of the very first ones of the town. This house still 
stands, changed however by repairs and enlargements. It was long owned 
by Philo Mills, who resided his 80 years of life here, dying in 1892 in the 
same room where he was born 

In the summer of 1812 Caroline Russell, daughter of Samuel and Mrs. 
Permelia Penfield, taught the town's first school in abuildingnow the stable 
of the barn of the late Philo Mills. S. M. Russell, Esq., of Cuba, is probably 
the only surviving pupil. George Mills opened the first log tavern in 1815 a 
few rods above the Philo Mills house. He was frozen to death and buried in 
the orchard back of his house. Of course a blacksmith was demanded early 
at the mills and by the settlers, and Thomas Pyre was the pioneer. The 
few letters and very few newspapers sent to the pioneers at first came from 
Geneseo postofiice, later from Warsaw, then from Perry and for some years 
before Hume had an ofllce Pike was the one most used. Several of the set- 
tlers would join in subscribing for a paper. Its contents would be read 
aloud in the store and then in turn it would visit all the families. 

In 1816 Roger Mills and Bailey put up a carding mill a few rods below 
the gristmill, conducting the water used in that mill thither in a flume. This 
was the first carding mill in a wide territory. Machinery for dressing cloth 
was later added, and here the home-made cloth of the settlers for miles 
around was colored, dressed and pressed. By 1817 or 1818 grain was abund- 
ant and a distillery was built on the place now owned by Stanley Mills, 
/another soon after at the " Mills," and yet another between Mills Mills and 
Wiscoy. These manufactured from the surplus grain whiskey which was 

ich easier to market than the grain, 

^^ / In 1809 Joshua Skiff from Otsego county, paid Mr. Mills |5 for his 

jance on lot 38 (he having " booked " it), secured the article for the north 

^rt, and commenced clearing. By fall he had three acres cleared and sown 

• ) wheat. Then he had a " raising " at which were 11 men and two women. 

(e completed his cabin, went back to Otsego, returned early in 1810, with 



Hume. 739 

his wife, Lucina Wright. Four of their five children were born in that old 
cabin. M. W. Skiff born in 1810 it is believed was the first white child born 
in Hume. Two of his children survive, the venerable Joseph B. of Hume 
and Harvey J. of Iowa. 

Moses Robinson came from the same place and with Mr. Skiff, located 
on lot number 32. He was one of those energetic men, who always make a 
mark in the world. He did his share in clearing and enclosing the broad 
lields which to-day distinguish the " Moses Robinson place "and the cluster 
of convenient and extensive farm buildings, with the spacious and imposing 
residence, attest the enterprise as well as some of the peculiarities of 
"Uncle Moses." 

Edmund Skiff about 1810 or 1811 settled upon lot 24. His wife was much 
afraid of the Indians who often visited them. When the war broke out in 
1812, she would not remain so near the frontier and they returned to Otsego. 
After the war they settled in Pike. 

Hubbard Puller, who traded his place for Edmund Skiff's, came in 1812 
and "articled " lands near by, and at one time owned quite an extensive 
tract. John and Benj. Puller were his sons. 

Luther Couch about 1814, at first teaching a school, a little north of Hub- 
bard Puller's, whose daughter Sylvia he married, commencing housekeep- 
ing in Pike near where his father lived, but soon " taking up " land on lot 24, 
which he cleared and made to blossom with great crops. He was one of the 
best of farmers, and the farm is yet known as the " Couch Place." When in 
1844 or 5 the country was aglow with the excitement of the " Pourierite As- 
sociations," he sold his farm and invested all in the " Mixville Association " 
and became its president. It ran for a few years and closed in disastrous 
failure. Mr. Couch lost largely and lived but a few years. 

Aaron Robinson, brother of Moses was early upon lot 32, the part known 
later as the "Alger place." He was for years a man of extensive business 
operations. The house and other buildings he erected at a large outlay of 
time and expense. He put up a tannery a short distance north of the house, 
over 100 feet long, also conducted a boot and shoe shop, and employed a 
number of men. Generous to a fault w^hile in prosperity, hospitable alike to 
friends and strangers, he acquired a habit which brought adversity, and 
he was compelled to part with his place and it came into the hands of Adol- 
phus Alger, who resided upon it until his death. 

In 1815 there were not more than 20 families in town. Quite an impetus was 
then given to settlement for some ten years when scarcely a man could be 
met who did not come from Otsego or Montgomery counties. Edward Doud, 
father of Orrin, James and John, came in 1815 locating on lot 31 and pay- 
ing $4.50 per acre, the highest price as yet paid in the township, most of it 
having sold for $2.50. Wm. Doud, son of Orrin, still owns the ancestral 
acres, one of the best farms in town, while Geo. E. Doud, son of James, 
possesses the "Old Homestead." Charles Trail, whose sons Rhyla and 
Luman are still remembered, came also in 1815, locating on lot 7. 



740 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



The next day after his arrival Trail caught a wolf and shortly after 
helped to kill two bears, which had been caught in traps. One Damon was 
a very successful trapper, catching bears, wolves and large numbers of 
smaller game. A good yoke of cattle would then bring from 150 to $60, the 
best of three-year-old steers from $18 to $20. The Holland Company for a 
few years sent their agents over the " Purchase " to receive and collect cat- 
tle and receipt the price agreed upon on their land contracts. This was 
quite an aid to the settlers, as the country was not yet visited by the pro- 
fessional drover and many were hard pressed for the means to make their 
payments. These cattle were driven to Philadelphia and sold. 

Pioneering on the " Gore. " While these settlements were being made 
the Indians still occupied the river flats of the reservation. The tortuous 
course of the stream, exposing such a vast surface to evaporation, the con- 
sequent fogs and malaria, the prevalence of fever and ague, conspired to 
retard settlement on the river. Elisha Johnson notes in 1807 that " N. Dixon 
had made improvements on lot 109," now in part owned by Geo. Gillett and 
Judson Stockwell. He was probably the pioneer of that part of the town. John 
Bellinger from Otsego came in 1809, " taking up " land on lot 112, now owned 
by John Gleason, Dexter Carpenter from Vermont, came in 1819, taking 
part of lot 111, now owned by Frank Gillett. 

When Gillett came he found a log house tavern kept by one John Potter 
near the river on the land he purchased. This was on the first road opened 
up the river, which followed substantially the " Indian Trail." Being cen- 
trally located, when this region was all Nunda the elections and town meet- 
ings were there held, as well as the first company and " general training. " 
Capt. Samuel Russell used to command at those dispays. 

Esau Rich, a Cheeny, Daniel Hendee, a Fancher, Joel Stockwell and a 
Hawley, were also early settlers east of the "Transit," and north from the 
Reservation, and one Lay was there found who had been for 30 years leading 
a roving life with the Indians. Jason Goodell taught the pioneer school on 
the " Gore " in a log barn near Mrs. Dudley's place. Maria Belhnger suc- 
ceeded him there. The settlers generally went (in 1819) to Hunts Hollow to 
trade, and get their mail. The nearest physician was Dr. Moses on "Oak 
Hill " and ague the prevailing complaint. There were no bridges and ford- 
ing was the usual way of crossing the river, except in high water when 
canoes were used and in winter ice bridges were the popular thing. Some 
deaths by drowning occurred, and many exciting adventures and hair 
breadth escapes are related by the pioneers upon the river. The first re- 
ligious services were held by Eld. Lindsley, a Presbyterian missionary. 
The first ground used for cemetery purposes was the "Carpenter burying 
ground." The first interment was that of Phebe Coon about 1834. 

Hume Village. (Cold Creek)* — During the progress of the events we 
have just related, the site of this village was dressed in its natural loveli- 

*I am largely indebted to Mrs. Sarah Ingham, landlady of the Ingham Tavern for so many years, for in- 
formation concerning the settlement of this village. 



Hume. 741 

ness. The beautiful waterfall, the perpendicular walls of rocks, with trees 
alon^ its banks almost interlacing above its foaming waters made a picture 
of great beauty. This great " mill privilege " soon caught the eye of Roger 
Mills, and was " taken up " at an early day, the " article " covering lot 28. 
He held itforanumber of years, later he exchanged his right with one Bush- 
nell for a yoke of oxen. This was but a short time before settlement was 
commenced. It was again transferred before it was deeded. It is not known 
that Bushnell ever lived here. 

Sylvanus Hammond, from Middlebury, was the pioneer of Hume vil- 
lage, erecting the first house, a log one on the site of residence of J. Van- 
Dresser about 1820. Ira Higbee early built a log house where James Ing- 
ham lives, but soon sold to Ebenezer Utley from Butternuts, Otsego Co., who 
came in January, 18ii3. James Drake made a clearing and erected a shingle- 
shanty style of cabin, nearly or quite on the site of Henry Wells' residence, 
and Luther Merchant from Middlebury, put up a log structure about on the 
site of the Henry House. Mr. Ingham bought his interest and occupied the 
house in March, 1823, coming from Bethany whence he had removed from 
Herkimer Co. They came down the narrow ravine which makes up the hill 
nearly opposite where Mrs. Climena Kendall lives. Gen. Elijah Partridge 
had previously " planted his destiny " a httle to the south, " taking up " lots 
18 and 34. A bridge had been built across the creek by Geo. Dennis and 
Geo. Barker. And such a bridge ! It was made by felling large pines, hew- 
ing them on three sides and placing them side by side across the stream, 
(then much narrower than now) until sufficiently wide for travel, and where 
needed, tilling in between them with sticks properly shaped like "chinking 
up " a log house. 

In June, 1823, Mr. Ingham put up a framed addition to his log house 
and opened the first public house in Hume village. Of its local patrons the 
Indians were quite numerous, sometimes coming in large numbers, and fre- 
quently the kitchen floor was literally covered with Indians of both sexes 
lying with their heads to the fire. A few rods west from the " Ingham 
Stand" is a famous spring at the base of a terrace. Around this the Indians 
would sit on the logs and partake of their simple lunch, indulging in mirth, 
sentiment and joke. The spring was called by them the " cold spring. " I 
believe this the origin of the name of the creek. 

The first sawmill was built in 1823 by Blakely and Doake. Its site is 
occupied by the hardware store of Mr. Seeley, and the stores of Wells Bros., 
Goodrich & Skiff, Geo. S. Hopper, and the residence of C. F. Skiff was the 
mill yard. The pioneer blacksmith was Ruby who built a shop at the south 
end of the bridge. The first physician was Dr. Balcom (See page 235). The 
writer well remembers him as an aged man mounted on an old white horse; 
staff in hand and pill-bags astride, slowly wending his way to the bedside of 
the sick. 

James D. McKeen, the pioneer merchant, a former foot-peddler, put on 
sale a few goods, first in the bar of Ingham's tavern, but, about 1825, changed 



742 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

quarters to the front room of the framed addition. His success encouraged 
him to build the first store of the village. , This was the "old red store" 
and the " old red rookery " of later years. It stood near Mechanics Hall in 
the corner of the beautiful grounds surrounding N. P. Baker's residence. 
Other stores soon followed and each had its lumber yard while some added 
an ashery, one having stood on the high bank of the creek near Henry's 
opera house, and another near R. M. Skiff's. Lumber and shingles were 
used almost as currency at jDrices which would astonish our modern dealers. 
The " ash gatherer " would go all over the country trading calico, etc., for 
ashes, which, converted into pot and pearl-ashes, would be sent to market 
and exchanged for cash or more goods. These goods were hauled from 
Albany by teams, making the goods very dear to the settlers. After 1826 
goods were shipped by canal to Rochester, from there poled up the river 
in flatboats to York Landing, where our merchants would send teams for 
them. 

The first school was taught by Charles Mather in the winter of 1823-4 
in a schoolhouse just completed. Miss Harriet Utley succeeded him the 
next summer. Miss Utley and her sisters Huldah and Dolly, twins, were 
generally known as the "Utley girls." They had for many years been 
teachers in the district schools of this and adjoining towns, and many of the 
older people of this section made their acquaintance (as did the writer) in 
the "old log schoolhouse," with its ample fireplace appropriating nearly the 
whole of one end, and its row of desks, or rather continuous desk and seat, 
around and along the other end and sides; when "boarding around" was 
the order, the sharp rapping with the ruler on door or window casing, served 
all the purposes of the modern school-bell; and black-boards and steel pens, 
were things of the "dim future." These "Utley girls" were the best of 
nurses, ministered frequently to the suffering and afflicted, and their pres- 
ence and attention were thankfully welcomed. Self reliant, taking an ardent 
interest in public affiairs and neighborhood prosperity, sociable, charitable 
and merciful, their lives were devoted to the good of others, and left in the 
memories of their many friends pleasant recollections. Ruf us Chaffee con- 
ducted the first school for instruction in music as early as 1826. He also- 
worked in the sawmill by the bridge and was there crushed to death while 
removing ice from around the pitman. 

The first gristmill in Hume village was erected in 1829 by Ozro Thomas 
and John Freeman. The principal gearing was made of wood. It had two 
" run " of stones, and stood on the north bank of the creek (in the rear of N. 
M. Wells' barn). It ran but a few years, being superseded by the present 
mill which was built by Albert Utley, Gordon M. Abel and a Mr. Griffith. 

The first tannery was built by Townsend and Smith, and stood near the 
residence of L. D. Hubbard. Another was built in 1832 by Alanson and 
Wm. R. Skiff on the north side of the creek, about where H. C. Brown has a 
barn. 

Dr. Seth H.Pratt (see page 236), came about 1825. He was orator at the 



Hume. 743. 

first " Fourth of July celebration " of the village in 1825 or 6. Tables were 
spread in front of Ingham's tavern under a bower, seats were constructed, 
a stand erected, and the oration delivered on a little flat under the creek 
bank, long since washed away. Gen. Partridge was marshal. 

Hume postoffice was established in 1826, with Chauncey G. Ingham 
postmaster, who held ofiice over 15 years. The first mail contained but one 
article, a letter. The receipts for the first few years averaged about $10 per 
annum. Soon after 1826 the Holland Company appropriated |1,200 for roads 
and bridges in Hume, the work to be done under the direction of Judge Dole 
and Mr. Ingham. This was for the main or stage road from Angelica to 
Batavia, which ran through by Absalom Ayers' over the old "gulf road" 
route, striking the river near Geo. P. Leet's in Caneadea. Down the river 
from Leet's no road had been opened. Samuel MiUs, son of Gen. Mills 
of Mt. Morris, was the first lawyer (about 1840). He remained but a short 
time. 

Wolves were very plenty around Cold Creek, and were loth to leave for 
some years after the first settlement. One of the settlers, who lived about 
where H. C. Brown's house stands, one dark night heard a noise under 
his window, which he raised, and, thrusting out an arm, he seized a wolf by 
the leg. 

WiscOY, so long called Mixville, deriving the name Wiscoy from the 
creek, and Mixville from Ebenezer Mix of Batavia, the early owner of the 
land, was settled in 1828 by Lawrence Wilkes, a blacksmith, who married a 
sister of Mrs. Mix. A sawmill was built the same year for Mr. Mix by 
David Knight. A bridge was thrown across the stream this season, the 
stringers being placed in position the day after the mill was raised. Jon- 
athan Wilkes was the contractor. Henry Torrey built the gristmill and the 
first hotel in 1829. The first merchants were Orrin Kingsley and Isaac 
Wheeler* who opened a store in 1830. The goods were brought from Albany 
in canal and river boats to York landing, thence to destination in wagons or 
sleighs. The first physician was Dr. Keyes, locating in 1830. The first 
blacksmith was Lawrence Wilkes. Miles Dodge built the furnace in 1842, 
and conducted an extensive business, increasing its facilities until they con- 
structed steam engines and mill machinery. Other early settlers were, 
David Gear, David Ayde, one Sawyer and Hibbard Pride. Benjamin Cooley 
settled in 1816 about a mile north of the village, building a sawmill on the 
East Koy in 1825. 

Wiscoy was the seat of the famous Fourieristic " Mixville Association," 
which went into operation about 1844 or 5 and proved a dismal failure, involv- 
ing many in bankruptcy. The beautiful rapids and falls of the Wiscoy at 
this place and the two falls at Mill's Mills gave the stream its name "Wis- 
coy," " Five-fall-brook," or, as some have it though not as correctly, 
" Many -fall-brook," from the fact of its descent of 90 feet in less than 1 mile, 
with substantial rock bottom and banks, affording facilities for dams, mills, 

* Isaac would never sell the last thing of a kind as "it would break the assortment." 



744 History op Allegany County, N. Y 

factories, etc., seldom equalled. When first gazed upon by the white man it 
must have been romantic indeed. The waters are remarkable for steadi- 
ness of flow and volume, and should to-day be turning thousands of spindles 
and driving hundreds of looms. Possibly it might have done so had not toa 
high a price been placed upon it by the early owners. 

Fillmore village is situated at what was, before the turning of the chan- 
nel of the river by the state in 1839-40, the mouth of Cold Creek, and for 
years preceding the establishment of the postoffice it was known as "the 
mouth of the creek. " Up to 1836 its site was covered with a heavy growth 
of pine, buttonwood, butternut and elm. John Whiting early built a saw- 
mill on the creek, settling on the farm now owned by W. B. McCrea. This 
mill was followed by the Lapham mill, Abraham Lapham from Macedon^ 
Wayne county, succeeding Mr. Wliiting in the spring of 1841. Abner Leet 
erected the first public house, known as the "Red Tavern," in 1838. It 
was literally in the woods, and stood wiiere the Prospect House stands. 
Thos. R., Uriah and Edwin Leet of Caneadea were his sons. He was one of 
the few who wished to name the place Fayette City, and across the north 
end of the hall connected with the tavern the words. " Fayette City Hall "^ 
were posted in an arch, but the place was never to any extent known by that 
name. Asgil S. Dudley the first merchant, had a small stock in the present 
resident of R. P. Tarbell. Wright & Baker soon after opened a store in the 
building near the M. E. church now the property of Dennis Torpey. Alex- 
ander Ferguson was the first blacksmith in a shanty on the site of Wm. P. 
Brooks' residence. He is well remembered by older people here, as the 
typical son of Vulcan, herculean in stature and in strength. The first wagon 
makers were H. M. and Noah B. Howden, who rented a shop built by Enos 
Stockwell in 1849 about where Mrs. Holland lives. The first work they did 
was making two very heavy lumber wagon boxes for Geo. Quinn, a contract- 
or on the canal. Mrs. Melancton Morgan, widow, and Harvey M. Howden 
are the longest residents of Fillmore, and his house on Genesee street built 
in 1850, was the first one in that part of the town. Levi Rice, a cooper, was 
an early settler here. His log shop stood in the rear of Joseph Ensign's 
house. Enos Stockwell, blacksmith, came in 1841. He worked first for the 
men getting out stone for locks from the quarry on the Andrew Caldwell 
farm. Soon coming to the village he occupied a shop about where S. S. 
Hamilton lives. Energetic, public spirited, Fillmore will long remember 
him as a benefactor. He built a number of dwellings and the Thomas Duffy 
hotel. 

The large warehouse and store which stood on the basin in canal days 
and was bought and moved around parallel with the railroad by D. W. Sweet, 
was erected by Whitbeck and Hall about 1851-2. This is an old land-mark. 
Jeremiah B. Whitbeck and Theodore F. Hall came from Rochester in Jan- 
uary, 1850, with a letter of introduction from Gen. Micah Brooks to my 
father. Mr. Whitbeck tells me he has always remembered a remark my 
father made in reference to a question, as to how large a business a well 



Hume 745 

conducted store here might expect to do. It was that "if they put in the 
right kind and stock of goods, they might do $12,000 per year," which Mr. 
W. says they exceeded the first year, and later very much enlarged. They 
purchased the stock of Lyman Bailey, who conducted business under the 
hah part of the " Red Tavern " where Hiram Huntley and Daniel D. Gardi- 
ner had traded, and took possession Feb. 22, 1850. The stock invoiced $800, 
$400 of which was side pork, at four cents per pound. In March they oc- 
cupied the building now Wm. Foote's carriage factory, where they did busi- 
ness until the large warehouse on the basin was occupied in 1852. Mr. Hall 
retired in 1854, Mr. Whitbeck continuing the business, taking successively 
as partners Albert Anderson, Samuel A. Farman and William P. Brooks. 

The first school was taught in the summer of 1841 by Mary Ann Fergu- 
son, in a board shanty, near where JohnHodnett now lives. A log structure, 
used for school purposes, stood about where Patrick Hodnett hves. Jere- 
miah Morrill and one or more of the Utley girls taught here. In 1844 this 
district and the one over the river were consohdated and the present " Mi- 
nard schoolhouse " was built. In 1851 the district was divided, and Fill- 
more established schools. Thepostoftice was established in 1850 with A. S. 
Dudley postmaster, named Fillmore for President Fillmore. 

Dr. Isaac Minard for many years at Pike, was here for a short time as 
early as 1848, and is conceded to be the pioneer physician. Dr. Nathan 
Haskins, formerly and subsequently of Centerville, was here in 1851 and for 
several years after. Dr. Finn came about 1851, remained about one year. 
In 1859 Dr. D. L. Barrows from Rochester, located here for a number 
of years. 

During the construction of the Genesee Valley canal there was an influx 
of Irish. After the canal was built they remained and became tillers of the 
soil. The first canal boats were here in June. Joseph Ensign says the first 
boat in Fillmore was the "Daughter of Temperance," John Boardman, 
captain. These first boats were gaily decked with flags and mottoes. The 
writer remembers one. "The Peoples Line Against Monopoly, " and how 
httle Charley Barnard said "Yes, I know old Monopoly. He lives in Mt. 
Morris, keeps a hardware store, is rich, and is hard on the poor." Lumber 
now found a ready market at home at enhanced prices, and wood, which be- 
fore had to be burned in the process of clearing, could be shipped to Roch- 
ester at remunerative prices. 

In ante-canal times the stage coach was the most expeditious mode of 
travel along the Genesee valley. The " Genesee Valley Express," a stage 
line from Mt. Morris to Cuba, was for a while a popular institution. Soon 
after the opening of the canal the packet canal boat Frances, for a time made 
regular trips between Mt. Morris and Oramel. Bands of music attracted 
pleasure parties to take passage, and dances were a not uncommon feature. 
The boat horn, sounded at the meeting of a boat or on approaching a village, 
gave as much pleasure to its hearers as does now the whistle of the locomo- 
tive. Joseph Moon with his famous key-bugle used frequently to be a pas- 



746 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

senger and would regale the people along the canal with a free "open-air " 
concert. But the packet did not -'pay" and soon ceased to run. There 
were too many locks to pass to give the speed desired and the stage line had 
its own way again until the railroad came. 

David Bemis was the first, or one of the first shoemakers. George W. 
Dresser for some years carried on shoemaking, where John Caldwell's house 
is, and George W. Wiles for a few years from 1851 had a shoeshop where is 
now E. Ward's store. About 1855 he built a tannery north of the cheese 
factory site and is the only tanner Fillmore ever had. John Grosvenor was 
an early tailor. 

From 1846 to 1850 " the mouth of the creek " was the headquarters of a 
band of horse thieves and gamblers. John Allen, Henry Hyslip, Jerry 
Whaley and one Tyler were leading members and their rendezvous, the 
" Red Tavern," was kept by Ed Rice. Stealing horses from the Indians on 
the Buffalo reservation was a regular occupation. They were at last detected 
in this, arrested, prosecuted and several sent to prison, breaking up 
the gang. 

The Caneadea Indians. — For some years after the Indian title was 
extinguished (1826) the Caneadea Indians continued in undisturbed posses- 
sion of the rich lands of the reservation. Only occasionally would a white 
attempt to cultivate any of it. Their possession retarded settlement along 
the river but contributed to the cultivation of neighberhood relations between 
the two races and many pioneers became intimate with them. Prominent 
among the Indians was the old chief Shongo. His home was near the resi- 
dence of B. F. McClure in Caneadea. Mrs. Sarah Ingham said that he used 
frequently to visit their house, and would relate his exploits in war, of being 
in the battle of Saratoga under Burgoyne. show the four ball holes in one 
arm and the scars of several sword cuts. He was fond of " snick-e-i," but of 
sound judgment, fine personal appearance and influential with his people. 
He came to be quite thrifty, had horses, cattle and hogs. His son George 
married a daughter of Mary Jemison. For an account of Hudson see page 
35. "Old Wayne Washington " was an Indian of note. He was also known 
as John Mohawk. He it was to whom VanCampen "lent his hatchet " on 
one occasion, that is, sent him away with a tomahawk sticking in the back of 
his neck and shoulder. He lived to be over 100 years old and lies buried 
back of Delos Benjamin's residence. One of his sons was called the best 
runner of the Reservation. Long Beard, from whom "Long Beard's Riff" 
takes name, lived on the Benj. and Judson Gillett farm (once on the farm 
next above), and for an Indian was quite a farmer, raising grain, horses, 
cattle and slieep. Skanoboy, gift boy, given by and adopted from another 
tribe, lived with Long Beard. He was physically perfect, but destitute of 
principle and disliked by nearly everyone. He was fond of "firewater," 
and once paid a hquor bill of 20 shilhngs by an elegant otter skin he had 
stolen (for which the Indians severely punished him). Mr. Ingham exchanged 
this skin in Batavia for nearly enough nails and glass to furnish the framed 



Hume. 747 

addition to his log tavern. Copperhead lived to be very old. John Shanks, 
a "medicine man," Sun-ge-wa (Big Kettle), the Trimsharps, Sharpshins, 
Bear hunter. Elk hunter. Chickens, Joe Dan Johnson, Powderhorn, Chick- 
nit were names borne by Indians of lesser note. 

During the war of 1812 these Indians remained loyal to our people. 
Once the whites were much alarmed. The Indians were missing, and it was 
feared they had joined the British but they were only away hunting i^igeons. 
One of the Trimsharps was once at Joel Cooper's house on the Reservation. 
Turning to one of Mr. C's unmarried sons, "John," the Indian said, "You 
young, me no young, why you no git you squaw? Me bring squaw next 
time I come." To this young Cooper assented and thought no more about 
it. In a few days "Old Tom " re-appeared with a charming young squaw, 
whom he had brought from Tonawanda to become his bride. The Indian 
was in earnest and John had to marry or " back out." He chose to repudiate 
and the squaw went back with " Old Tom." 

Parley Short once cut some hay on shares for Indians on the "round 
flats." The hay was stacked to remove in winter. When they began to 
draw it away some Indians proceeded to resist its removkl by force. Seizing 
a fork one advanced upon the whites when Mr. Short dealt him a blow which 
laid him prostrate, and checked the warlike demonstrations. It was several 
minutes before the Indian arose and when he did he said " I will help you 
my friend." 

Early Settlers on the Reservation, beginning at the south were, 
Gardiner Thayer, Timothy Rice, taking up one of the lots of the "Old Town 
Flats," Marinus W. Miner, Henry D. Lyman, Warren Cowing and John 
Whiting. Allen Nourse and George Minard from Vermont, came about 
1831, the former settling a mile and a half from Fillmore east of the river, the 
latter coming a year earlier made his home on the lot opposite the mouth of 
Cold Creek, about the time the Indians all left. The present farms of Geo. 
E. Minard and James C. Smith were included in his purchase. Minard and 
Nourse were prominent and did their full share towards public improve- 
ments, roads, bridges, etc. When they settled it was an unbroken wilder- 
ness east to the to]i of Snider Hill in Granger. Samuel Bowen, Isaac Gibbs, 
Joel Cooper, Daniel P. Brooks, were early settlers east of the river, on the 
west side were Sanford, Fish, Jonathan Hammond and his sons, John M 
Edson, Augustus and Orvillo. Simeon Short's farm joined the reservation 
on the v/est. He came from Ossian; was a hardworking man, and died over 
forty years ago. 

The first sawmill on Rush Creek was built about 1830 by one Price. Jay 
Farnsworth and Lovett S. Albee from Vermont settled upon Rush Creek 
about 1834. They took up and divided a hundred acre lot. Lumbering oc- 
cupied much of their time as upon most of the land was a splendid growth 
of pine and oak. About 1840 Mr. Albee built a sawmill on his land, Farns- 
worth having become the owner of the Price Mill. At that time a bushel of 
corn would buy a good pine tree, and a pound of pork pay for a pine sawlog 



748 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

of average quality. Shingles was a staple product. Tliey were usually car- 
ried north and exchanged for apples, flour, pork, etc. They seldom brought 
money, and when sold for cash brought a very small price. Hunting was 
practiced to a considerable extent. Deer were plenty and a good venison 
steak no rarity. Wolves disappeared entirely about 1850. 

Many of our pioneers were in the habit of trespassing on the non-resi- 
dent timbered lands. A fine pine or oak tree had great attractions for them, 
and when it cameunder observation of one who had no decided conscientious 
scruples its fate was sealed. About 45 years ago, the " village tract" was the 
scene of unusual activity in the way of stealing timber. The lots of the " village 
tract " were owned by a number of proprietors, who drew lots for the loca- 
tion, or settled the matter so that all the lots of one proprietor were not to- 
gether but scattered. The land was thickly timbered with remarkably fine 
pine, and the conditions furnished the most tempting opportunity for secur- 
ing it, as in order to make an action lie for trespass, the lot, or lots would 
have to be specified, which would involve a careful survey of the whole tract. 
The business began cautiously, but two or three attempts to prosecute hav- 
ing failed they "went for" the village lots, with a vengeance. And such 
havoc as they made. The writer well remembers how merrily the axes rang 
among those " monarchs of the forest " and how they fell, and what a crash- 
ing noise they made, not only in the daytime, but in those long moonlight 
winter nights. One would fell a tree and saw it into logs, another would watch 
his opportunity and when the first had gone perhaps for his team, would steal 
the logs and draw them to the mill, where perhaps a third one would seize 
the lumber as soon as it was sawed and rush it to market. Of course the 
sawmill men looked out for their share. Thus was the "village tract" 
despoiled of its grand old forest. It was on this tract that about 1845 one 
Wiley, shot a huge, very ferocious wild animal the like of which was never 
before or since seen in these parts. Its skin after it was stuffed must have 
been fully six feet from nose to tip of tail; it was of a yellowish color, with 
dark spots, and appeared much like a huge cat. 

The first school in what is now District No. 8 was taught by Almena 
Nourse in the winter of 1833-4 in a shingle shanty about 14 by 24 feet in size, 
which had been built and used for a residence by Lewis Waldorff. After the 
erection of the log schoolhouse proper, the first school was taught by Gyrene 
Wood of Portageville Mrs. Rosalia Wood now of Centerville, a daughter 
of pioneer Joel Cooper,- taught one term there. SalinaBlanchard. from Ver- 
mont, taught the first school in the Hammond district in a log house near 
where Julius E. Franklin now lives. 

A Flood Incident.— One of the most serious difficulties our pioneers 
had to encounter was crossing the river, and they met with many adventures. 

All early settlers remember a horse my father brought from Vermont. 
As years passed he was known by many from Portage to Belfast, as " Mi- 
nard's old John." He was an honest horse, a very "knowledgeable " one- 



Hume. 749 

He would work on either side, and with almost any and everything, was 
never sick or lame, but would not plow a furrow after the dinner horn 
sounded ! He would swim the river at whatever stage it might be, and was 
ever ready to stem the tide. Once on returning home my father found the 
river had risen rapidly. Selecting what he supposed the shallowest place, 
he plunged in; but horse and rider at once "got into deep water," and be- 
came separated in the current, the horse coming out on the side he went in 
on and the rider lodging against some driftwood below. The horse had no 
notion of deserting his master and when he got a good footing, stopped and 
looked anxiously for his rider, who was endeavoring to mount the pile of 
flood trash. What was to be done? Darkness was fast ajoproaching and not 
a human being within hearing. Father called, the horse whinnied in re- 
sponse, and seemed to comprehend the situation and determined to rescue 
his master. Coming down the river to a point opposite, the horse attempted 
to reach him, and the water not being so deep there succeeded. His master 
mounted him and was soon free from his perilous position. "Old John" 
lived many years, was never sold and died at an old age. 

Brooks Gore or Dutch Hill was last to be settled. The part lying 
in Hume, though needed to make the 6 miles square as the townships were 
usually laid out, was not included in the survey of Township 6, Range 1, but 
was surveyed and described as part of Township 5, Range 1, by Alexander 
Rea, and called Section 5 of Township 5. This accounts for the seeming 
discrepancy in some of the title deeds of Dutch Hill property, wherein lands 
are described as situated in Hume, and also as being i)art of " Section 5, 
Township 5, Range 1, of the Holland Company's Survey," which is Caneadea. 
I have frequently been questioned in relation to this discrepancy, many think- 
ing that there was something wrong about the matter. 

Daniel Arnold was the first one on the Gore, "taking up" 60 acres of 
the Chas. Lapp farm soon after 1840 at about $4 per acre. He began a saw- 
mill on a brook on this land but soon sold to Augustus P. Purdy now living 
in Fillmore who completed the mill. Peter Horton and Daniel Clark settled 
about 1844 on the farm now owned by H. W. Rice. One Eddy, Jonathan 
Covel and Joshua Straight were early settlers. Mr. Horton was probably 
the last one in town to use the primitive drag. Henry C . Howden, Daniel 
Price, Jefferson Hurd, and Mr. Hall were early settlers on Brooks Gore 
which comprised about 10,000 acres of the purchase of Gen. Micah Brooks. 
Settlements did not ra^^idly progress here until about 1850, when Gen. 
Brooks induced some German immigrants to locate. They wrote letters to 
Germany which induced others to come over and a considerable German 
colony was formed which gave the name Dutch Hill. No part of the town 
has exhibited more rapid improvement in thrift and good husbandry than 
Dutch Hill. The soil is good, and the Hill ranks in productive capacity fully 
equal to the older settled portions. Its stumps have nearly all disappeared; 
the woodman's axe rings not now half so merrily as in times gone by. In a 



750 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

few short years not even a log cabin will remain to remind the passerby of 
the pioneers' labors on this last settled section of our town. 

The Irish Pioneers. — From 1838 to 1840 when the Genesee Valley 
canal was in progress, the Irish emigrants made their first appearance here- 
The late Edmund Holland, one of the most prominent though not the first to 
settle, when a young man left his native parish of Skull, county of Cork, 
Ireland, and landed at Quebec in 1836, went almost directly to Rochester, 
and in 1840 married Catherine Hickey of the same parish in Ireland. They 
settled here about May 25, 1840, near where W. B. McCrea lives, and made 
their permanent residence in Hume. Mr. Holland died in December, 1880. 
His widow survives and kindly furnished me with much information relative 
to our Irish population. Edmund Holland probably assisted more people to 
" come over to America " than any other man in this section. About 1847 a 
company of 7 landed at Quebec, and he met them there. In this party were 
his aged father and mother, and I must say that " Uncle " Michael Holland, 
his father, with staff in hand and pipe in mouth, erect carriage and sprightly 
motions, was the most perfect impersonation of the "fine old Irish gintle- 
man " that I ever met. 

Patrick Hodnett came from Ireland in 1835 and to Hume in 1840, and 
commenced keeping house about where Herbert Hammond now lives. Mrs. 
Hodnott says she has often gone after the cow off back of Mr. Short's with a 
baby in her arms. The aged couple, after a life of hard work, are spending 
the evening of their days in Fillmore, having raised a large family and 
acquired a competence. James Neilson must have come about that time. 
He also had a large family, some are still living in this vicinity. Thos. 
Torpey, father of Dennis Torpey and Mrs. John Powders of Caneadea, landed 
at Quebec in 1836 or 7, and came here from Caledonia in early canal times. 
He lived on Andrew Caldwell's present place and later worked in a quarry 
opened there. Michael Kinney, now of Fillmore, must have been here before 
1840. David Cary came in 1840 and lived here until his death several years 
ago. Mrs. Cary tells me Mr. Cooley built the "log-tavern," located north 
of the little brooklet at the base of the terrace on which is now the "Holy 
Cross Cemetry." This was a rude inn but was widely known, especially 
along the line of the canal, and was much frequented by neighboring work- 
men on the canal. The last log of the old structure disappeared several 
years since. 

Tim O'Neal was a quaint Irishman who lived on the hill west of the 
canal on the Village Tract, and was noted for his great love of the piscatorial 
art and his peculiar way of drawing out his words. He it was, who once 
when settling with Dr. Lyman refused in toto to pay for one visit when an 
emetic was administered, declaring he would not pay for anything he could 
not "keep on his stomick. " 

Pat Haley was another queer subject. It w^as he whom his excessive 
gallantry and politeness led to turn out and give all the road to the Nourse 
girls, one day when he met them on the creek bridge just east of Fillmore, 



Hume. 751 

The bridge was long and narrow, with only a log on each side for a railing. 
The girls "had the bridge " but Pat drove right on, and turning out his old 
blind nag, over he went horse, wagon and all. 

Many others might be mentioned who bore conspicuous part in the 
improvements of those days now long past. 

Early Roads. — The first road up the river followed substantially the course of the old In- 
dian trail, entering the town as now defined on the flats of Judson Stockwell's farm, and running 
not far from the river bank to the line of the present river road a little north of Mrs. Dudley's 
Willow Brook farm buildings, then following substantially the road as now traveled to a point 
about opposite the residence of Dwight Gillett, where it turned east and followed closely the 
river bank to a point near the Transit Line, then leaving the river it made westerly directly for 
the bluff east of Albert Smith's residence. At the foot of this hill was a wonderful spring, 
whose water conducted into a large trough made a way-side watering place that is still remem- 
bered with pleasure. The road continued on as now unto the dwelling of Augustus Hamrrond, 
there it passed down the hill and neared the river again, soon, however, leaving it and passing 
in the rear of J. E. Franklin's house, striking the river again about where J. H. Howden's new 
residence is, then passing nearly as now traveled through Fillmore and McCrea's to the 
road on the line between the farms of E. McCarthy and Delos Benjamin, where it made a de- 
tour as it neared the great bend in the river, and following the almost private road of to-day to 
the Nisdell place it struck the " gulf road," which from this point ran northerly to Hume village* 
Thence over the gulf bridge, a high structure rudely built over a deep chasm, with only logs 
for a railing, it struck the base of the "slide bank " aud bank of the river, which it soon left 
striking the route of the present river road near Geo. P. Leet's. The "gulf road" deserves 
more notice. The travel up and down the river and to and from the north passed over it, 
though its mud holes never dried out ; the stupendous growth of timber and dark forest recesses 
close by made it a dreary uninviting place, while mysterious hints as to strange happenings 
made it a place dreaded by many, and the belated traveler felt easier and breathed freer after 
passing the lonely place. 

A road struck east from the Cooley and Davidson places, and following the town line to the 
transit bore southerly for a way, striking the line between the McWhorter place and Frank Gil- 
lett's, which it followed down to the river road. Over this road, long since taken up, went our 
earliest settlers to the town meetings, elections, and "general trainings," held on the flats when 
this was all Nunda, and Capt. Samuel Russell commanded a company. 

People are living who made their way to Cold Creek down the ravine almost opposite Mrs. 
Kendall's place in Hume village, and the first road from Hume village to the river, passed down 
the south side of Cold Creek, coming out at Whiting's, now McCrea's. It was a horrid 
road, mud, mud, mud, all the way, as were most of the roads. 

In the town book we find queer descriptions of laying out new roads. One begins at " a 
pine stump within a quarter or half a mile of the Red Tavern." Considering the many hun- 
dreds of stumps, each of which would fill the "call," this seems rather indefinite. The Holland 
Company at an early day appropriated considerable money to open and improve roads. State 
roads were as a rule laid to connect one county seat with another, and money appropriated to 
their improvement. The one from Angelica to Batavia passed through Hume village. This 
was hailed with delight by our people, as it placed them at last on a main thoroughfare. 

About 1843-4 Levi and Timothy Rice and Samuel Bixby constructed a 
large sawmill (" Rice's Mill *') on the east side of the river nearly half a mile 
below Long Beard's Riff. Large quantities of logs were run down the river 
and here made into lumber. Augustus Beardslee put in a shingle mill, the 



752 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

first operated in town, in 1846-7. Ten or twelve years later high water took 
away the dam and the mill was never rebuilt. 

During early canal navigation great quantities of butter and cheese 
were shipped from Fillmore (brought in from as far as Arcade), loading for 
return with salt which was sold here in sufficient quantity to supply a large 
territory. Grain has been shipped by canal from Fillmore. This statement 
seems almost incredible in view of the large amount of flour, feed and corn 
now brought in. This was before the great west became so thoroughly 
developed, and when grain growing and cattle raising were our leading agri- 
cultural interests. 

The introduction of the cheese factory system of dairying (the first fac- 
tory in town being started at Fillmore by John Barnes) quite rapidly brought 
about a revolution in agricultural circles. To-day there are in the town 6 
cheese factories, receiving the milk from 2,000 -cows, and making dairying 
the leading industry of the town. Hume stands to-day sixth in point of 
population among the towns of the county and probably there are fewer 
empty houses in the town than in any other one in Allegany. The people 
are generally in fairly prospering circumstances, and business is in a healthy 
condition. If the several business centres could be thrown into one the 
result would be a large aggregation of commercial transactions and a very 
lively place, the largest probably in northern Allegany. 

Floods were a serious detriment to the pioneer. They swelled the 
rivers, tore away from the smaller streams the rude bridges, and often did 
much destruction to property. The "great flood " of October, 1835, turned 
the Genesee river into a destructive demon. The products of entire fields, 
corn, pumpkins, stacks of grain and hay, fences, buildings, horses, cattle, 
sheep and hogs were swept away by the resistless waters, which spread 
over all of the lower flats of the river in Hume and the land itself was in 
many places carried off. New channels were formed by the river and the 
beautiful farm of Allen Nourse lying mostly in an " ox-bow " flat was cut in 
two in a very few hours. This was perhaps the most disastrous river flood 
that ever visited the town. 

The village of Hume, first and last, has had its visitations of fire and 
flood. Mills and dams and bridges have been swept away by high water, 
and numerous buildings have been burned, but no extensive, devastating 
fire has ever been experienced. But in the way of catastrophies and -horrors, 
the palm is awarded to the remarkable flood of June 9, 1892. (This is graphi- 
cally described in the sketch of A. W. Henry on another page. — Editor.) 

Religious. — ^Missionaries from Rushford and Caneadea held the first 
services of the town in the house of Roger Mills during the war of 1812. 
Elders Ephraim Sanford and Kendall were early preachers. The Free Will 
Baptists formed a church and erected a house of worship early near Flena- 
gin's pond. Meetings ceased long before the house disappeared about 1860. 

The First Baptist Church of Hume was organized Sept. 12, 1835. The 
original members were, Chester Hackett, James Clark, H. Doud, Seth C. 



Hume. 753 

Williams, Milo Ives, Philo Castle, Sylvanus Doud, Darius Watkins, Mary 
Kemp, John Kemp, Cynthia Clark, Nancy Doud, Jessie Hull, Mary Man- 
chester, J. Bacon, Betsy Randall, Thyrza Williams, Abagail Drake, Lydia 
Watkins and Obed Randall. In November a re-organization was effected in 
the schoolhouse at which Rev. A. C. Sangster presided. Rev. James Reed 
and Rev. A. Minor from Rushford were present. In June, 1836, the church 
united with the Genesee River Association, and in June, 1877, after the 
dissolution of this association, joined the Allegany Association. In 1836 a 
small house of worship was erected, and used until 1850, when the present 
one was built at a cost, including lot, of about $3,000. It was dedicated in 
October. 1850, Rev. James Reed preaching the dedicatory sermon. A par- 
sonage was purchased in 1869. In 1888 the church received a legacy of $800 
from Mr. and Mrs. William Balcom. The pastors have been Revs. Rufus 
Sabin, February, 1836; Mr. Robbins, March, 1838; O. Reed, May, 1840; B. 
F. Burr, May, 1844; J. Trowbridge, August, 1847; James Olney, 1853; Wm. 
Tilley, 1856; Richard Hull, 1860; J. Trowbridge, 1862; S. S. Dean, 1865; Mr. 
Merriman, 1869; F. W. Fry, 1871; T. T. Horton, 1876; F. Langmade, 1880; M. 
S. Reed, 1887; W. E. Bogart, 1892; C. W. Robinson, 1894. During the last 
few years, students from the theological seminary at Rochester, among them 
Dudley, Cann and Smith, have occasionally supplied the pulpit. Mr. Charles 
Stebbins is superintendent of the Sabbath school. The church has lately 
been thoroughly repaired and new sheds built. At present it has no pastor. 

Universalist Church. — Jan. 25, 1842. Rev. I. B. Sharp organized the First 
Universalist church of Hume. The erection of a house of worship was soon 
commenced, but was not completed till 1861. It was built at a cost of about 
$3,000, including the lot. The pastors who have served the church have 
been. Rev. I. B. Sharp, Rev. O. B. Clark, Rev. E. M. Whitney. Rev. A. B. 
Raymond. The church as late as 1879 was reported in a 'flourishing con- 
dition and supporting a Sunday school. Since then there has been no reg- 
ular services, and the church if not dead entirely, is experiencing a long 
continued season of "suspended animation," while the church edifice is 
crumbling with decay. 

The First Wesleyan Methodist Church of Hume was organized in 1843 by 
Rev. John Watson. The meetings for a year or two were held in the old log 
schoolhouse in school district No. 8. Some of the early members were 
George Riley, Sally Riley, Jonathan Co veil, Harriet Covell, Jonathan Emery, 
Joel Cooper, Orra Cooper, Benjamin S. Snider. Priscilla Snider. James 
Smith and Anna Smith. In 1845 the district having abandoned the school- 
house the church removed it to the site of their present church, and for 
some years worshiped therein. June 4, 1850, a subscription paper was 
first circulated to raise funds to build a new church; on the 8th the founda- 
tion was commenced, and on the 25th the work of hewing timber com- 
menced. Work on the frame was begun July 8, 1850, and it was raised on 
the 18th. Joiner work was commenced September 2d, and the building was 
finished for dedication Jan. 1, 1851, Rev. Dr. Luther Lee preaching the ser- 



754 History of Allrgany County, N. Y. 

mon. George Riley, Joel Cooper and Jonathan Emery were then trustees. 
Meantime a lot had been donated by the Wadsworth estate. The preachers 
have been. Revs. John Watson, 1843; J. Fields, 1845; Mr. Pierson and Rich- 
ard Ward in 1846; John Betchell and Z. T. Petty in 1847; F. R. Mastin and 
S. Phinney, 1848; Phinney and P. Norris, 1849; Z. T. Petty and Alanson 
Bixby, 1850; S. D. Tronbly, 1851; John Watson, 1852-3;- S. Phinney, 1854-5; 
S. A. Leonard and G. W. Scudder, 1856; S. A. Leonard, 1857; E. P. Barnes, 
1858-9; and Revs. A. Bixby, G. M. Hardy, William Pej^per, John L. Bush, 
Howard C. Harris, John Randolph, William Willahan, W. J. Houghton, D, 
W. Ball, G. W. Cooper, A. W. Hall, Prof. A. R. Dodd and A. L. Schuman. 
Church membership about 50. L. E. Wiles is superintendent of the Sunday 
school which has about 60 scholars. During Rev. G. W. Cooper's pastorate 
the church was enlarged, a steeple added and a bell purchased. It has re- 
cently been repaired and modernized, and is to-day a beautiful little church. 
It was the pioneer church in Fillmore, and the first of its kind in this part 
of the county. 

First Metliodist Episcopal Church. — In 1841 a society of Congregationalists 
erected a church costing $1,200 at Hume village. The late M. W. Skiff was 
one of its chief promoters. In 1872 the First Methodist Episcopal church of 
Hume was organized with 13 members by Rev. J. F. Parker the first pastor, 
and soon after this society succeeded the Congregationalists in the posses- 
sion of the church property, the latter society becoming extinct. For a few 
years the church was connected with the Wiscoy and Portageville charge, 
but, about 1890, with Wiscoy and the church at Fillmore a new charge was 
created, and now the three churches have the same pastor. Since the or- 
ganization of the Hume church and its first pastorate, the pastors have been, 
Revs. W. H. McCartney, J. F. Brown, Wm. Wardell. Mr. Burchard, Mr. 
Goodrich, J. O. Jarman, W. O. Peet, J. Harris, C. S. Daley, R. Canfield, G. 
R. Harvey, S. S. Ballou and S. Brusie. A Sunday school is conducted in 
connection with the church. Charles E. Ingham is its superintendent. 

The Second M. E. Church (Wiscoy), was organized with 35 members, 
shortly before 1840, by Rev. Mr. Waller, and that year a church was erected 
upon a lot donated by Ebenezer Mix which was dedicated in 1841. In 1870, 
the house was remodeled and rededicated. It is the only house of worship 
in Wiscoy, and seats about 300. For over 20 years it has been connected 
first with Portageville and Hume, later with Fillmore and Hume, services 
being conducted by the same pastor. See preceding church for the pastors. 

Tlic Methodist Episcopal Church (Fillmore), was organized June 19, 1889, 
at the opera house, when these trustees were elected: Wm. P. Brooks, John 
Caldwell, R. H. Chamberlain, Judson Howden, John H. Howden, Charles 
Ricker, L. S. Gelser, Wm. E. Pierson and P. P. Preston. The board organ- 
ized by choosing Wm. E. Pierson president, Judson Howden secretary; and 
R. H. Chamberlain, treasurer. Soon talk of building a house of worship 
commenced, and Nov. 18, 1889, John Caldwell, John H. Howden and Rev. G. 
R. Harvey were made a building committee. Dec. 12, 1889, a subscription 



Hume. 755 

paper was started, and John H. Howden made treasurer of the building fund. 
Mef^time, Roswell Minardhad made an oif er of a building lot, when the sub- 
scriptions should reach e|l,200. This amount was pledged early in 1890, and 
the conveyance executed. September 1, 1890, the foundation was completed 
and work on the building commenced soon after. The edifice was dedicated 
Jan. 27, 1891. Dev. Dr. D. W. C. Huntington preached the sermon, and 
Presiding Elder L. A. Stevens read the dedicatory service. Revs. R. C. 
Brownlee of Warsaw, and J. L. King of Centreville were present, the former 
taking part in the exercises, Mrs. F. W. Hark presiding at the organ. |1,410 
was pledged to relieve all indebtedness. The pastors have been Revs. R. 
Cantield, G. R. Harvey, S. S. Ballou and S. Brusie. The membership is 
about 40. A Sunday school of 60 scholars, H. T. Such superintendent, is 
connected with the church, also an Epworth League. 

Sf. PafricJi'i^ Church (Fillmore). — For more than 40 years previous to the 
building of St. Patrick's church in Fillmore in 1881, worship was conducted 
and mass celebrated at private houses, notably at the residence of Edward 
Holland. Priests from Java and afterward from Portage usually officiating. 
In the spring of 1881, having secured a proper building lot, Michael Hol- 
land and Dennis Torpey let the contract for building a church 30x50 feet in 
size, to be completed by October 20th. Sunday, Oct. 30, 1881, it was dedi- 
cated with imposing ceremonies. " After explanatory remarks from Bishop 
Ryan, the ceremony began by theRt. Rev. Bishop and the priests first bless- 
ing the outer walls, then entering the church, chanting the dedicatory 
psalms, and blessing the inside." The pastor. Rev. John McGrath, under 
whose administration the church was built, resided at Portage. Fathers 
Barlow of Belfast and Birkery of Perry were also present. It was a great 
day for the Catholics of Fillmore. The interior of this church is beauti- 
fully decorated. Fathers McGrath and Birkery each made a present of a 
beautiful stained glass window, one was placed to the memory of Edward 
Holland and Jas. Quinn by their respective families, and the following named 
(with their wives) each gave a window: Dennis Torpey, Michael Holland, H. P. 
Nielan, Patrick Hodnett, Peter Bliestein. Rev. F. Lawton also gave a win- 
dow. The church and furniture is worth $3,000. The pastors have been. 
Rev. Fathers McEvoy, Sheridan Dolan, Moore, Ryan, Dean, Purcell, Greig, 
Lothan, McGinnis, Cook, Donohue, McGrath, Lee, Nash, Barlow and Haire. 
The Holy Cross Cemetery, a mile south of Fillmore, was laid out in 1890. It 
is connected with this church and is a well-kept burial ground. 

The "Soldier Dead."— "List read on Decoration Day." — William H. Wells, Co. F, 5th 
N. Y. Cav., enlisted Oct. 28. 1861 ; taken prisoner Jan. 22, 1864; buried Andersonville. James 
Bradshaw, 6th N. Y. Cav., Oct. 22, 1861 : died Falmoutri, Va., Feb. 14, 1863. John Claus, Co. 
F, 5th N. Y. Cav., Sept. 19, 1861 ; killed 2d Bull Run, Aug. 30, 1862 ; buried on battlefield. John 
Madison Hammond, Co. B, 44th N. Y., Aug. 20, 1861 ; killed Malvern Hill, Va., July i, 1862. 
Horatio A. Smith, Co. B, 44th N. Y., Aug. 20, 1861 ; killed 2d Bull Run, Aug. 30, 1862. An- 
drew Boardman, Co. B, 44th N. Y., Aug. 20, 1861 ; burial place unknown. Miram Standish, 
Co. D, 64th Reg. N. Y., Oct. 5, 1862 ; died from wounds June 3, 1863. Laselle Ellenwood, Co. 
F, looth N. Y., Nov., 1861 ; died in hospital at Rochester. David Young, 104th N. Y., Oct. 9, 
1 861 ; died in hospital and buried near Washington, April 8, 1862, John Drew, Co. C, 104th 



756 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



N. Y., Dec. 31, 1861 ; killed Bull Run, Aug. 30, 1862; buried on battlefield. Andrew Cooley, 
Co. C, 104th N. Y., Oct. 30. 1861 ; died from disease; buried Elmer cemetery. Henry L. 
Abbey, Co. C, 104th N. Y., Dec. 26, 1861 ; missing after battle of Gettysburg ; supposed killed. 
Delos Myers, Co. F, ist N. Y. Dragoons, Aug. 9, 1862, discharged August, 1865; died 
Nov. 2, 1871 ; buried Alger cemetery. Thomas Pendergast, Co, F, ist N. Y. Dragoons, Aug. 9, 
1862; killed Centerville, Va., Oct. 17, 1863 ; buried on field. William Whitney Merchant, Co. 
F, 1st N. Y. Dragoons, Aug. 8, 1862 ; discharged June 30, 1865 ; died 1870, at Merrillan, Wis. 
Oliver Barnard, Co. F, ist N. Y. Dragoons, Aug. 9, 1862; killed Cold Harbor. Va., May 31, 
1864; supposed buried on field. Alvah Hamlin, Co. F, ist N. Y. Dragoons, Aug. 10, 1862; 
died near Washington, Feb. 4, 1864; buried there. John Shoots, Co. F, ist N. Y. Dragoons, 
Aug. 9, 1862 ; died near Hampton, Va., April 18, 1863 ; buried there. John M. Stickle, Co. F, 
ist N. Y. Dragoons, died and buried Gordonsville, Va., July 4. 1864, of wounds received Trevil- 
lian, June 12, 1864. Alonzo Elmer, Co. F, N. Y. Dragoons, Aug. 17, 1862 ; died May 14, 1865, 
from wounds received Point of Rocks ; buried Pine Grove cemetery. Anson H. Spencer, Co. 
F, ist N. Y. Dragoons, Aug. 17, 1862 ; died Suffolk, Va., Jan. 5, 1863. Addison H. Caldwell, 
Co. F, ist N. Y. Dragoons, Aug. 9, 1862 ; died Suffolk, Va., Nov. 4, 1862 ; buried Pine Grove 
cemetery. John M. Skiff, Co. E, 3d Iowa Inf., May 29, 1861 ; killed Pittsburgh Landing, Tenn., 
April 6, 1862; buried on field. Stephen M. Skiff, Co. A. ist N. Y. Dragoons, Aug. 7, 1862; 
shot on picket near Franklin, Va., June 17, 1863 ; buried Suffolk, Va. Warren Browne, Co. A, 
ist N. Y. Dragoons, Aug. 7, 1862 ; discharged June 18, 1865 ; died and buried St. Joseph, Mo. 
Augustus A. Chase, Co. D, 4th N. Y. H. A., Dec. 28, 1863; died Salisbury prison, N. C. 
Chandler W. Warn, Co. D, 4th N. Y. H. A., Aug. 13, 1862 ; drowned Potomac river, Sept. 6, 
1862 ; body not recovered. Edwin Whitney, Co. D, 4th N. Y. H. A., Aug. 13, 1862 ; discharged 
June 10, 1865 ; died Feb, 2, 1875, Wiscoy, buried there. Thomas Augustus Davidson, 4th N. 
Y. H. A.; discharged June 10, 1865; died Wiscoy, Feb. 13. 1875, buried there. Frederick 
Gillett, Co. D, 4th N. Y. H. A., Aug. 13, 1862 ; died and buried Alexandria, Va., February, 1863. 
Ichabod Perkins Flenagin, lieut. Co. F, 4th N. Y. H. A., Aug. 29, 1862 ; killed Ream's Station, 
Aug. 25, 1864; buried on field. Robert Lockwood, Co. F, 4th N. Y. H. A., Aug. 29, 1862; 
died Fort Ethan Allen, near Washington ; buried Short Tract. Ansil L. Minard, lieut. Co. 
F,4th N. Y. H. A., Aug. 29, 1862; discharged Sept. 26, 1865 ; died Sept. i. 1870; buried Pine 
Grove cemetery. Hiram Drew, Co. F, 4th N. Y. H. A., Dec. 23, 1863; taken prisoner North 
Anna River; not heard from. Egbert B. Pierson, Co. F. 4th N. Y. H. A., Aug. 29, 1862 ; died 
and buried City Point, Va., Sept. 20, 1864. Frank Henrietta. 24th N. Y. Cav., Dec. 18, 1863; 
died Pike, N. Y., 1879 ; buried Portageville. Isaac L. Morse, Co. F, 4th N. Y. H. A., Dec. 23, 
1863 ; died City Point, Va., July 1 1, 1864. Edwin J. Petty, Co. F, 4th H. A., Dec. 23, 1863 ; dis- 
charged Sept. 26. 1865 ; died in Michigan. Daniel Finch, Co. F, 4th N. Y. H. A., Dec. 19, 
1863; died Willetts Point Hospital, N. Y. Harbor. Byron Barrows, Co. F, 4th N. Y. H. A., 
Dec. 17, 1863; died Rochester, N. Y., March 3, 1882; buried Pine Grove cemetery. Willis 
Beardsley, Co. D, 4th N. Y. H. A., Jan. 4, 1864; died Hume, Jan, 5, 1876 ; buried Pine Grove 
cemetery. Darwin Barrows, Co. F, 4th N. Y. H. A., Aug. 29, 1864; killed on picket, Peters- 
burg, Va., Oct. 3, 1864. George E. Meach, Co. I, 6th N. Y. Cav., Nov. 9, 1861 ; discharged 
Aug. 16, 1865; died Meriden, Miss., March 21, 1873; buried Pine Grove cemetery. Theodore 
Washbon, Co. A, ist N. Y. Dragoons, Jan. i, 1864; died Caneadea Feb. 23, 1873; buried Pine 
Grove cemetery. Gilbert A. Moultrop, Co. F, 4th N. Y. H. A., August, 1862 ; killed Petersburg, 
Va., June 18, 1864; buried on field. George Coolidge, Co. C, 104th N. Y., Aug. 11, 1864; died 
and buried Annapolis, Md., May 18, 1865. Noah L. Myers, drafted August, 1863 ; died, when 
and place of burial unknown. Patrick McCall, drafted August, 1863 ; taken prisoner 1863 ; died 
and buried soon after, Richmond, Va. Sylvester Wilday, Co. D, 130th N. Y., Sept. 9, 1864; 
died and buried Baltimore, Md., May 10, 1865. Rudolph Fox, Co. F, 4th H. A., Jan. 10, 1863 ; 
died Salisbury prison, N. C, Dec. i, 1864. James K. Kerns, 94th N. Y., enlisted 1862 ; killed 
1863. Peter V. Granger, lieut. Co. D, 3d Mich. ; died Wiscoy, Oct. 13, 1867; buried there. 
John S. Trowbridge, Co. E, 5th N. Y. Cav., August, 1861 ; died Hanover, Pa , July 5, 1863; 
buried Pine Grove cemetery. Duane Robinson, 8th N. Y. Cav. ; died Feb. 26, 1880; buried 
Pine Grove cemetery. Frederick Willard, died October, 1864; buried Pine Grove cemetery. 
George M. Poole, Co. F, 33d N. Y., July 4, 1861 ; re-enlisted January, 1864, 2d N. Y. Mounted 
Rifles ; discharged Aug. 23. 1865 ; died Angelica, Jan. i, 1881. Henry Hoadley, 104th N. Y., 
1861 ; captured Aug. 18, 1864; confined Salisbury prison ; died on his way home. John C. 
Fish, Co. F, 4th H. A., Aug. 29, 1862; discharged June, 1865 ; died Wiscoy, May 26, 1883; 
buried there. James McDermott, 4th N. Y. H. A. ; died Minnesota Nov. 19, 1867; buried 
there. Michael McDermott, 136th N. Y., September, 1862 ; died and buried Cottonwood, S. C, 
June, 1863. Silas W. Stone. Co. D, 4th N. Y. H. A., May 13, 1862 ; death and burial North 
East, Pa. Ralph Parker, died April 28, 1865 ; buried Pine Grove cemetery. Patrick Haley, Co. 
C, 104th N. Y., October, 1861 ; died 1880. John M.Butler, Co. D,4th H. A. ; died June 9, 1885 ; 



Hume. 757 

buried Pine Grove cemetery. Manning Smith, Co. F, 4th N. Y. H. A.; died Aug, 9, 1885 ; 
buried Wiscoy. Charles Lee, Co. D, 4th H. A. ; died Oct. 4, 1884 ; buried Mt. Morris. Reuben 
Lee, Co. H, ist N. Y. Dragoons, September, 1864; died Jan. 16, 1888 ; buried Pine Grove cem- 
etery. Of Andrew Mearns, Orin Peck and Alonzo Camp, particulars not given. 

Local Printing. — In 1861 R. B. Hultz set up a job press in Hume vil- 
lage and in May, 1861, started a newspaper, Tlie Bee, which soon became The 
Constitution. It soon suspended publication. In the seventies Rev. Mr. 
Morey (Baptist) issued a few numbers of a paper from Mechanic's Hall. 
From 1876 Edson A. Hammond did small jobs of printing (envelopes, letter- 
heads, etc.) with a little job press very neatly for about ten years. In Feb- 
ruary, 1880, H. C. Scott came to Hume and printed the first number of the 
Hume Enterjjrise town meeting w^eek. In March, 1882, the office was re- 
moved to Fillmore into the old Whitbeck building. Wm. P. Brooks " struck 
off " the first sheet printed here. In 1888 Judson Howden bought the plant 
and changed the name to Northern Allegany Observer. Mr. Howden still con- 
tinues its publication in a handsome, well-arranged office, using the latest 
■"improved " presses run by steam. In 1885 Charles Scott, son of H. C, 
established another Hume Enterprise with office in Mechanic's Hall, Hume 
village, which, with one suspension of publication for a year or two, he con- 
ducted until Feb. 28, 1892, when he sold to the present publisher, Edward 
W. O'Hara. 

Supervisors. — Joshua Skiff, 1822, '24, '27; Luther Couch, 1825, '26; Orrin Doud, 1828, 
'30; Charles Mather, 1831, '32 ; Seth H. Pratt, 1833-37; James D. McKeen, 1838; Elijah Part- 
ridge, 1839, '40; Oliver M. Russell, 1841 ; Hartley Weld, 1842-44; George Minard 1845-37 ; 
Charles M. Mills, 1848-50; William W. Mills, 1851, '52; Alanson Skiff, 1853, '54; William N. 
Emerson, 1855, 'S^ ; J- M. Hammond, 1857-60; H. W. Ingham, 1861, "62; Milton W. Skiff, 
1863, '64; Hugh M. Severance, 1865-; John S. Minard, 1866, '67 ; C. N. Flenagin, 1868, '69; 
Volney Mills. 1870, '71 ; Webster Mills, 1872-74 ; N.P.Baker, 1875-77; William P. Brooks, 
1876, '81, '82, '83, '84 ; James P. Manchester, 1878, '79, '80 ; M. W. Wells, 1885, '86, '87 ; John 
H. Howden, 1888, '89; J. W. Hildreth, 1890, '91 ; H. C.Brown, 1892 ; AH. Lyman, 1893; Geo. 
D'Autremont, 1894, '95. The town officers (1895) are. Geo. D'Autremont, supervisor; Charles 
E. Haines, town clerk ; H H. Hammond, highway commissioner ; Geo. W. Jones, H. H. Hil- 
dreth, Frank Gillett, assessors ; Jesse Bennett, Wm. E. Pierson, Geo. E. Ferguson, C. C. Gran- 
ger, justices; Geo. W. Boardman, overseer of the poor ; James Lapp, Frank Somers, Fred 
Reynolds, Fred Benjamin, Alfred Colburn, Burt Butler, inspectors of election. 

Fillmore. — Biisnwss Interests: The leading firms and industries are, Wm. P. Brooks, 
general merchandise, a large double store in his three-story building corner of Main and Gen- 
esee streets, doing a large business. Haines Bros., general dealers. Eugene Ward groceries 
and provisions, boots, shoes and staple dry goods. Frank W. Cole, drugs and medicines. 
Charles Ricker, stoves, furnaces and general hardware, one of the largest in northern Allegany. 
Wm. Crandall, drugs and medicine. Mr. Phipps, furniture and undertaking. Wm. Foote, 
carriages, wagons and sleighs. William H. Wilday, planing mill and lumber yard, also 
feed mill. Young & Young, cheese box and barrel heading factory, which gives almost 
constant employment to 10 men, turning out 50,000 cheese boxes and 1,000,000 pieces 
of salt and sugar barrel heading per annum ; also cheese factory and creamery, the creamery 
being the third one erected in the county. Max Lake, harness maker, dealer in trunks, 
blankets, etc. Dennis Bagney, harness maker. The Prospect House conducted by S. S. 
Scott, the Minard House kept by Thomas Duffy, and Penfield's Railroad House are the 
hotels. L. E. Wiles, dentist. S. A. Farman, insurance, F. W. Hark, agent for granite and 



758 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

marble works. Judson Howden, publisher of Northern Allegany Observer. Fillmore Opera 
House owned by a joint stock company, constructed about 1886, is well supplied with stage 
scenery, furniture, etc., and is a commodious hall for lectures, entertainments, etc., with a seat- 
ing capacity of 800. Ed Hoey, meat market. Levi Snider, butcher and market. W. S. Mills, 
optician and jeweller. Carl Fritz, tailor. James Sprowl, shoe maker and repairer, S. S. Ham- 
ilton, Fred Hammond, Mr. Brundage, Ed Huff and Mr. Dorman, builders. R. Butterfield, 
mason. Mr. Kidney, Mr. Sanders, Mr. Harris, blacksmiths. J. S. Minard, surveyor and con- 
veyancer. W. E. Pierson, justice of the peace. Miss Ada Lowell, millinery and ladies' goods. 
Miss Cora Morse and Miss Penfield, milliners. Mrs. Jackson, laundery. 

The Fillmore school is a district school of two departments under the 
direction of three trustees. George W. d'Autremont teaches the higher 
division and Miss Winifred Hoey conducts the primary department, and has 
done so with very good acceptance for the last tive years. 

There are three churches in Fillmore, Wesleyan Methodist, Methodist 
Episcopal and Catholic. 

Banking. — Before 1853 the nearest banks were at Warsaw, Perry, Mt. 
Morris, Geneseo and Dansville. In 1853 Milton W. Skiff opened an ac- 
count in New York, bought and sold exchange and made collections. He 
did this until after the war when he was succeeded by Charles J. Balcom, 
and upon his retiring, there was for a while no such business done at Hume 
village. In February, 1873, J. M. Hammond & Co. (John M. Hammond, 
George W. Marvin and Jno. S. Minard) opened an exchange and collection 
office which discounted some paper. The firm dissolved in 1875 and was 
succeeded by J. P. Manchester & Co. After a while they sold the mercan- 
tile business with which the exchange office was connected, and J. P. Man- 
chester opened a private bank which was conducted until 1885, perhaps 
later. Jno. S. Minard, in connection with his store, opened an account with 
the National Park Bank of New York, in October, 1876, and sold exchange 
and made collections until 1885, when he sold to Nathaniel M. Wells and E. 
Forrest Minard being the partners. This firm (Wells & Minard) was soon 
changed to Wells Bros., Henry Wells succeeding Mr. Minard. Jason S. 
Bishop about 1877 or '78 opened an exchange office in Fillmore, and when he 
sold out to Wm. P. Brooks the exchange department was continued by the 
latter, and after the firm of Brooks & Howden was formed until the organi- 
zation of the State Bank. 

The State Bank of Fillmore was organized Nov. 4, 1889, under state 
laws with a capital stock of $25,000. The first officers were: William P. 
Brooks, president; Frank H. Smith, vice president; J. P. Manchester, 
cashier. The present officers are: William P. Brooks, president; C. E. 
Ingham, vice president; (1 J. Howden, cashier. We give this statement of 
the condition of the bank, Oct. 1, 1895: Eesources. — Loans and discounts, 
$102,396.25; U. S. bonds, $1,000; bank building, $2,000; furniture, $1,000; 
cash on hand, 18,259.51; due from banks, $11,757.34; total, $126,413.10. 
Liabilities.— C&iiitail, $25,000; surplus, $10,000; earnings, $2,737.06; deposits, 
^,676.04; total, $126,413.10. The bank has a conveniently arranged bank 



Hume. 759 

building erected in 1890. It is furnished with an exceptionally well-con- 
structed vault, and its safe is one of the best in the county. 

Oriona Lodge, No. 229, F. a- A. il/.— This lodge was instituted at Pike, Wy- 
oming county, the date of its warrant being June 23, 1851. In 1851 the 
lodge, then Pike Lodge, No. 229, was moved to Hume village. In 1871 the 
name was changed to Oriona, No. 229. In 1891 the lodge moved to Fillmore. 
Present officers are: George E. Minard, W. M.; Charles K. Farns worth, S- 
W. ; JohnH. Howden, J. W. ; Andrew Caldwell, treasurer; Max J. Lahr, 
secretary; William Foote, S. D.; A. D. Relya, J. D.; Fred B. Reynolds, S. 
M. C; Joseph W. Stockwell, J. M. C; Edward W. Huff, tiler; Frank A. 
Purdy, organist; C. K. Farnsworth, F. B. Reynolds, Jos. W. Stockwell, 
trustees; H. C. Browne, Wm. Foote, C. K. Farnsworth, finance committee. 
Past Masters: Orson Beardsley, Augustus Goodrich, H. H. Lyman, H. C. 
Browne, E. A. Hammond, O. Randall, Wilham Foote, Charles Ricker. There 
are 62 members. The lodge occupies fine rooms in the third story of 
Brooks' Block. 

Ancient Order United Workmen, Lodge No. 2^2, was organized in the 
schoolhouse at Fillmore in June, 1879, and soon removed to Hume village, 
holding meetings in Mechanics' Hall until January, 1896. The lodge now 
occupies rooms in the Brooks' block, Fillmore, with the K. O. T. M. There 
were 30 original members and it has the same number now\ The oflficers 
are: Frederick Lapp, M.; Nelson A. Pettee, O.; Peter Dunker, F.; Charles 
K. Farnsworth, R. K.; and William Foote, F. 

Fillmore Tent, No. 50, K. 0. T. M., was organized in July, 1887. The 
charter members were: Charles K. Farnsworth, Charles E. Haines, Wilham 
Handyside. M. J. Lahr, E. R. Curtis, J. O. Waldorff, J. H. Farnsworth, Ir- 
win Bottsford and Leroy Huff. Membership 150, being, with possibly one 
exception, the largest in the county. Reviews are semi-monthly in their 
finely fitted up rooms in Brooks' Block. Present officers: G. S. Rice, Com.; 
A. McMurtry, L. Com.; F. E. McMurtry, R. K.; JohnH. Howden, F. K.; 
W. G. Young, prelate; John Bauer, physician; J. W. Curtis, sergeant; John 
H. Johnson, M. at A.; Frank Wilday, 1st M. of G.; Fred Mitchell, 2d M. of 
G.; Carl Fritz, sentinel; John McElroy, picket. 

Fillmore Hive, L. 0. T. M., No. IJ^O, was instituted March 21, 1894, by 
Deputy Lady Commander, Carrie L. McDonald. There were 19 charter 
members, and these officers were installed: Josie M. Curtis, P. L. Com.; 
CoraL. Ricker, L. Com.; Edith J. Waldorff, Lt. L. Com.; Mary E. Crowley, 
R. K.; Anna M. Hammond, F. K.; Emma Howden, prelate; Addie E. Lahr, 
sergeant; Emma M. Scott, M. at A.; Mary A. Fitzgerald, sentinel; Maria A. 
Hodnett, picket. The membership is now 33 and the present officers are: 
CoraL. Ricker, P. L. Com.; Edith J. Waldorff, L. Com.; Mary E. Rice, Lt. 
L. Com.; Mary E. Crowley, R. K.; Anna M. Hammond, F. K.; Didama Wal- 
lace, prelate; Josephine Lyman, sergeant; Josie M. Curtis, M. at A.; Addie 
E. Lahr, sentinel; Esther M. Merwin, picket; Edith O. Greene, organist. 
Meetings are hold in the K. O. T. M. rooms in Brooks' Block. 



760 History of Allegany County, N. Y 

Fillmore Sick and Accident Association was organized in October, 1894 
and has paid out for sickness and accidents $275, with about $70 in claims 
yet pending. There is a good balance in the treasury and the association is 
prospering. Present officers are: G. S. Rice, president; J. O. Waldorff, 
vice president; R J. Mitchell, secretary; John H, How^den, treasurer. The 
board of auditors are: Dr. F. J. Redmond, A. E. McMurtry, John H. John- 
son, John Bauer, and M. D. Wilday. 

A lodge of Good Templars has recently been organized. 

WiscOY Societies. — Bumside Post, No. 237, G. A. B, Wiscoy, N. Y. — The 
charter members of this Post, Nov. 4, 1881, were: H. C. Browne, Com.; W. 
G. Whitney, S. V. C; George W. Jones, J. V. C; J. W. Bard well, Q. M.; W. 
W. Thurston, Surg.; L. O. Hackett, Chap.; George Trail, O. D.; Jared A. 
Gorton, O. G.; C. D. Vandresser, Adj't; Fred Caryl, S. M.; Charles W. 
Isted, Q. M. S.; and P. R. Earns, J. W. Hildreth, A. P. Bowen. O. R. Hil- 
dreth, R. Butterfield, Sheldon Trail, William Cluchey, Judson Stickle, Hi- 
ram Clark, H. P. Neilan, Orrin Peck, George W. Curtis, Julian Caryl. The 
present officers are: F. J. Davidson, Com.; S. M. Johnson, S. V. C. ; Hiram 
Clark, J. V. C; A. J. Oakley, Q. M.; P. C. Soule, Surg.; N. A. Pettee, 
Chap.; C. C. Granger, Adj't; Lewis Dill, O. D.; Smith Dole, O. G.; J. W. 
Hildreth, S. M.; L. O. Hackett, Q. M. S. Meetings are held semi-monthly 
at G. A. R. rooms at Wiscoy. There are 32 members. 

Protection Tent, No. 208, K. 0. T. M. (Wiscoy). This tent was organized 
with the following officers. Its charter is dated March 31, 1893: S. M John- 
son, P. Com.; Frank Somers, Com.; Lawrence Smith, Lt. Com.; J. W- 
Stockwell, R. K; Charles Mack, F. K.; D. C. Granger, Chap.; P. C. Soule. 
Phys.; F. Shanahan,- sergeant; George Perry, M. at. A.; M. Doud, 1st M. of 
G.; D. M. Caryl 2d M. of G.; Fred Pratt, sentinel; F. J. Smith, picket. The 
present officers are: Frank Somers, P. Com.; Lawrence Smith, Com.; J. A. 
Stockwell, Lt. Com.; F. Reynolds, R. K. and F. K.; Eugene Caryl, Chap.; C- 
M. Stewart, Phys.; C. D. Cooley, sergeant; A. M. Doud, M. at A.; John 
Smith, 1st M. of G.; L. Caryl, 2d M. of G.; P. Lenahan, sentinel; Clarence 
Robinson, picket. Membership of 30. 

Pine Grove Cemetery, one mile east of Fillmore, was opened in 1860. 
The first meeting held for considering the matter w^as Jan. 13, 1860. This 
meeting adjourned to the 19th, when the Pine Grove Cemetery Association 
of Fillmore was organized in accordance with the provisions of the statutes. 
The "associates" who took part in the meeting were: Lovett S. Albee,* 
George W. Wiles,* Benjamin S. Snider, Thomas Hall,* John Rowley,* Jno. 
S. Minard, Theodore F. Hall,* Dozell B. Curtis, Harvey M. How^den, James 
C. Smith, and Henry Meach. The first board of trustees were Theodore F. 
Hall, Milton W. Skiff, George W. Wiles, John M. Hammond, James C. Smith 
and Jno. S. Minard. Theodore F. Hall was made president, George W. 
Wiles vice president, James C. Smith treasurer, and Jno. S. Minard secre- 

* Deceased. 



Hume. 761 

tary. The present trustees are Benj. K. Gillett, L. E. Wiles, C. K. Farns- 
worth, Geo. E. Minard, H. M. Howden, and R. H. Chamberlain; William B. 
Gillett is sexton. The present officers are: H. M. Howden, president; L. E. 
Wiles, vice president; B. K. Gillett, secretary and treasurer. The amount 
of ground enclosed is about tive acres. The first interment was that of Mrs. 
Joseph Curtis; the second (a re-interment) a little daughter of George W. 
Wiles. The original grounds were laid out by Jno. S. Minard, and the addi- 
tion by C. B. Ryder. The management has been one of marked success. 
A vault has been constructed in the bank near the public highway, the 
grounds have been greatly improved and beautified by planting ornamental 
trees and shrubs and the cultivation of fiowers, some fine specimens of 
artistic granite and marble work have been set up, and people from consid- 
erable distances are purchasing lots. The association has a reserve fund of 
nearly $1,000; so people can depend upon the grounds being kept in proper 
order. It is a great credit to the management, an ornament to the town, 
and speaks well for the good sense and taste of our people. 



Of Hume's Townsmen. — Dennis Bagney, harness maker in Fillmore, is the son of 
Andrew Bagney, a mason by trade, who lived in Rochester, where he married Bridget McCann. 
Children : John, Dennis. Mary, Susan and Elizabeth. Dennis was born in Rochester in 1849, 
and the same year Andrew removed to Hume. Dennis learned his trade in Fillmore where in 
1890 he established his present business which furnishes work for 2 men. He married in 1868 
Mary Radigan. Children : Mabel. John (married Miss Cora Young of Fillmore), Edward J., 
Libbie E. and Gracie. He is a member of Fillmore Tent No. 50, K. O. T. M. 

Joel W. Bardwell, son of Harrison and Anna (Smith) Bardwell, was born in Granger Oct. 
20, 1839, where his grandfather, Joel Bardwell from Massachusetts, a skillful detective, was for 
years a deputy sheriff. The children of Harrison, a shoemaker, who died in the west in 1888, 
78 years old, were : Allen H., Joel W., and Rhena A. (Mrs. David Haskell). Joel W. was 
brought up a farmer, came to Hume in 1858, enlisted in 1861 in Co. E, 85th N. Y. Vol. Infan- 
try, was in battle of Williamsburg, and, captured at Fair Oaks, was in Libby prison 180 days. 
He could not stand alone when paroled and has not seen a well day since. He came home and 
married Nancy Andrews of Centerviile. They have one child, Anna M. Mr. Bardwell 
obtained a pension of $8 per month which was in 1894 increased to $24. When able he works 
in a hardware store in Hume village. 

Giles H. Bean is son of Orson Bean, whose father, Ebenezer Bean came from Massachu- 
setts to Herkimer county, where he lived and died. His son. Orson, in 1832, came to Hume 
and bought what is now the Adam Deitzel farm for $1.25 per acre. He worked four days a 
week for John Weaver for his board, but found time to clear a site for and build a log house, in 
which Phebe A. Slocum taught the first school in District No. 11. In 1835 he married Clarine 
Van Buren of Herkimer county, whose father was a brother of Martin Van Buren. In 1840 hie 
sold his farm and bought 100 acres of land in Centerviile of Lewis Brown for $1,000. His chi - 
dren were : Adeline, now Mrs. Edwin Houghton of 111. ; Eben, now in Knoxville, Pa. ; Jay, of 
Lansing, Mich. ; and Giles H., who was born in Centerviile in 1852. Giles was reared on the 
farm, attended school two terms at Pike Academy, and, at the age of 21, bought his father's 
farm (170 acres). In 1873 he married Libbie, daughter of Lewis James of Centerviile. She 
died in 1878, and in 1879 his second marriage was to Libbie, daughter of Thomas Evans of 
Centerviile, of Welch descent. Children : Forrest, Orrie and Harold. Forrest when 13 years 
old had a remarkable school record, he had not missed a day's attendance in 8 years. In 1881 
Giles H. Bean became a member of the mercantile firm of Evans & Bean, Hume, which began 
buying hay and other produce in 1887. He sold out in 1893. Mr. Bean died March 31, 1895. 



762 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Delos Benjamin is son of Jonathan Benjamin who was born in Brookfield, Madison Co., in 
1800, where his grandfather Thomas had settled from New England. Jonathan married Betsey 
Nye. Children, Delos and Ruth (Mrs. Orlo Buell of Hume). In 1834 he brought his family to 
Hume, where he bought 50 acres of land and settled as a farmer and lumberman, building a 
sawmill in 1840 that ran till 1870. Mrs. Benjamin died in i860 and he in 1877. Delos was 
born in Brookfield in 1828. and in 1849 married Caroline, daughter of Warren Houghton of 
Caneadea. Children : Mortimer, Oscar, Lucretia (Mrs. Michael Sowles, one child, Blanche), 
John, Cora, (Mrs. Alfred Arnold, children, Grace, Bertha and Grover), John, in Iowa, Hattie 
(Mrs. Edwin Ayers), George, Fred and Carrie. On Mr. Benjamin's farm and within 20 rods 
of his house, the exact spot not being known, was buried the noted Indian chief, Mohawk. In 
1889 the W. N. Y. & P. railroad built on Mr. Benjamin's land a switch to accommodate the 
lumber and wood shipments from that locality. Elected on the Republican ticket he has served 
6 years as excise commissioner. 

Jesse Bennett, merchant at Rossburg, is a son of John and Sarah (Marsh) Bennett of Ware- 
ham, Dorsetshire, England, one of seven brothers, William, John, George, James, Henry, 
Charles and Joseph, all of whom settled in Granger; John came first, in 1830. The children 
of John and Sarah were, Timothy, Rachel (Mrs. George Ayrault of Silver Springs), Leah (Mrs. 
George Voss of Granger), Simeon, Mary, Henry, Thomas, Elizabeth (Mrs. J. T. Collister), Sam- 
uel and Jesse, who was born in Granger in 1844. The first four were born in England. Sam- 
uel and Jesse enlisted in Co. F, 104th N. Y., and Simeon in ist N. Y. Dragoons. The 104th 
joined the immortal First Corps of the Army of the Potomac, that suffered greater losses in 
proportion to its numbers than any other .corps in the service. Jesse was in the battles of 
Cedar Mountain, Rappahannock Station, second Bull Run, South Mountain, Antietam, Fred- 
ericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Wilderness, and in 12 other engagements. He was 
taken prisoner at Weldon Railroad, and was confined six months in Libby, Belle Island, and 
Salisbury prisons. Few men saw as much, or have as vivid recollections of the great war. 
After coming home he "farmed it" till 1876, then was a merchant at Short Tract till 1889, 
when he came to Rossburg where he was postmaster till 1894 and a commissioner of excise. 
He was also postmaster in Granger in 188 1-2, and supervisor of Granger in 188 1-2. Mr. Ben- 
nett married, in 1865, Carrie, daughter of Rudolph Snyder of Granger. Children, Florence (Mrs. 
Frank Hawley), Herbert (married Nelia Lampshire), Cora and Maud. 

Elijah Bliss of Hume is the son of Eleazer, son of Eleazer, son of Jesse Bliss, of English 
descent, of Otsego, Otsego county, all of whom were farmers. Eleazer Bliss, father of Elijah, 
was born in Otsego in 1799, where he married Polly Bishop. Children, Elijah, Lucy A. (Mrs. 
Jerome Lloyd of Hume), Lusetta, Marcus and Mary (Mrs. Ferdinand Bishop of Hume). He 
brought his family to Hume in 1826, and bought 160 acres of land at $1.25 per acre, on which 
he died in 1871, and his widow in 1887. For some time sleds were used to carry loads to 
Rushford winter and summer, the path through the woods not admitting a wagon. Elijah 
Bliss was born in Otsego in 1820, and has lived in Hume since 1826. When 21 years old he 
bought for $500 the first 50 acres of his present farm of 228 acres, and worked seven years at 
about ten dollars per month to pay for it. Mr. Bliss soon bought cows and more land and 
made butter till the cheese factory came. He married in 1848, Polly, daughter of John Miller 
of Hume. Marcus, now of Rushford, the oldest of their three children, married Mary Weaver. 
Children, Edwin E., John C, Demaris K., Fred E., Charles W., Polly C, Schuyler, Elijah and 
Belle. Demaris, the next child, died when 23 years old. and Sadie B. when 26. Mrs. Bliss, 
after a long period of ill health was taken by tier husband to Buffalo to see the celebrated mag- 
netic physician. Dr. Newton, who, without using a particle of medicine restored her vigor so 
that slie walked, for the first time in 9 years, in two hours after the first treatment, and enjoyed 
greatly improved health till her death, 30 years after, in 1893. Mr. Bliss is vigorous in mind 
and body, and an ardent Republican. 

R. L. Boiler son of Henry Boiler of Germany, who married Louisa, daughter of Lord Von 
Vultyus, was born in 1824, and is the youngest of their nine children. When a young man he 
was a clerk in a sugar refinery in Cassel, Germany, and then traveled in Europe, Asia and 
Africa, as a ship agent, also agent for a tobacco house. In 1851 he came to West Branch, 
Oneida Co., was partner in a woolen factory and a dairy farmer until he built at Ava in 1862 a 
cheese factory still known by his name. In 1865 he came to Varysburg, Wyoming Co., and 
the next year built, and ran for five years, a cheese factory between Warsaw and Wyoming, 
which he moved to Orangeville and ran six years, sold it and built a factory at Perry Center, 
ran that six years, then sold and rented a factory at Pike Station for one year, was at Campbell 
Hill one year, at Town Line one year, at West Allen one year, then in 1883 bought his present 
cheese factory in Hume. Mr. Boiler married in 1856, Katrine Earnest of Ava. Their children 
have been, John, Minnie, William, Gertrude, Albert, Jennie and Louisa. 



Hume. 763 

Ezra C. Botsford was born in Aurelius, Cayuga Co., in 1825. His father, Reuben W. 
Botsford, married Ruth Morgan. Children, Ezra C, Amelia, Julia, Edwin, Mabel and Erwin. 
In 1834 he brought his family to Granger and settled on Snyder Hill, to which he cut a road. 
Elder Luckey and Mr. Pierson were his only neighbors. He had the agency to sell 1,200 acres 
of land for banker James Seymour of Auburn. This he sold at $3 and $4 per acre, taking 100 
acres for himself, which he settled on but sold soon after, and bought land and a sawmill of 
Seth Post, in Botsford Hollow^ which has since borne his name. The stream there furnished 
water so that he sawed 600,000 feet of lumber a year, and could run most of the time. Mr. 
Botsford sold this mill to David P. Brooks, and built another sawmill on the same stream and 
put in one of the first circular saws in this section. The stream failed and he built a steam- 
mill on the same site that burned in 1889 and was rebuilt. His son Edwin was his partner, 
and runs it now. Ezra C. Botsford left home in 1848 and bought a farm which he sold and re- 
moved to Fillmore. In 1848 he married Ruth, daughter of Dyer Jacobs of Granger. Children, 
Davilla A. (married Henry Howden, has one child, Ruth) and Sarah E., now Mrs. John Moran. 
Mrs. Botsford died in 1887. Mr. Botsford has been town assessor four years. 

William P. Brooks was born in Watertown Oct. 30, 1834. His father, David P., son of 
Matthew Brooks, came in 1835 to Granger. The next year he settled in Hume on the farm now 
owned by E. H. Hodnett, and in 1841 removed to the present Andrew Caldwell farm. He 
died in 1884, 73 years old. His first wife was Sarah Nourse of Rockingham, Vt. William P. 
was their only child. His second wife was Hannah Sabin. William P. was raised a farmer, 
educated in the common schools and at Rushford Academv, taught school several terms, and 
married, in 1857, Mary P., daughter of Jay Farnsworth, an early settler in Hume. She died in 
1874, leaving one child, Bertha S. (Mrs. C. E. Haines of Fillmore). By his second wife, Catha- 
rine F., daughter of James C. Smith of Fillmore, he has two daughters, Grace S. and Jessie. 
For some years Mr. Brooks was in the lumber and wood business in Allen and Granger, and in 
1867 he bought of J. B. Whitbeck his mercantile business, and has kept a general store from 
that time, building in 1881 the large double store which he now occupies, in which John H. 
Howden was his partner from 1884 to 1894. He was elected supervisor on the Republican 
ticket in 1876, '81, '82, '83, '84, serving more terms than any of his predecessors except Dr. Seth 
Pratt who served the same length of time. He was postmaster at Fillmore from 1874 to 1894, 
except during Cleveland's first administration. He has been president of the State Bank of 
Fillmore since its organization in 1889. Mrs. Catharine F, Brooks died Sept. 7, 1895. Mr. 
Brooks is a self-made man. Unpretentious in manners, strictly honest in his dealings, he has 
attracted trade from long distances and held it. His mercantile career of 30 consecutive years 
is probably the longest of any in Northern Allegany and exceptionally successful. 

Robert H. Chamberlain, son of David and Mary (Kinney) Chamberlain, was born in Bel- 
fast in 1824. Simon Chamberlain, his grandfather, settled in Angelica at an early day, from 
Massachusetts, where David married his wife. Children : Hepsabeth, Moses \'an Campen 
(the first white male child born in Angelica), Elizabeth, Elisha, Prudence, Mary, David, Simon, 
Lucy and Robert H., who was brought up a farmer. In 1843 he married Sarah AUerton. 
Children : Joanna (married f>ank Luther, an old soldier), Joseph M. (went to war with his 
father), Stephen (also a soldier, died in hospital near Washington), Robert. Edwin, Adam, Sarah, 
George and Philip P. All are dead but Sarah (Mrs. Wilson Kelley, who had one child, Bertie). 
Robert left one child, Gracie (Mrs. Charles Patterson). Mr. Chamberlain's second wife was 
Sindora Young, and his third wife, married in 1890, was Mrs. Frances C. (Laning) Noble of 
Rushford, whose three children were : Corydon L., Charles L. and Anna M Mr. Chamberlain 
was a soldier in Gen. Banks' expedition up the Red river. On the night of Jan. 14, 1863, while 
in line of battle at Camp Bisland, the men were so exhausted they laid down and slept in water 
that covered their bodies all but one shoulder and their head. After 19 months service he 
came back to Allen. In 1870 he removed to his farm in Hume, and in 1890 to Fillmore. His 
pension was raised in 1894 from $12 to $24 per month. 

Hiram Clark is the grandson of .Silas and Sarah Clark, who came from Massachusetts to 
Hume in 1832. Children: William and Lyman. Lyman married Elizabeth Haywood in 1839, 
and settled on his present farm of 127 acre's. Children: Elizabeth (Mrs. Harlow Myers, has 
one child, Alfred). Hiram, born in 1844, married, first, Cynthia Hamer, second, Mary Moore. 
Children : Ray and Roy (twins), and Sarah, Ida (Mrs. Frank Hotchkiss, one child, Warner), 
and Milton. Hiram enlisted, in 1863, in 4th N. Y. H. A. He was in the battles of the Wil- 
derness, Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor and Petersburg. He came home with broken health in 
1865, and now has a pension of $17 per month. 

Horton H. Clute, son of Noah and grandson of Frederick Clute, was born in Cohocton, 
Steuben county, in 1826. The children of Noah and Maria (Henry) Clute were William, Hor- 
ton H., and a daughter who died young. In 1832 Noah removed to Perry where Horton at- 
tained to manhood on a farm, and in 1854 he bought and settled on 109 acres of land in Hume. 



764 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

His first marriage was in 1849 to Juliette Walceman wlio died in 1864. His second marriage, in 
1866. was to Sarah A., daughter of John Engle of Angelica, whose grandfather and his brother 
came from Germany about 1750. Both fought in the French and English wars, and the former 
in the Revolutionary War. He was taken prisoner at Germantown and died soon after. John 
Engle was born at Germantown, Pa., in 1795. His father, Joseph Engle, removed about 1805 
to the site of the village of Geneseo. In 1821 John married Sarah Alvord from Vermont, and 
in 1823, settled near Angelica where he was justice of the peace 25 years. In 1866 he went to 
Hartford, Mich., where his sons Cerius H., a lawyer, and Washington A., a physician and the 
author of two volumes of poetry, still reside. The children of Horton and Sarah (Engle) Clute 
are Julia May (Mrs. Eugene H. Ward) and Hattie (Mrs. Carl J. Howden), both of Fillmore, N. 
Y. Mr. Clute has been a merchant in Wiscoy since 1881, an assessor 9 years, and postmaster 
the past 7 years. Mrs. Clute has long been known as a newspaper correspondent, under nom 
de plume of " Lucile," at Wiscoy. 

Loren Colburn comes of an English family which settled in Dedham, Mass., in 1639. One 
of a later generation was the author of " Colburn's Intellectual Arithmetic." Loren was born in 
Shrewsbury, Rutland county, Vt., in 1822, where his father, Phineas, and his grandfather, Moses 
Colburn, lived. Phineas married Abigail Wilder. Children : Loren, Almond, Demaris, Alma 
and Gardner W. He came with his family in 1847 to Hume, and bought 100 acres of land for 
$2,000. His wife died here in 1849, and he in 1854. Loren bought the homestead farm in 
1850, and the same year married Emily, daughter of John Buel of Hume. Mary A., their first 
child, married Fay Bixby and died in 1876. Edna Browning Bixby, their only child, now lives 
with her grandfather Colburn, Ellen J. Colburn is Mrs. Fred Lyon of Pike. Charles C, the 
third child, is now a merchant in Oneonta, N. Y. (He married May White. Children : Ada, 
Mabel and Bruce), Cora E. (Mrs. Frank Morse of Fillmore), Harry B. (with his brother in 
Oneonta), Jessie, Hartley H., a traveling salesman, and Alfred are the remaining five of their 
eight children. 

Nathan E. Colgrove, grandson of Eli and son of William A. Colgrove who was born in 
Brookfield, Madison Co., in 1808, married Olive Davidson, a school teacher, in 1828, came in 
1839 to Castile, and settled in Gardeau, came in 1841 to Granger, and in 1842 to Hume where 
he was justice of the peace. Children : Julia L., (Mrs. Silas Stone, one child, Alonzo), Elizabeth 
(Mrs. John Safford, children : William and John), William H. H. (married Ellen, daughter of 
Samuel and EUinor Flint of Pike, children : Edward and John) and Nathan E., who was born 
in 1851, William A. Colgrove, W. H. H. and Nathan E. bought their farm of 237 acres in 
1877 at $60 per acre. 

Calvin E. Couch is son of Loren J., and grandson of Jonathan who came from Massachu- 
setts to Pike about 1800, was a soldier in the War of 181 2, and died in the hospital while in 
service. Loren J. was born in Massachusetts in 1797, grew to manhood on his father's farm in 
Pike, and, in 1824, married Sally Meacham of Orangeville. Children: Charlotte (Mrs. Isaac 
Failing of Cuba), Mary Jane (Mrs. John P. Failing ; she went from Hume to Illinois), and 
Calvin E., born in Hume Feb. 19, 1832, where his father had settled in the woods. At first 
they had to hang blankets in the empty doors and windows of their log house. Mr. Couch 
paid $4 per acre for the first 90 acres on which Calvin E, was reared, and where he still lives, 
owning now 130 acres. In 1853 he married Marytta, daughter of Alanson Skiff of Hume. The 
children of Calvin E. and Marytta Couch have been : Lorrin A., Ruth (Mrs. Jumes A. Wilson 
of Caneadea, children, Annise and Volney), Mary J. (Mrs. C. W. Thayer of Hume, children, 
Helen P. and Dorris M.), Edmund S., Charles M. In political faith Mr. Couch was first a 
Democrat, but is now a Populist. 

Alfred H. Coy is a son of Horatio Coy, born in Hume in 1834, whose mother was a daugh- 
ter of Joel Seaton, who owned at one time the site of the old Indian village of Caneadea, and 
lived in the famous Council House. Horatio, whose father, Russell Coy,- was born in Scotland, 
married Adaline A., daughter of Edson Hammond of Hume. Alfred H., their only child now 
living, was born in Hume in 1862, and after his school days was clerk in George S. Hopper's 
drug store in Hume, and for the past 9 years has been in the employ of Wells Brothers in 
Hume village. He married, in 1888, Catharine, daughter of Edward Hoey of Belfast, a school 
teacher for 8 years in Hume village, and 3 years elsewhere. 

Mary E. Crowley, daughter of Charles and Catharine (Raycraft) Crowley, was born in Ire- 
land. After the death of her husband Mrs. Crowley brought her two children, Mary E. and 
Dennis D., to Hume in 1863. They attended the common school?, and both went to the Gen- 
eseo Normal School. Mary E., now in her fifth year at Short Tract, has been a teacher since 
1 880. In 1893 she was a candidate for the office of school commissioner for the northern dis- 
trict of Allegany. Dennis D. Crowley chose the medical profession and graduated at two 
medical colleges in Chicago. He settled in Oakland, California, where he was health officer 
and city physician till his professional duties compelled him to resign. He has been twice to 



Hume 765 

Europe to advance his medical researches, now making surgery a specialty. He married Alma, 
daughter of ex-fudge Moore of Oakland. They have two children, Pauline and Basil. 

George W. d'Autremont is the grandson of Augustus Francis Cecile d'Autremont, who, 
in 1807, at the age of i6, came with his widowed mother to Angelica, where he became one of 
the earliest merchants. His son Augustus, father of Geo. W., was born in Angelica in 1822. 
He married Adeline Mather of Hume in 1853. Children : Francis (died at age of 21), George 
W., Julia (Mrs. William Colburn), and Lucien of Hume. Mrs. d'Autremont died in 1862. and 
he married second Mrs. Mary (Brown) Hubbard. Their two children were Adeline and Caro- 
line (Mrs. George Clark). He brought his family to Hume in 1857, where he died in 1889. 
George W. d'Autremont was born Nov. 3, 1856, in Hume. He attended the common schools, 
Rushford Academy, and the Wesleyan Seminary at Houghton. When 18 he taught his first 
school at Grindstone. The next 7 years he was a farmer and since 1887 he has been a teacher, 
for the past year at Fillmore. November 5, 1893, he married Mrs. Jennie (Alton) Skiff from 
Illinois. She has two children by her first husband. Pearl and Paul. Mr. d'Autremont was 
elected, in 1894, supervisor of Hume on the Republican ticket. (See page 420.) 

Frank G. Dodge is son of Miles Dodge, born in Manchester, Vt., in 1819, one of 10 chil- 
dren whose father,"joseph Dodge, a machinist, brought his family in 1823 to Perry, and in 1825 
settled in Castile. Miles was brought up a machinist in his father's shop in Castile where he 
married, in 1840, Sarah, daughter of Grinnell and Betsey (Eldridge) Stannard, and settled in 
Wiscoy in 1842, where he built the large agricultural machine shop still standing. During the 
oil excitement he made steam engines and boilers, employing 40 men. His children were : 
Clara, John, Marion, Fred. Frank G., Adele and Will. Mr. Dodge died in 1890. Frank G. 
was born in 1861 and learned the machinist trade in his father's shop. He married, in 1887, 
Libbie, daughter of B. F. Biglow of Caneadea. Children : Miles, Gilbert and Jessie. In 1894 
he left the employ of the W. N. Y. & P. railroad and returned to Wiscoy where he is running 
the old foundry and machine shop. 

William Doud is son of Orrin, whose father Edward Doud was married to Content Fuller 
in Connecticut, moved to Vermont, then to Otsego county, and came in 1815 to Hume and 
bought of the Holland Land Company 250 acres on lot No. 31. Their children were: John, 
Eben, Orrin, Benjamin and James. Mr. Doud died when 83 and his widow when 97. Orrin 
Doud was born in Otsego county, where he married Sally Phillips, and came to Hume and 
settled with his father. Children : William, Caroline (Mrs. Almond Whiting), Miles W., Louisa 
(Mrs. Bird Trail), Alonzo and Lucinda, who married Frank Ferris, both were teachers in a 
high school in Missouri. William was born Sept. 8, 1820, on the old homestead of his father 
and his grandfather, which is still his home. He married in 1846 Almira E., daughter of Squire 
Stone from Otsego county, who came to Hume in 1834 and died in 1884, 91 years old. They 
have one child, Orrin S., who married Ellen O. Bandfield of Hinsdale, N. Y. Children: 
Eleanor Blanche, Marjorie Almira and William Carlos. Mr. Doud, always a Republican, was 
assessor in war times. 

Miles W. Doud, son of Orrin, son of Edward, who was a descendant from Henry Doud, 
who came in 1639 to Guilford, Conn., from Kent Co., England, was born in Hume in 1826. 
His father was commissioner of schools in Hume in 1822, supervisor in 1828 and 1830, and was 
a justice of the peace. Miles W. bought the first 50 acres of his present farm of 177 acres in 
1847 at $12.50 per acre, and began keeping house in a board shanty 12 by 14 feet with roof 
slanting one way. He married Roseann Grover of Hume. Children, Monroe (dec), Vernon 
W. (married Mary Canning; children, Edith and Miles W.), Charles M. (married Rose Scrib- 
ner: children, Alonzo and May), Willie E. (married Effie Johnston) and Hattie R. (Mrs. W. N. 
Stacy; children, Marie and John). Mrs. Doud died in 1863, and in 1864 he married Mrs. 
Helen (Phillips) Fitch, (daughter of Capt. John Phillips who settled in 1828 where Lewis Kane 
now lives, and died in 1837 when 29 years old). Mr. and Mrs. Doud have had two children, 
Nettie, died when ten years old and Miles, who died young. 

Willard E. Dudley was the son of Alexander Dudley, who came from Vermont to Castile, 
where William E. was born in 18215. He was brought up a farmer, and, in 1850, married 
Melissa Stannard of Castile. About i860 they removed to New York City, where he became a 
cattle-broker and commission dealer, handling the heavy shipments of Nelson Morris of Chicago. 
For some years he was a partner of S. G. VVoodruff, now a banker in Livonia, and the firm of 
Dudley & Woodruff was among the best known cattle dealers in New York. In 1882 he came 
to Hume and paid $70 per acre for the farm still the home of Mrs. Dudley, where he died in 
1888 at the age of 63. Their children were Edwin E. and Frank C. The latter prepared for 
college at Allington, Ct. He has traveled in every state in the Union, and has business inter- 
ests in the west. 

Samuel Ara Farman. born in New Haven, Oswego county, Dec. 6, 1835, is a descendant 
in the 4th generation of John Farman, a soldier in the French War, who, after serving 7 years 



766 Hjstory of Allegany County, N. Y. 

in the English Army, came through the forests from Canada to New England in 1763. and mar- 
ried and settled in Bath, N. H. John Farman was born near Annapolis, Md., Sept., 11, 1739, 
where his father and grandfather were born, the former Oct. 17, 1699. His great-grandfather 
was one of the early planters of that part of Maryland. On the side of his mother, Martha, 
daughter of Charles and Prudence (Wells) Dix, Mr. Farman is a descendant, in the seventh gen- 
eration, of Leonard Dix, an original settler of Wethersfield, Conn., and, in the 8th generation, 
of Thomas Wells, first colonial treasurer of Connecticut, and afterwards secretary, deputy gov- 
ernor and governor of that colony and for 24 years (1636-1660) a judge of the general court. 
Mr. Farman came to Wyoming county in 1854, and was engaged in a store at Perry, and after- 
wards at Hermitage. In 1857 he entered the store of J. B. Whitbeck at Fillmore as a clerk, 
and afterwards was a member of the firm of Whitbeck & Co. In 1861 he was appointed 
postmaster at Fillmore, and held the office until he entered the army. In August, 1862, he 
received from Gov. Morgan a recuiting commission and within ten days after its receipt he en- 
rolled 60 men, mostly from Hume and Centerville, and at once went into camp at Portage, where 
the 130th and 136th Regts. were being organized. Mr. Farman was commissioned first lieutenant 
in the 130th, with rank from Aug. 19, 1862, in Co. F, commanded by Capt. Jeremiah Hatch. 
This regiment was mustered into U. S. service Sept. 3. 1862, served as infantry until transferred 
to the cavalry service as the ist N. Y. Dragoons. The 130th was stationed during the winter 
of 1 862-1 863 at Suffolk, Va., to aid in fortifying and holding this strategic point. In April, 
1863, the Confederates made a futile, though determined, attempt to take the place by a siege of 
23 days. In June, 1863, the regiment went to the Army of the Potomac. "Lieutenant Far- 
man served with efficiency as the acting regimental quartermaster from the later part of 1862 
until he resigned, and was honorably discharged July 30, 1863." After leaving the army 
Lieut. Farman was long a merchant at Hermitage, N. Y., but now resides at Fillmore. He 
married, April 19, 1859, Sarah Andrina d'Autremont, youngest daughter of Augustus Francis 
Cecile d'Autremont (see page 420), who was one of Angelica's earliest merchants. He has 
one son, Henrv Samuel Farman, born April 26. 1871. 

William Grant Flanegan, is son of James W., son of Samuel, son of James who came from 
Londonderry, Ireland, in 1792 to York, Pa., where he kept a hotel and had 12 children. His 
son Samuel, born in 1798, married Lydia Perkins and came to Hume, with a covered wagon 
and ox team about 1825 and bought 60 acres of the present farm, I'ving in the wagon till the 
log house, in which public meetings were afterwards held, could be built. He died in 1878, his 
wife in 1884. James W., the only one of their children who lived to maturity, was born in 1830, 
and married Frances L. Cudworth. Children were William G. and Lillie B. He died in 1892, 
on the old farm he had increased to 452 acres. Mrs. Flanegan died Feb. 20, 1895, aged 47 
years, William G. was born in 1870, Lillie in 1872. After attending the common schools and 
Pike Seminary, William G. became an active farmer, and, with his sister, occupies the old home- 
stead, which includes Flanegan pond named after the family, which is the largest natural body 
of still water in the county. 

Julius E. Franklin, born in Brookfield, Madison Co., April 18, 1833, was the son of John, 
son of William Franklin, from Vermont. John married Betsy Miller. Children; Gurdin, Harriet, 
Sarah, Amarilla, Mary A., William M., Mortimer C, Spencer R., Julius E. and Julia E. (twins), 
Gurdin J. and Gertrude J. (twins). In 1844 John Franklin came to Allen and settled as a farmer. 
His wife died in 1863, and he in 1875. Julius E. learned the harness maker's trade in Madison 
Co., where he enlisted in ist N. Y. Light Artillery which served throughout the war in guarding 
Washington and Pennsylvania from invasion, was very active, but was in no big battles. After 
his discharge Mr. Franklin bought the Smith farm of 11 5 acres in Allen on which the Barnes 
& Snyder cheese factory was built in 1868. Mr. Franklin married Delia B. Quinn in 1881, and 
together they made cheese in the Shongo, Fiske, Bert and Rush Creek factories until 1888 when 
they settled on their present farm of 50 acres, which they bought in 1884. They had one child, 
Earl J. Mr. Franklin has a pension of eight dollars per month. He has always been a Repub- 
lican. Gurdin J. enlisted from Allen in the 130th N. Y. was transferred to the 136th and killed 
at Resaca, Ga., May 15, 1864. 

Lorenzo S. Gelser is son of Jacob C. Gelser, who was born in Germany and came to Grove, 
where he settled in the woods, paying $2.50 per acre for his land. In 1843 he married Eliza- 
beth Isaman. Children : Charles. Caroline, John, Michael, David and Lorenzo S. The latter was 
born in Grove in 1853, and was brought up on his father's farm. He attended school at Alfred 
University, and taught school a year in Illinois and two years in Western New York. He next 
went "on the road " four years, buying eggs for Charles Maker of Dalton. In 1879 he came to 
Fillmore, and was a clerk in W. P. Brooks' store four years. In 1883 he began business for 
himself as general produce-dealer, making a specialty of the egg trade. Then he opened a coal- 
yard, selling first less than fifty tons a year, but now '600 tons. He built his present storehouse 
in 1887, where he packs and ships an average of 100,000 dozen eggs per year. He also ships 



Hume. 767 



r^o cars of potatoes, doing an annual business of $100,000. Mr. Gelser married, in 1879 Min- 
nie daughter of Goodwin S. Hovey, of Dalton. They had 2 children. Hovey A. and Lucile. 
Mrs. Gelser died Dec. 2. 1894 and he married second. Ada M. Lowell of Fillmore. Dec. 11. 1895. 
Mr. Gelser's father died in 1890. his mother is still living. t d u i 

William Gibbs is grandson of Lemuel Gibbs. a soldier in the War of 1812. of Bethel, 
Windham Co.. Vt.. where his son Roswell was born in 1798. and married Polly Lathrop m ibi«. 
They reached Hume after a 17 days' journey in March, 1818, bought 75 acres of land, and began 
life with one horse and 50 cents in money, using wooden pins for nails and g;reased paper tor 
window glass in building their log house. To raise money Mr. Gibbs worked in Pike tor f 10 a 
month, and his wife for 75 cents a week. Their children were : Roxana, William, Hannah M., 
Julia A., Oscar F., Cordelia A. and Orlando C. Mr. Gibbs and Mr. McKeen cut the road from 
Hume to Angelica. William was born in 1823, and married in 1850 Emeline Lyon who died m 
1875. His second wife was Mrs. Jerusha (Grow) Washburn, who had one child Bertha, now 
Mrs. George Hull. Mr. Gibbs' farm adjoins the old homestead on which his brother Orlando 
C lives 

John Gleason is the son of Jonathan and the grandson of John Gleason of Welch extraction 
who moved from Massachusetts to Seneca county, and from there to Steuben county, wnere ne 
died. His son Jonathan was born in Massachusetts and married Mary Crawford ot beneca 
county. Children : Henrietta, Reading, Delila, Jane, Starkev. Alfred, Jones, John. Mary, Jona- 
than and William. He came in 1825 to Belfast, where he died in 1853. His son. John Uleason, 
was born in 1824. in Seneca county, and came with his family the next year to Belfast where ne 
was brought up a farmer. He married, in 1853. Clara, daughter of William Brown of Beltast. 
William Brown was born in 1793 and died in 1880, a son of John Brown of Tioga county, Fa., 
who was a Revolutionary soldier and was wounded at the battle of Bunker Hill, ihe taniiiy 
were direct descendants of Anneke Jans, of Trinity church fame, William being in the eighth 
generation. The great-grandfather of Mrs. William Brown, who was Margaret Roberts, came 
to America with William Penn. Mr. and Mrs. Gleason came from Belfast to their farm in Hume 
in 1867. They have adopted, reared and educated five children. u \\t f 9 '► 

Edson A. Hammond is grandson of Jonathan Hammond a drummer in tfie War ot I5I2 
who settled on lands deeded to him by the state of New York but which proved to be in Ver- 
mont after the boundary between the two states was finally settled, in compensation tor which 
New York gave him a farm in Bainbridge, Chenango county, where Edson w-as born in 1613 
Jonathan who was born in Rutland. Vt., the son of John Hammond, of Scotch descent brought 
his family to Caneadea in 1831. and in 1832 to Hume to the farm still the home ot his son 
Augustus Hammond. The children of Jonathan and Prudence (Slater) Hammond were Lucy, bona 
and Laura born in Vt.. and Lois, John M.. Edson. Marvette. Augustus. Orvill and Addison born 
in Bainbridge, Edson, a farmer married Jerusha Dean. Children : George. Theodore and Adaline. 
His second wife was Mary A., daughter of Guilford Meachan. married in 1847. Children . li^dson 
A., Fred E., Wesley H., Mary E.. Mabel and Nora. Edson A. Hammond was born in Hume, 
Jan. 21. 1849. on the farm now owned by Eugene McCarthy, which his father bought in 1833, 
cleared up and sold in 1867. going from Hume to Michigan where he died in 1^93. He was 
highway commissioner five years and assessor 14 years in Hume. At the age ot 10 h-dson A. 
entered his father's store which was deeded to him in 1865. In 1870 Edson A. closed out his 
mercantile business, bought 94 acres of land and made small fruits a specialty. He married in 
1 87 1 Ella J. daughter of Ouincv White of Rushford. Their children were : Naola E., and Llare 
W. Mrs. Hammond died" in r884. Mr. Hammond was one year master and several years sec- 
retary of Oriona Lodge F. & A. M., was town clerk in 1870 and 1871, and was justice ot the 
peace from 1892 to his death in 1894. j u 

Herbert H. Hammond is grandson of John Madison and Eliza (Gillett) Hammond, whose 
parents, Jonathan, a soldier in the War of 181 2. son of John, of Scotch descent, and Prudence 
(Slater) Hammond came from Bainbridge. Chenango Co., to Caneadea in 1831 and to Hume 
in 1832. The children of John M. (born in i8u) were : Jane, Maryette. John D., John M. 
(killed in battle of Malvern Hill July 2, 1862), Isadore S.. and Charles S. Mr. Hammond was 
an early merchant, tavern keeper and lumber dealer on the river road. He contracted tor, and 
built 4 miles of the Genesee Valley canal from Fillmore south, was twice its superintendent, 
and was member of the legislature in 1858, of the constitutional convention in 1867. and so 
performed his duties that, to his death, March 8. 1887. he was justly and fondly known as 
" Honest John Hammond." He was the ablest and most noted citizen the town has ever had. 
His son, Jonas D.. was born in Hume in 1836. and like his father has been an efficient jobber 
and contractor. During the construction of the Valley railroad he built its stone work tor 20 
miles through this county. He married in 1857 Helen, daughter of Rhyla and Betsey (Elmer) 
Thrall. Children : Herbert H., Ellen 1. (Mrs. Frank E. Haines). John M., Bertha M. Helen M. 
(Mrs. Skiff), Belle J., and Mae L. Herbert U. Hammond was born Oct. 8, i860, in Hume, and 



768 History op Allrgany County, N. Y. 

has always been a farmer and jobber. He married, in 1883, Anna M., daughter of Erastus 
Noble of Rusbford. Children : Jennie, Franc and Herbert J. He is now serving his second 
term as highway commissioner, in the administration of which he has expended near $10,000, 
building new steel bridges at Wiscoy and at Fillmore, these years were the most expensive years 
Hume has had since the great floods of 1889. 

Augustus W. Henry, proprietor of the Ingham House in the village of Hume, established 
in 1823 by Chauncey G. Ingham, the first tavern kept in town, is the son of Curtis L., son of 
Philetus, son of Eben Henry. Curtis L. was born in Oneida county in 1825, and went with his 
father to Cleveland, N. Y., where he married Rosetta Brown. Children : Augustus W. and Ida 
E. Augustus W. bought the Ingham House in May, 1886, and has been its landlord since. 
In January, 1886, he married Hattie, daughter of Joseph W. Ayer of Hume. Their children 
are Ward B. and Curtis P. Mr. Henry was one of the victims and the only survivor of the 
most memorable disaster in the history of Hume. June 9, 1892, a cloudburst in Centerville 
changed Sixth-Town Creek to a torrent, and raised Cold Creek to a rushing river. A crowd of 
people rtood on either bank of the mad stream watching its wild plunge over the falls, little 
dreaming that the terrible current was swiftly cutting the earth from under their feet. Without 
warning at 6:30 P. M. the bank fell precipitating 5 men into the flood, George Meech and his 
son Hartley, Elias Craft, A. W. Henry, and his brother-in-law Burdett Ayer. The latter two 
grasped each other, went over the falls together and were not separated till near the whirlpool. 
Mr. Henry's arm caught between two rocks, crushing his hand and the bones of his right arm. 
Burdett was hurried down the stream and rescued near Fillmore in an unconscious condition. 
He died Saturday evening from injuries to his head. After the seething waters had torn Mr. 
Henry from between the rocks, he was carried several times around the whirlpool and then 
shot down the stream to an island a hundred rods below where he managed to crawl to a place 
of safety. A great crowd gathered, but it was 4 hours before the stream lowered enough to 
allow a man to reach the island on a powerful horse, by which means he was rescued. His 
recovery was painful and slow, and his hand and arm are still crippled. 

J. W. Hildreth was born in Acton, Vermont, in 1837 and was one of a family of 8 children. 
His father, Alanson Hildreth moved to Scio, Allegany county in 1851, and in 1852 settled in 
Hume where he died in 1885. James W. was brought up on a farm and educated at the com- 
mon schools and Rushford Academy. Enlisted in 1862 in Co. F, 4th N. Y. H. A., served in 
the defense of Washington and with the army of the Potomac, the regiment taking part in all 
the battles from the Wilderness to the surrender at Appomattox, Mr. Hildreth was promoted 
to 2d Lieutenant for bravery in action June 18, 1864, when he was wounded in the right hand ; 
and was also recommended for ist Lieutenant and Captain for the part taken by him at the 
battle of Reams' Station Aug. 25th, but being prostrated by sickness was mustered out of the 
service Jan. 20, 1865. He is a charter member of Burnside Post 237, G. A. R. and has been 6 
years its Commander. He has served his town 9 years as assessor and two terms as super- 
visor. 

James R. Hodnett is son of John, who came from Ireland to America in 18 17 and settled 
in Hume, where he is now a farmer. He married Anna Ryan. Children, James R., Mary A., 
Maggie, Katie and Frank. James R. was born in Hume in 1855, lived with his father on the 
farm till 1878, when he conducted a meat market trade for six years. In 1884 he was elected 
constable, and, by successive re-elections, still holds that office to which he devotes his entire 
time. For the past six years he has been deputy-sheriff in which capacity he has done excellent 
detective work. In 1892 Antonio Delillo stabbed and killed a fellow Italian at Houghton. Mr. 
Hodnett captured him the next morning at Purdy's Crossing in Hume. The murderer had hid 
in Charles Leet's straw-stack where Leet's dog scented him early in the morning. Before he 
could again hide Mr. Hodnett discovered and captured him. He was armed with a deadly 
knife, eight inches long, the one with which he stabbed Antonio. He is now serving a 20-years 
sentence in Auburn. Mr. Hodnett went twice in 1893 to Maryland, capturing his man each 
trip, and has never failed to find any man for whom he has had a warrant. He married in 
1879 Maria Rock of Belfast. Children, Willie R. and Eddie L. Mr. Hodnett is a strong Re- 
publican in politics. Jan. i, 1895, he was appointed by George H. Swift, sheriff, under sheriff 
of Allegany county and moved with his family to Belmont and took charge of the new jail, a 
position he still holds. 

Michael Holland is the son of Edmund, son of Michael, all of County Cork, Ireland. 
Michael married Elizabeth Kingston. Children, Johanna (Mrs. C. Hickey). Edmund, Michael, 
Thomas, Mary (Mrs. John Lanning), Ellen (Mrs. George. Keeler), Catharine (Mrs. Eugene 
McCarthy), Elizabeth (Mrs. Cornelius Hickey) and Ann (Mrs. Joseph Lanning). Edmund when 
21, in 1837 came to Hamilton, Canada, in 1839 to New York, and worked on the Genesee val- 
ley canal. In 1840 he married Catharine Hickey who came from County Cork, in 1835, and 
settled in Fillmore. His first care was to bring his family to this country. In 1846 he went to 



Hume. 769 

Quebec^ and met his parents and brothers and sisters. Thomas, Catharine and Elizabeth set- 
tled in Hume. In 1865 he bought 95 acres where Mr. Gerritt Rice lives, and there passed his 
remaining years, dying in 1880. Their union was blessed with 10 children, three surviving. 
His widow survives him with unusual vigor of body and mind. Their children were Elizabeth 
(Mrs. Fred Lapp), Michael, Mary (Mrs. Gerritt Rice), Ellen (Mrs. James Ratchford, deceased 
Jan. 19, 1895). Michael was born Dec. 10, 1843, '" Hume, and has ever been a farmer, buying 
his home farm of 96 acres in 1866 at S30 per acre. He married Nov. 2, 1867, Catharine Pen- 
dergast. Children, Thomas W., Joseph M. and Edmund F. 

Mrs. Emma Kingsley is daughter of Jeremiah Weaver of Grove, whose father, Daniel 
Weaver, came from Pennsylvania. She married, in 1871, Ebenezer Kingsley of Hume. They 
had one child, Ebenezer, born in 1874, who attended Belfast Academy and Rochester Business 
University. Ebenezer was the son of Ephraim and Lydia Kingsley, who settled in Nunda in 
1807 from Vermont, removed to Hunt's in 18 16, and to Hume in 1820. He was born in 18 14, 
was raised on a farm, but turned his attention to the Genesee Valley canal then being built, and 
became foreman of a state scow in 1851 under John M. Hammond. When Mead & Bangs of 
Syracuse had the contract to keep the Genesee Valley canal in repair they appointed him super- 
intendent. After that Dunn & Kingsley had the repair contract on the division from Oramel to 
Olean, and just after the war he became general superintendent for about two years. He was a 
member of the firm of Dunn & Co., and had contracts with John and Peter Dunn in the Che- 
mung canal extension. He possessed executive ability, and was connected with canal affairs 
till the canal was abandoned. He then returned to his valuable farm near Rossburg where he 
died in 1888. Mrs. Kingsley and her son Ebenezer reside on the old homestead. 

George H. Lewis was born in Philadelphia Jan. 20, 1840. He came with his father's family 
to Fillmore in 1848 ; remained with his people at Fillmore and Caneadea until 1857, when he 
went to New Orleans ; he came back in 1859 and removed to Nunda, Livingston county. In 
1877 he became a resident of Buffalo where he is engaged extensively in business, being the 
executive man of the Bell, Lewis & Yates coal firm, the largest in the world. His wife is a 
sister of his partner Bell. He built several years since, and still owns, the popular Niagara 
Hotel on Porter avenue, Buffalo. 

Peleg Manchester, son of James, son of Peleg, from Rhode Island, of English descent, was 
born in Butternuts, Otsego county, in 1826. James Manchester married Esther Holmes, chil- 
dren : John, Mary, Lydia, Sophia and Peleg. He came to Hume in 1832 and bought the farm 
of 130 acres, now the property of his son Peleg. His first wife died in 1830, and his second 
wife was Mary Balcom. Peleg was raised a farmer and married, in 1847, Acidena, daughter of 
Dr. Seth H. Pratt, the second resident physician in Hume, children : James P. and Mary A. 
(Mrs. Duane Sweet). Mrs. Manchester died in 1882. James P. Manchester, son of Peleg, was 
born in Hume in 1849, educated in Hume village and Rushford Academy, became a clerk and 
in 1875 bought the mercantile business of J. M. Hammond «S: Co. which he ran on the cash 
basis two years. He also established a banking business in which he was engaged when he 
was appointed in 1886 assistant treasurer at St. George's Island, Alaska, by the Cleveland 
administration, which position he held some years, when he returned to Hume and was the first 
cashier of the State Bank of Fillmore. He was always a Democrat, serving as supervisor of 
Hume in 1878. He married Viola, daughter of David W. Sweet of Hume, and died in 1890, 
leaving one child, Lewis W. 

George Warner Marvin is son of Henry Marvin who lived in East Bloomfield, Ontario Co. 
By his first wife, Almira A. Keyes, he had two children, Laura and Almira. The latter married 
William Brownson. Maria Brownson, their youngest child, lives with her uncle, G. W. Marvin, 
in Hume. Henry Marvin's second wife was Abigail, oldest daughter of Roger Mills of Hume. 
Their children were Thomas and Maryette. His third wife was Ducilla Mills, daughter of 
Roger Mills, the pioneer, by his second wife whose name was Griswold. Their children were 
Abbie and George W. whose mother died one hour after his birth. May 12, 1821. When 8 
months old he was brought to Hume and lived in Roger Mills' family. The nearest " new 
milk's " cow was a mile away. The infan't food at 6 cents per quart was paid for by spinning 
flax. When 7 years old George W. was adopted by Mary Mills (Mrs. Seth Robinson) with 
whom he lived till he was 21 on a farm which afterwards he bought and still owns. After her 
husband's death Mrs. Robinson lived with Mr. Marvin the last 20 years of her life. In 1842 
William R. Skiff, salesman in a drygoods store in New York, opened a general store in the 
present Stapleton meat-market building, and hired Mr. Marvin at $150 a year and board and 
washing. Mr. Skiff put him on a peddler's wagon with two horses, with a stock of silks, shawls, 
watches and jewelry, which he ran 5 years, doing a large trade. In 1848 he married Rebecca 
Alger, and settled on the Seth Robinson farm. Mr. Marvin also dealt in agricultural tools, 
selling 40 Howard mowing machines yearly. Then for many years he bought live stock, mak- 
ing heavy purchases for Jacob Velie, a wealthy drover of Poughkeepsie. He also became an 



770 - History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

extensive merchant, establishing stores at Hume, Wiscoy, Centerville and Birdsall. The 
former he sold to Evans & Bean, and the latter to Martin Mills. 1 he other two he still owns. 
In 1868 Mr. Marvin moved to his present home in Hume village, bought of Roger B. Mills. 
His wife died in 1878. He has been an upright and a successful man. He is a Republican and 
has served the town as assessor and highway commissioner. 

Eugene McCarthy is son of Charles and Johanna (Goggin) McCarthy, who lived in Parish 
Schull, County Cork, Ireland, where Eugene the second of 11 children was born in 1827. In 
1849 he came to America, passed the first year in New Jersey, coming in 1851 to Portage where 
he worked on the big bridge till it was done, and was on the first train that crossed it. Coming 
thence to Hume he ran a shingle mill for Mortimer McPherson, and in 1854 bought of him 50 
acres of wood land at $1 1 per acre, on which he built a house and lived 20 years. He married 
in 1853 Catharine, daughter of Michael Holland of Hume. Children: Charles, Mary, Anna, 
Michael (married Gertrude Alger, has one child Anastatia), Catharine (Mrs. Eugene Russell, 
children, Charles and Henry), Ellen (Mrs. Henry Smith, one child Christopher), Thomas, John. 
Johanna, James E. and George. In 1883 Mr. McCarthy revisited his native land, crossing and 
returning in the steamer Arizona, costing for the ocean travel $75 for the round trip, and taking 
between seven and eight days each way. About 1875 he traded for the farm of 180 acres that 
has since been his home. Mr. McCarthy has been an assessor 3 years, is a prominent member 
of St. Patrick's church, and one of the trustees of Holy Cross Cemetery. 

The Mills family, the pioneers of Hume, were of Dutch descent. The old Holland ances- 
tor's name was Peter Van Dermeulen, which was changed by the legislature of Connecticut to 
Mills. Three brothers, Roger, Elihu and Frederick, lived at or near Hartford, Conn., and one 
or more of them were butchers. Roger's first wife was a Webster, cousin to Noah Webster. 
She died at the birth of their only child, Roger, Jr. His second wife was a Griswold. Their 
children were: Peltiah, born in 1776; Elisha, born 1778; George, 1781 ; Rufus, 1783; Abigail, 
1785; Betsey, 1787; Drucilla, 1793; Mary, 1797. Roger Mills left Connecticut and settled 
in Montgomery Co., N. Y., which was the home whence he came, in 1806, to the forests of the 
Upper Genesee Valley, made the pioneer clearing, erected buildings and put therein machinery 
for sawing lumber and grinding grain, in the locality that is still known, and will probably carry 
his name to the latest posterity as Mills' Mills. He returned to his home in Montgomery in 181 1, 
where his useful career was closed by death. Fortunately for the family and for the new 
settlement he had a worthy successor in the person of his son Roger, Jr., who came the same 
year and took up the work where his father had left it. Roger Mills, Jr. was born in Bloom- 
field, Conn., in 1768, and came to Montgomery Co., N. Y., with his uncle Elihu who brought 
him up. He married Abigail Bidwell. Their thirteen children were as follows : Abigail, born 
April 9, 1792, became the first wife of Henry Marvin, EastBloomfield, Ontario Co., N. Y„ Roger 
Bidwell, born July 6, 1793, Jonathan, born July 14, 1795, died July 18, 1796, Jonathan, 2d, 
born March 11, 1797; died Nov. 14, 1798, William Webster, born Nov. 22, 1798, Mary W., born 
March 11, 1801 (Mrs. Seth Robinson), Nathaniel E., born Dec. 31, 1802, Charles Morris, born 
April 22, 1805, Emeline, born April 22, 1807 (Mrs. Henry Mills), Martha B., born June 22, 1809 
(Mrs. Alonson Skiff), Samuel Goodwin, born Nov. 22, 181 1, Philo, born March 21, 1813, died 
1892, and Marvin, born May 30, 181 7, who is the only one of this large family now alive. Mar- 
vin Mills, the youngest of the 13 children of Roger and Abigail (Bidwell) Mills, and the only one 
now alive, was born in Hume at Mills' Mill, May 30, 181 7. He was raised and has always been 
a farmer. He married Sarah, daughter of William Somers of Waterford, Vt., and settled on 
what is now the Chester Mills farm. Their children were : Charles D. F., Kelsey L. and Wil- 
liam S. Charles D. F. Mills was born Dec. 24, 1842, and married S. Celestia Kingsley Nov. 22, 
1864. Children: Lillian A. born March 24, 1867. married George F. Palmer, M. D., since 
deceased, and Herbert A. born Dec. 26, 187 1. His wife died Aug. 20, 1883, and his second 
marriage was with Blanche E. Dailey Jan. 30, 1889. They had three children : DeForrest A., 
born June 22, 1890, and Edith B., born March 13,1893. Mr. Mills is a farmer near Wiscoy, 
N. Y. Kelsey L. Mills, the second son of Marvin Mills, was born Dec. 23, 1847, He married 
Josephine Akers June i, 1875. (Their children are three : J. Charles, born Nov. 12, 1877 (dec), 
Warner M., born Dec. 8, 1887 (dec), and Harry A. now about one year old.) Mr. Mills is a 
jeweler in Kansas City, Mo. Marvin Mills sold his farm in 1883 and moved to Wiscoy village, 
where his wife died in June, 1892, at the age of 70 years. William S. Mills, the youngest child 
of Marvin and Sarah (Somers) Mills, was born in Hume, May 24, 1858, At the age of 16 he 
went to Kansas City, Mo., where he attended school and learned the jeweler' s trade with his 
brother Kelsey L. In 1878 he returned and in 1880 established the jeweler business in the vil- 
lage of Hume. In 1885 he removed to Fillmore where he is now located. He married Feb, 
23, 1882, Ella R., daughter of George D. Gillett of Hume. Their two children are: M. Lena, 
born Aug. 4, 1883, and Bessie E., born May 31, 1887. 



Hume. , 771 

Webster Mills, soti of William Webster Mills, who was born in Canajoharie, Montgomery 
county, in 1798, and came with his father, Roger Mills, to Mills' Mills in 181 1. William W. 
learned the carding and fulling mill business which his father and Bailey Clough had established 
in 1 8 16, which he afterwards bought, and added cloth manufacturing, running the factory till 
about 1880. Remarried, in 1825, Maria, daughter of Philip Griggs of Pike. Their children 
were, Elasif L. (born in 1826, married Dr. A. B. Stewart), Webster, Volney (born in 1831, 
married Sarah Fuller), Dorliska (Mrs. George Copeland), Balfour (born in 1840), Stanley 
(born Nov. 2, 1842, married Lucina Fuller). Mr. Mills died in 1884, his wife in '75- 
Webster Mills was born at Mills' Mills, June 11, 1882, where he received common school ad- 
vantages, and for a time attended Professor Smith's select school at Castile. At the age of 19 
he went into his father's gristmill, remaining in the business 20 years. In '68 he bought his 
present farm of 158 acres at $45 per acre. Mr. Mills' first marriage was in '49 with Lucinda, 
daughter of Benjamin Fuller of Hume, and his present wife was Mrs. Lucina (Quackenbush) 
Alger. Politically a Republican, he has been supervisor of Hume three terms. 

Balfour Mills, son of William Webster Mills, was born Dec. 24, 1840, in Hume. William 
Webster was born in Canajoharie in 1798 and came with his father, Roger Mills in 181 1. He 
worked from boyhood in the carding mill and added cloth making to the business, which he 
conducted till near his death in 1884, making cloth only 7 years. He was first a Whig, then a 
Republican, and never missed a spring or fall election. William W. Mills married Maria, 
daughter of Philip Griggs. Children, Elasif L. (Mrs. A. B. Stewart of Hume), Webster, Volney, 
Dorliska (Mrs. George Copeland), Balfour and Stanley. Balfour was educated in the common 
schools and Pike Academy, and has always been a farmer. His first wife was Adelaide, daughter 
of Luman Peck of Hume. The-r children were Dorliska (Mrs. Loren Smith of Hume) Arthur 
R. and Ethel Mills. His second wife was Mrs. Sarah (Fuller) Mills, widow of Volney Mills, 
by whom she had two children, Robert S. of Akron, N. Y., and Charley V. of Hume. Mr. 
Mills' second wife died in 1892. He has been a life-long Republican, serving two terms as 
assessor. 

John Powers Mills is the only child of Charles M. and Julia (Powers) Mills. His father, 
born in 1805, was the seventh child of Roger Mills, son of the pioneer. His mother was 
daughter of John and Lavinia (Stone) Powers of Pleasant Valley, Steuben county, where she 
was born in 1819, Jacob Powers, father of John, came from Germany, was a soldier in the 
French War and a captain in the colonial army of the Revolution. For his services he held a 
military grant of 400 acres of land now in the city of Saratoga. Mrs. Mills' grandfather, 
Amos Stone, of English extraction, a Revolutionary soldier, was a cousin of Nathan Hale. Tra- 
dition says his ancestors came over in the Mayflower. His wife's name was HoUiday whose 
mother was Irish. When 23 Julia Powers began reading Homeopathy, which she practiced 
twelve years, two in Buffalo. Her marriage to Charles Mills occurred in 1857. Mr. Mills was 
a farmer and a dealer in cattle and sheep. He served his town as assessor and as supervisor. 
He died in 1887 on the farm now the home of his widow and son, a part of the first purchase of 
Roger the first. John Powers Mills was born in Hume in 1858. With a natural love for math- 
ematics he turned his attention to civil engineering, which he studied several years and became 
a land surveyor. He is still a student farmer, and takes keen delight in his fine collection of 
standard scientific works. 

William R. Mills is the son of Roger Bidwell Mills who was born in Bloomfield, Ct., in 
1793, and came to Hume in 181 1, and became a miller in his father's mill. He married Alice 
Robinson of Pike. Children : William R., Sarah A. (Mrs. William Baker), and Martin M., of 
Birdsall. William R. was born May 21, 1818, and worked in his father's carding and fulling 
mill, which the latter sold about 1845, bought a farm and died in 1885. In 1841 William R. 
married Phebe Rich of Hume. Children : Albert A., married Rachael Cudworth : children, 
Fred A., Helen A. and Anna R. Helen V., married Chester F. Skiff a furniture dealer at Hume 
and commercial traveler. Children : William M., Mary (Mrs. L. R. Slussor, one child Lou), 
Fannie, Alice, John M., and Minerva. Julius of Hume and Luella A. (Mrs. Frank A. Burnell, 
of Denver, Col.). Mr. Mills left his farm in 1885 and settled in Hume village where his wife 
died in 1886. Since then he has visited his daughter in Denver six times, traveling extensively 
in the west. He has always been a zealous Republican, has served his town five years as high- 
way commissioner. In religious matters he is a radical free thinker, admires Bob Ingersoll, and 
has taken the Boston Investigator over 42 years. 

George Minard, son of Isaac and Lucy Minard, was born in Rockingham, Vt., in 1803. He 
had the limited advantages of the common schools of that day, and when 21 years of age he 
went to Lowell, Mass., and was employed in blasting and removing rock for the foundation of 
the extensive cotton mills there. In 1828 with his hard earned wages he came to Allegany and 
settled on lot No. 53 of the ,Caneadea reservation, buying out Isaac and Chester Gibbs. He 
married, first, Irene Blanchard, and second, Maria Stearns, of Rockingham, Vt. Mr. Minard 



772 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

was supervisor of Hume 3 times, an active politician and was largely influential in the councils of 
the Whigs ot the county. Both Mr. and Mrs. Minard were Universalists. He died in April, 
1863, and his wife in 1875. " He was a man of large heart, great force of character and liberal 
ideas, scrupulously honest in business transactions, and foremost in all material improvements 
of the town." 

John S. Minard, son of George and Maria (Stearns) Minard, was born on the Caneadea 
Indian reservation in Hume, Jan. 31, 1834. His schooling began in the log schoolhouse era, and 
his education was received at the common schools, Hume union school, the Castile Scientific 
and Mathematical Institute conducted by Prof. Davis W. Smith, a teacher of much eminence, 
from 1840 to 1855 and at the Genesee Wesleyan Seminary. April i, 1853, his father died, leav- 
ing him barely past 19 years of age. the oldest of a family of four children, and so his school 
days were abruptly ended. Remaining on the farm till 1871, he disposed of his part of the 
homestead and in 1873 with Hon. Jghn M. Hammond and Geo. W. Marvin engaged in mer- 
chandising at Hume as J. M. Hammond & Co. for about three years. In the fall of 1876 he 
again engaged in trade in the old " Mechanics Hall," and in 1878 built the large store on Main 
street where he conducted business until December, 1885, when he sold his stock and goodwill 
to Wellls & Minard. October 18, 1858, he married Mary A. ISiye of Hume. Not being blessed 
with children they adopted two orphans, brother and sister ; Edwin Forrest Minard, who died 
in 1887, and Julia Elizabeth Minard, now Mrs. F. W. Hark of Fillmore. While engaged in an 
extensive lucrative mercantile business, Mr. Minard, about 1880, bought with a partner a large 
tract of timber land and engaged largely in lumbering. This resulted most disastrously from cir- 
cumstances beyond his control in large losses and pecuniary embarrassment. Mr. Minard's integ- 
rity and fair dealing were not compromised by these operations and he made new friends by his stand 
in relation to them. He has been a practical surveyor since 1853 and has in this vocation become 
thoroughly acquainted with much of northern Allegany and his services are often demanded as an 
expert on lines and boundaries. He has been supervisor of Hume, town agent in 1873 or* town 
railroad bond matters, justice of the peace, etc. He is an enthusiast in Indian history, antiquarian 
matters and local history. He has written much for publication in newspapers, etc., is the author 
and publisher of the valuable " Life of Maj. Moses Van Campen," has been president of Allegany 
County Historical Society from organization, and by his suggestion and in a very large degree 
his labors, was the Allegany County Centennial Celebration conceived and brought to success- 
ful completion. Mr. Minard has often been called upon to prepare papers and addresses on 
historical and other subjects, and they universally receive flattering criticism. He is the author 
of the general history in this volume and of a number of the town histories. 

Roswell Minard, was born in Buckingham, Windham Co., Vermont in 181 1, the son of 
Isaac and Lucy (Wait) Minard. Their children were : John, George, Betsy, Lucy, Isaac, Luke, 
Russell. In 1834 he married Hannah Warner. Children: Helen (Mrs. James Jackson), and 
Eugene. In 1848 he bought 90 acres of land in Caneadea for $1,620 which he sold in 1854 for 
$9,000, and bought a tavern in Caneadea village and kept it 20 years. In 1876 he bought for 
$2,000 the hotel in Fillmore known as the Mmard House, and kept it till 1882. His son 
Eugene then kept it until 1892, when it was sold to the present proprietor, Thomas Duffy. Mrs. 
Minard died in 1894. Eugene Minard married Marian, daughter of Miles Dodge, from Ver- 
mont. Their children are Wallace R., born in Hume in 1873, and Charles. Wallace is a 
graduate of the Bryant and Stratton Business University of Buffalo and is now a Pullman car 
conductor. 

Reuben D. Moore is son of Welcome Moore, born in Connecticut, who settled in Wales, 
Erie county, in 1810, where Reuben was born Nov. i, 1818. Welcome Moore was a soldier at 
Fort Erie, was a musician and played the fife at the execution of the 3 Thayers at Buffalo in 
1825, and was at Buffalo at the time when it was burned. His wife was Susannah Robinson, 
daughter of a Quaker. Children : Louisa, Elmira, Waterman, Joshua, Welcome, Lucy, Sarah, 
Reuben D., Caroline, Susannah, Vienna and Alice. Welcome died in 1831, Susannah in 1858. 
Reuben D., born in 1818 in Wales, became a farmer, lumberman and drover, buying cattle and 
sheep and driving them to New York, one drove of sheep numbering 3,300. He married, in 
i860, Ellen, daughter of Andrew McBride (from Scotland) and Hannah E. Brown, whose father 
was a Revolutionary soldier, and was held a prisoner by the Indians for 2 years. In 1872 Mr. 
and Mrs. Moore came to Mills Mills, and in 1873 bought and settled on their present farm of 
1 50 acres. Their children have been : Warner E. (married Clara McElwain, children, Kenneth 
W. and Morgia of Caneadea), Orson R. of W. Va., Donna F. (Mrs. Howard Blakely of Hard- 
man, Tenn.), Alta H. and Alice E. (twins, the latter is Mrs. Dr. A. B. Harding of Castile, have 
one child, Agnes D.), Lulu L., William J., both of Chicago, Norah E., Ruby J. (Mrs. Willie 
Dewitt of Hume), and Floyd E. All but two of this family belong to the Baptist church of 
which Mr. Moore has been a member 52 years. 



Hume. 



Andrew J. Nisdell is the son of Andrew Nisdell 2d, who was born in Cavan county, Ire- 
land, in 1803. He came to Hume and worked on the construction of the Genesee Valley canal 
before 1850. He married Mary Bagney. Children: Nancy, (Mrs. James Shields of Eldred, Pa., 
one child, Anna), Daniel, Hugh, and Andrew J., the last two occupy the old homestead in 
Hume, containing 60 acres. Their father died in 1889, and their mother in 1895. They find it 
profitable to pass a part of each winter hauling logs m the lumber woods of Pennsylvania. 

Lysander L. Nourse, son of Allen Nourse, was born in Rockingham, Vt., Feb. 6, 1817. 
His grandfather, Peter Nourse, was born in Massachusetts. Allen Nourse was born in Jaffrey, 
N. H , April 10, 1788, and married Persis Willard. Children : Lysander L., Samantha A., 
Lorenzo P., and Willard A. His second wife was Lettice C. Moore, by whom he had 3 chil- 
dren, and his third wife was Mrs. Julia M. Carpenter of Mt. Morris. He was a farmer and 
brickmaker in Vermont and came to Hume in 1831, where, besides farming, he made bricks to 
supply a limited demand, on the present Grover farm, and also on his own farm after occupying 
it. He died in 1870. Lysander attended the common schools and two terms of a select school 
at Pike. In 1840 he bought land adjoining his father's, and in 1842 married Emma N., daughter 
of Deacon Russell Handy of Hume. Children : Persis A., Sarah C, Henry N., Susan S., (Mrs. 
John G. Cooper), and Gerritt Smith. Mrs. Nourse died in 1867, and his second wife was 
Adeline, daughter of Gurdon and Betsey (Howdon) Mansell. Mr. Nourse was an early Aboli- 
tionist, and is now a Prohibitionist. 

Edwin W. O'Hara, editor and proprietor of the Hume Enterp7-ise, was born in Angelica 
in 1864, the son of Arthur and Sarah E. (Newton) O'Hara. His father was of Irish, and his 
mother (born in Thettord, Vt., in 1826) of English descent, she tracing her line of ancestry to 
Sir Isaac Newton. Their children were : James, Charles and Edwin W. Edwin W. worked 
■on the Allegany County Republican 4 years and in other county newspaper offices. Later he 
worked in Rochester, Olean and Chicago. He bought the Enterprise in 1892,3 4-page weekly, 
independent newspaper, started by Henry C. Scott (now of Pike) in 1885. A newspaper of the 
same name was owned and conducted by Charles W. Scott (also now of Pike) 4 or 5 years 
later, his father, H. C, moving the printing material that he had charge of elsewhere. There 
were newspapers in Hume before the Enterprise. One of them, The Bee, was published in 
i860 and after. 

Homer Peck, of Wiscoy, is son of Allen, and the grandson of Daniel Peck one of the early 
settlers of Hume, who came from Delaware county in 1820, and paid $300 for the first 60 acres 
of the old homestead, now 250 acres, on which he passed the rest of his life. He married 
Thusa Cooley in Delaware county. Children : Elias, Allen, Tompkins, Luman, Orrin, Gilbert, 
Philancy, Julia A., Jeannette, Syrepta and Angelette. Allen Peck was born in 1816 in Dela- 
ware county and married Minerva Titchenor. Children : Lewis and Homer. Lewis married 
Lucretia Washburn. Children : Ninetta, Hattie, Warren, Harley, Hermon and Minerva. 
Lewis died in 1893. Homer Peck was born on the old farm, which he still owns, in 1845, and 
at the age of 19 took the old homestead, and married Lucretia, daughter of Reuben Mad- 
ison, a soldier who died in the army. They have one child, Loies, now a student of Pike 
Seminary. 

Nelson A. Pettee, contractor and builder at Wiscoy, is son of Ebenezer Pettee of Pike, 
who married Sally, daughter of Joshua Whitney of Pike, a Revolutionary soldier from New 
Hampshire. Of their children Joshua, Nelson A. and William H., only Nelson A., who was 
born in Pike Sept. 14, 1835, survives. He learned the carpenter's trade, and married, April 15, 
1855, Catharine Olin of Pike, daughter of Christopher Olin. She died in 1857. His second 
wife was Julia Burnell of Pike, daughter of William Burnell. Their children are Frank, now 
book-keeper in the Bank of Fillmore, Lulu (Mrs. Melvin Yorks), and William, at Pike Acade- 
my. Mrs. Pettee died in 1887. and his present wife was Mrs. Clara Kingsley, daughter of Miles 
Dodge. The death in 1883 of Fred Van Dyke, who had lived from infancy as an adopted son 
in Mr. Pettee's family, was a sad one. An active poison was given him by mistake for a trifling 
ailment. The terrible error was discovered too late for a saving antidote. In 1862 Mr. Pettee 
enlisted in Co. A, 150th N. Y., which joined the army of the Potomac. Soon after the battle of 
Blackwater, Nelson's health failed and he secured his discharge in about a year. He is a mem- 
ber of Burnside Post, (x. A. R., and of the Republican party. His father, who was supervisor 
and justice of the peace in Eagle, died Feb. 22, 1858. 

Frank A. Phipps, furniture dealer and undertaker at Fillmore, was born in Avon, Living- 
ston county, in 18 57, where his parents Charles and Angeline (Stafford) Phipps lived 32 years, 
and in 1882, came to Short Tract. Their children are, Anna (Mrs. Jane Hunter), Henry, Frank 
A., Fred and Cora. Frank A. was raised on a farm and received his education at the dis- 
trict schools. In 1883 he began to keep bees, increasing his swarms till they numbered 100, 
and he has 50 swarms now. He learned the furniture business with A. W. Butterway in 
Geneseo village, and bought his present business of R. G. Berry estate in 1893. 



774 History of Allrgany County, N. Y. 



Perus Palmer Preston was born in York, Livingston county, Aug. i8, 1816, in which year 
Asel Preston, his farther, brought his family from Vermont, afterwards settling in Java where 
he died. He married Betsey Cunningham. Children, Hiram, Sally, Ely, Roxy, Betsey and 
Perus P. In 1839 Perus went to Batavia and learned the builders' trade. In 1842 he married 
Jemima Crandall of Castile and lived several years at St. Helena and at Castile, where he was 
constable and deputy sheriff. For 16 years he had charge of Hon. William P. Letchworth's 
improvements of grounds and buildings at Glen Iris. In 1841 he helped build the old lattice 
bridge over the Genesee in the south part of Hume. In 1870 he moved to Belfast. His first 
wife died in 1877. They had two children. Nelson (dec.) and Susan (Mrs. William Rearwin of 
Hume). In 1878 he married Mary A. Johnson of Castile. In 1882 he removed from Belfast to 
Fillmore his present residence. His chief business has been that of builder and contractor. 

William Rearwin of Hume is son of William Rearwin, who was born in Prussia, came to 
America in 1835, and settled in Greenbush, near Albany, where he married Catharine Croll. 
Children, William, John, Sophia, Levi and Eli. Mr. Rearwin moved to Buffalo in 1847, and to 
Angelica in 1881, where he was a farmer, and died in 1890 and his widow in 1891. William 
was born in Greenbush in 1844, and 1868 married Susan Preston of Castile. They settled in 
Belfast on a farm, coming to Hume in 1878 where Mr. Rearwin paid $105 an acre for his pres- 
ent farm of 100 acres. Their children have been Wilbur, now a machinist in Buffalo, Fred, 
James and Henry. 

Henry A. Relya, is son of Michael of Oneida county, whose father, Nicholas Relya, came 
from France. Michael married Chloe A. Alcott of English descent. Children, John, Lucinda, 
Henry H., Sally, Edwin, George and Alfred D. Edwin and George enlisted in Warsaw and 
served in the Civil War, Edwin dying in Andersonville prison. Mr. Relya died in 1854. Henry 
H. was born in 1840, went to Warsaw in 1859, attended Rushford Academy and was married 
in 1863 to Minnie Van Dresser. He was railroad carpenter six years at Portage, where he 
read law with Emulous Townsend, and was admitted to the bar in 1874 in Buffalo. In 1874 he 
came to Hume village where he remains in practice of his profession, and has been justice of 
the peace 14 years. Mr. and Mrs. Relya have five children. Charles (who married May Bard- 
well, has one child, Melnee). Ella, (Mrs. George Saxton, one child, Clyde), Flora, Fred 
and Edwin. 

Harvey W. Rice is son of Stephen, and grandson of Eber Rice, who lived in Rutland, Vt., 
where Stephen was born in 1805. About 18 10 the family located as farmers at Florence, Oneida 
county. Stephen married, in 1833, Eunice, daughter of Elijah Gaylord from Connecticut. 
Children, Candace (Mrs. Henry Clark) of Caneadea, Harvey W., James and Gerritt S. now of 
Hume. In 1833 he brought his wife and household goods in a wagon drawn by an ox team all 
the way to Caneadea, and settled near the old lattice bridge. In 1855 he bought the farm still 
the property and home of Harvey W, in Hume, where he died in 1870. Mrs. Rice died in 
1893. Harvey W. was born in Caneadea, May 26, 1840, and has always been a farmer. He 
married, in 1866, Lydia C, daughter of Burton Butler of Rushford, who came from Wilkes- 
barre. Pa. He was grandson of Col. Zebulon Butler of Wyoming massacre fame, and died in 
Caneadea in 1891. Mr. and Mrs. Rice have one child, Mary, a teacher, teaching her eleventh 
term. Their adopted son, Edwin E. Rice, married Nina Alger. They have one child, Leon H. 
Mr. Rice, in 1864, enlisted in the ist N. Y. Veteran Cavalry, which served in Virginia till the 
close of the war. 

Charles Ricker is son of Henry P. Ricker who was born in Waterboro. Me., in 183 1. He 
came to Cuba where he married Sarah A., daughter of Major L. J. Reynolds, a popular hotel 
keeper for many years in that village. Their children were Eugene now in Scranton. Pa., 
Charles, Clarence and Edith (Mrs. Frank Hicks of Cuba). Mr. Ricker located at Black 
Creek about 1853, engaged in merchandising, and resided there until 1875 when he removed to 
Cuba and was associated with his brother-in-law, F. C. Reynolds, in the hardware business. In 
1 88 1 he returned to Black Creek, resumed charge of the general store, and is still resident there. 
Charles Ricker was born at Black Creek, town of New Hudson, in 1861, stayed at Black Creek 
summers, and, as he grew older clerked in the store, attending school at Cuba winters until he 
was 16 when he went to Dallas City, Pa., and for four years had charge of Ricker & Reynold's 
hardware store, which was then removed to Richburg. In 1883 he came to Fillmore and es- 
tablished the hardware business which he still conducts. In 1893 Charles Ricker was appointed 
the successor of Daniel D. Gardner (dec.) as treasurer of Allegany county, to which office he 
was elected the same year, and still holds. He married, in 1883, Cora L, Norton of Friendship. 
They have one child, Bessie. 

Mahlon L. Ross, from whom the railroad station Rossburg took its name, was born in 
Seneca, Ontario Co., Aug. 9, 1807, where his father, John Ross, from New Jersey, had settled 
in an almost unbroken wilderness. New York was then a slave state, and Mahlon's nurse was 
a slave from whose breast he drew the nourishment of life, and whose tender care made him 



Hume, 775 

ever after a friend of the negro race, and a pronounced abolitionist. In 1822 he removed to 
Clarkson Corners near the site of Brockport, which then was not. Here Mahlon grew to man- 
hood and first worked for William Hildreth & Co., whose business manager in the country store 
and ashery business was Marvin Minard, a partner, and the postmaster at Johnson's Creek, 
where the business was located. The next year Mahlon ran a canal boat to Albany for James 
M. Clark, then became a member of firm Avery & Ross grocers at Clarkson Corners, and then 
of the firm of Ross & Knox, at Parma Centre. In 1832 Mr. Ross married Mary J., daughter of 
Daniel Gager, of an old and highly respected English family. Mr. Ross next ran a gristmill one 
year, was a farmer two years, then moved to Lockport and ran an ashery, was burned out, re- 
built and lost all in panic of 1837. In 1839 he got contract for building two locks on the Gen- 
esee Valley canal at Tuscarora, whither he moved, but could do nothing, as the state that year 
stopped all public works for want of funds. In 1840 he was appointed justice of the peace to 
fill a vacancy ; was then elected to a full term, failing of election to a second term because of his 
views against granting licenses. In 1846 he moved to Oramel, and in 1847 to Wiscoy where he 
built the canal feeder. Besides being in the insurance business he was for five years a member 
of the firm of H. B. Stone & Co., merchants at Wiscoy, then a farmer two years when he bought 
the Rossburg property, built a store and sold goods till within five years of his death in 1893. 
He was a man of high character and intelligence, broad information and active enterprise. His 
mother belonged to the Tappan family of New York City, noted as reformers, leadmg abolition- 
ists and Christian business men of talent and enterprise. Mr. Ross' children were : Julia E. 
(Mrs. T. A. Davidson), Marv J. (Mrs. George D. Gillett), Martha E., Lewis P.. Cornelia A., 
and Helen (Mrs. D. R. Clark). Lewis P. was born in Tuscarora in 1843. In i860 he entered 
the wholesale boot and shoe store of G. P. Grant in Rochester, and became a partner in 1864. 
Since 1873 he has conducted the same business alone, and is a partner in the manufacturing 
firms of P. A. Field & Co., Beverly, Mass., and Ross Lewis, & Pifer, Rochester. He married in 
1866 Avona C, daughter of William N. Conklin of Olean. 

Frederick Schuknecht, son of John and Mary (Spankow) Schuknecht, was born in Mechlen- 
burg, Germany, in 1827, and came in 1854 to Rochester, N. Y., where he married Frederika, 
daughter of Christian and Sophia (Kruger) Schmidt of Mecklenburg, Germany. In 1855 they 
came to Hume, and in 1856 settled near Fillmore on their present farm of 200 acres, which was 
then wild wood land, and cost him from SH to $20 per acre. Their children have been There- 
sa (Mrs. Julian Wells, Pike), Henrietta (Mrs. Frank Patterson, Kilbourn City. W'is.), Louisa 
{Mrs. Henry Zimmer of Rochester), Sophia of Rochester, Emma (Mrs. Judson Gillette, Fill- 
more), Mary (Mrs. George Beardsley, Hume), Fred, who married Mary, daughter of John 
Schuknecht of Caneadea, and remained with his father on the home farm, George of Center- 
ville, and Albert, who married Florence, daughter of Alphonzo Beardsley of Hume, and now 
lives in Centerville. 

Sherman S. Scott, proprietor of the Prospect House in Fillmore, is son of Charles T., and 
grandson of David, whose father, John Scott, lived in Vermont. David Scott was a soldier in 
the War of 1812, and settled in Allegany county about 181 5. He married in Vermont, Sally 
Marsh. Children, David, Abel M., Charles T., Dewitt C, Edwin, John C, Olive C, Clemen- 
tine, Laura, Mary J., Catharine, Joanna and Cordelia, all grew to maturity, 8 are now living. 
David was a blacksmith, moved to Cuba, and died in i860. Charles T. was born in Ossian in 
1823, and has always been a farmer and dairyman. He was one of the first managers of the 
Fillmore stock cheese factory, and brought down the cost of making from $1.50 to $1.10 per 
pr und. He lived some years on Mt. Monroe, in New Hudson, where he was assessor several 
terms. He married in 1848 Lovisa, daughter of George Gould of New Hudson. Children, 
Marcia (Mrs. Frank Crane), Winfield, Minerva (Mrs. Burt Hammond), Afton D., Ruth 
(Mrs. John Howden), Rose, Sherman S., Charles, Arthur D., Robert D., Gould. Sherman S. 
Scott was born in 1863, and attended common schools and Nunda Academy. When 18 he 
went to Olean and learned the harness trade, and, in 1884, bought the harness business of S. 
W. Lowell in Fillmore and conducted it 4 years. Then he was 2 years in the harness trade in 
Centerville and 3 years in a hotel. He bought the Prospect House in 1892. He married in 
1885, Jennie M., daughter of Charles Van Dusen of Centerville. Children, Ruth L., Forrest L. 
and Manley C. 

John W. Shay, son of Daniel and Ellen (Hickey) Shay, was born in Hume April 24, i860. 
He received but a common school education and when 17 years of age he left home and went 
into the oil regions near Bradford, where for several years he did whatever work he found to do, 
making nothmg more than good day wages as a laborer. When the Sistersville, W. Va., field 
was opened, he turned his attention thitherward, and with the knowledge which his experience 
had given him, he engaged in leasing territory and putting down wells. After using all his ear- 
nings and taxing his credit to its full extent, he was successful and soon accumulated a hand- 
some fortune which he is continually increasing and investing largely in real estate securities. 



776 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

He married Miss Mary Ryan in Coudersport, Pa. They have one living child, Fred. He 
resides in Washington, Pa. 

Simeon Short is son of Simeon and Nancy (Madison) Short, from Rhode Island, who 
bought in 1826, 130 acres at $2.50 per acre, the farm on w^hich their son Simeon still lives. 
There were born to Simeon and Nancy Short 12 children, Betsy, Polly, Phoebe, Parley, Celia, 
Elsie, Simeon, Almira, Betsy Jane, Louisa, Sarah and Emily. Simeon was born in 18 12, and has 
always been a farmer. He married in 1856, Sarah A., daughter of Ebenezer Ayer, from Madi- 
son county, a soldier of the War of 181 2, who settled in Hume in 1826. There were born ta 
Simeon and Sarah A. Short two children, Simeon (married in 1880 Nora Obrian. There were 
born to them three children, Charles E., Anna L. and Mary), and Anna L. (married in 1882, W. 
S. Voorhees, no children). When Mr. Short settled here his nearest neighbors were Chauncey 
G. Ingham at Cold Creek, John Parker up the river and John Torry four miles down the river. 

Joseph B. Skiff is the son of Joshua, son of Stephen, and great-grandson of Benja- 
min Skiff, who came from Skiff Mountain in Connecticut before the Revolutionary war, and 
settled in Wyoming and was there at the time of the Wyoming massacre. His son Stephen 
was a Revolutionary soldier. A squad of Indians under command of Bill Terry quartered 
themselves at his log house one night, sleeping on the floor. Mrs. Skiff sat up all night tending 
the burning logs in the big fire place and keeping the snapping coals from setting fire to the 
sleepers' clothing. The family left Wyoming for safety and went to Schoharie county, and 
then to Hartwick, Otsego Co.. where they setted. Joshua Skiff was born in Litchfield, Conn., 
in 1782, and married in 1808, Lucina, a sister of Henry C. Wright, the anti resistance reform 
lecturer, and came in 1809 to Hume, settling on a farm still belonging to the family. Children: 
Milton W., Joseph B., Elizabeth M. and Harvey J. Mrs. Skiff died in 1841. His second wife 
was Elizabeth Whiting. Mr. Skiff was a prominent citizen, was the first supervisor of Hume 
in 1822, and had for two years held that same office in Pike. He died in 1846. His son, Joseph 
B., was born in Hume in 1816, attended Wyoming Academy, and was married in 1858 to Lydia 
B., daughter of Chester and Clarissa (Morse) Fitch of Otsego county. Children : John M., a 
soldier enlisted in Iowa, was killed in battle of Shiloh ; Stephen M. enlisted from Pike, killed at 
Franklin, Va., by a sharpshooter ; Chester F., undertaker at Hume ; Joshua, Clarissa L., Vira 
(Mrs. James B. Morrow of Idaho, and has children : Bayard S., Beryl L., Hazel M. and Mc- 
Keen F.), Harvey J., Lucina (Mrs. H. H. Cochran of Idaho), Addie H. (Mrs. Elmer Thomas, 
has one child, Mildred). Mrs. Skiff died in 1889. and Mr. and Mrs. Thomas are on the old 
homestead with Mr. Skiff. He was originally a Democrat, but is now a Prohibitionist. 

Roger M. Skiff, son of Alanson, son of Edmund, son of Stephen, son of Benjamin, was 
born in Hume in 1840. Edmund Skiff came from Hartwick, Otsego Co., where his son Alan- 
son was born, in 1808, to Hume in 18 10, and settled on lot 24. Alanson married Martha B., 
daughter of Roger Mills ; children : Marytta, Harlene, Roger M. and Emma. He had a shoe 
shop where Brown's harness shop stands and a tannery, and was afterwards partner in a store 
with Edmund C. Skiff, and a farmer. Roger married, in 1866, Fidelia, daughter of William H. 
Claus, who came from Little Falls to Hume in 1841. Children : Mattie and Mary, the latter a 
schoolteacher. Mr. Skiff bought first a part of his father's farm, and in 1876, his present 
farm of 165 acres in Hume village. He is a Prohibitionist. 

Albert W. Smith is son of James C. Smith of Fillmore, who was born in Gainesville in 
1820, where his father, James, born in Herkimer Co., and his grandfather, James Smith, who 
lived in New York city when a young man, came from Delaware Co. in 1809. James married 
Annie Gillette, Children : Lucy, Sophronia, George W., James C, Dewitt C, Sarah A. and 
Gracenia. James C. married in 1845 Cynthia Cole from Vermont. Their children were : Cath- 
arine (Mrs. W. P. Brooks) and Albert W., who was born in Hume in i860. He has always 
been a farmer, now owning 300 acres on the Genesee river. He married, in (S85, Emily, daugh- 
ter of Ouincy White of Rushford. Children : James Q. and Bernice C. 

Perrie C. Soule, M. D., was born in Schenectady. " His father Absalom Soule was a 
graduate of the medical college and University of Schenectady, and his mother, Sarah (Clement) 
Soule, was a lineal descendant ot the Papal Clements XIII and XIV of Rome. She was one of 
the historic committee of Quaker women who, in 1862, called on President Lincoln and urged 
the immediate emancipation of the slaves." His parents' children were : Martha J., Charles W., 
Nelson, Sarah A., Catharine, Julia, Lucy D., Absalom D., Lewis H., Emeline A., Perrie C. and 
Melissa M. On the breaking out of the Rebellion Perrie, then 13 years old, enlisted in Co. B, 
1 8th N. Y., and after serving his term of enlistment, enlisted in the 5th N. Y. Cav., and served 
till hostilities ended. He was in over 170 engagements, and carries scars of ball, bayonet and 
saber from which his left leg is crippled and his right arm nearly useless. Few soldiers can 
show bayonet or saber wounds, but he was seriously stabbed by a bayonet while charging up 
South Mountain, Md., in 1862. He was a mounted scout for Gen. Sheridan in 1864, and was 
in the memorable Seven Days Fight on the Peninsula. After the war Mr. Soule engaged in 



Hume. 777 

the patent business and in manufacturing, finally read medicine, and attended lectures in Ne\y 
York and Cincinnati, receiving a diploma from the American Medical College of Cincinnati. 
Dr. Soule has practiced in Binghamton, Rochester, and, in 1880, came to Rossburg, his present 
home. He has issued various publications and extensively lectured in the interests of universal 
liberty and equality, especially woman's political equality. He was the unanimous choice of the 
Allegany County G. A. R. Veterans' Association for Senior Vice Commander of the New York 
State Department of the G. A. R., and was elected to that office at Rochester in February, 
1894. Before he was 20 Dr. Soule invented and patented several useful inventions that are 
now in universal application. He married, in 1873, Clara E. Barber of Downsville, N. Y. 
Children : Fred F., Lena M., Frank P. and Mabel C. 

Adoniram J. Stockwell is the son of Joel Stockwell who was born in Dummerston, Vt., in 
1796, where his father, whose name was also Joel, was an old resident. Before leaving his 
father's farm one afternoon Joel overworked in pitching hay, from the effects of which he never 
recovered. In 1818 he came to Hume and bought and cleared the land still the home of his 
son Adoniram, paying about $4 per acre. In 1823 he returned to Vermont and married Mary 
Bailey who was born in Bratileboro, Vt., in 1794. Their children were : Mary T., Olive M., 
Adoniram and Laura A. Mr. Stockwell died in 1841, his widow in 1883. Adoniram J. Stock- 
well, born on the old homestead in Hume, May 7, 1833, has from boyhood been a farmer. In 
1887 he married Ann, daughter of Deacon Richard Robinson, who came from Vermont to 
Portage in the " twenties," and spent the rest of his life there. They have one child, Joel W., 
born in 1869, now railroad agent and telegraph operator at Rossburg. Joel W. Stockwell 
married, in 1892, Helene M., daughter of Dennis Torpey of Hume. 

Dennis S. Torpey is the son of Thomas Torpey, who came about 1834 from Cork, Ireland, 
to Duro, Canada, and in 1839 to Caledonia, N. Y., where he married Julia Doyle, and in 1840 
came to Fillmore. Children: John, Dennis. Catherine (Mrs, John Powers), Nancy (Mrs. Tohn 
Mahoney) and Margaret. He was a butcher and farmer, and returned in 1859 to Canada, 
where he died in 1891. Dennis S. Torpey was born in Fillmore in 1841 and brought up a 
farmer. When 22 years old worked for Dunn & Kingley, canal contractors. At the age of 23 
he bought boat " Bee Harrower " for $1 50, paid for it in one year and had $900 left. He sold 
this boat for $300, and bought boat " Lake Erie " for $575, run it five years and then sold it, 
he boated lumber from Belfast to Fairport, N. Y. He then bought the W. E. Hammond of 
Oramel, and bought and sold in Rochester, wood, stave-bolts, lumber, bolts, bark, etc., and 
boated them to market as long as the canal lasted. May 20, 1870, he married Mary Elizabeth 
Hodnett. Children : Julia Kathrine, a teacher ; John Otto, a telegraph operator ; Ella Marga- 
ret (Mrs. J. W. Stockwell of Rossburg) Rose May, a teacher ; Dennis Patrick and Clara Marie 
in school. In 1879 Mr. Torpey bought a farm in Granger where he lived three years and then 
came to Fillmore and had charge of men and teams for Dunn, Butterfield & Neher in railroad 
constructions. Mr. Torpey has been for several years a dealer in real estate, a contractor and 
builder, and a member of the school-board of Fillmore village and a trustee of St. Patrick's 
church. 

Elias Tiffany is the son of Lemuel Tiffany, whose father's name was also Lemuel, and 
lived in Douglas, Worcester Co., Mass., where Lemuel Jr., married Betsey Barnes. Their chil- 
dren were : Permelia, Elias, Lydia, David, George, Adeline, Elmira and Betsey. Elias was 
born Oct. 6, 1820, in Douglas, and was raised on a farm. At the age of 17 he went to work by 
the month. In 1840 he came to Allegany county and began buying and selling cattle and hogs, 
following the business of a drover for 9 years, traveling over a large part of the state, buying 
stock wherever he went, which he drove to Albany and Boston markets. In 1850 Mr. Tiffany 
married Mary Rawson in Northbridge, Mass., and in 1853 bought and settled on his present 
farm of 200 acres between Wiscoy and Mills Mills, paying $18 per acre. For the next 35 
years he was a large butter dealer, buying largely in the eastern counties, but found Allegany 
butter the best quality. During war times he bought $5,000 worth in 2 days, paying 50 cents a 
pound. He has also bought and sold sheep and cattle ever since living in Hume. He has 
served as commissioner of highways 2 years. Mr. and Mrs. Tiffany had 2 children, Laura, who 
died in 1888, and Eva, married Fred Gleason of Portage, who is now the farmer on the old 
homestead. Mr. Tiffany lives with them ; his mother died in 1833, his father in 1875, and his 
wife in 1889. 

Horace W. Webster is the son of Waite Webster, who were born in 1793, whose father, 
Elizer Webster, a descendant of Gov. John Webster of Hartford, Conn., went from Connecti- 
cut to Poultney, Vt. Waite Webster married Anna Wheat, and settled in Hampton, N. Y. 
Their children were Henry, Lucy and Asenath. He married second, Hannah, the sister of his 
first wife. Children : Anna M., Emily L., Isabel, Horace W. and Hiram. Waite Webster died 
in 1849, Mrs. Hannah Webster in 1872. Elizer, a brother of Waite, was the pioneer, in 1803, 
of Warsaw, N. Y., the first supervisor in 1808, an associate judge of Genesee in 181 3, assem- 



778 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

blyman in 1816 and 1817, and member of the constitutional convention of 182 1. He was born 
in 1767 and died in 1854. Horace W. Webster was born in Hampton in 1820 and became a 
farmer. He sold the old homestead and bought his present farm in Hume in i860. 

Henry C. and Nathaniel M. Wells, " Wells Bros," merchants at Hume, are sons of Nathan- 
iel M.Wells, who came from Otsego county (where his father Joshua Wells also lived), to Pike 
about 1825. In 1850 he settled on the present Theodore Mather farm in Hume. His first wife 
was Polly Wright. Children : Ann J., Miles W., George W., Joshua, Mary A., William H., 
Arminia L., Henry C. Nathaniel M., Julia L. and Lydia. Miles W., George W., and William 
H., were soldiers in the Civil War. Miles served three years and came out uninjured. George 
was a prisoner in Libby prison, and William H., died in Andersonville prison. Their mother 
died in i860. Henry C. Wells was born in 1850 in Pike. He was a farmer till 1876, when he 
and his brother Nathaniel M., built the first cheese factory in Hume village. They ran it suc- 
cessfully for ten years, and sold it to John D. Fuller. In 1886 they bought Forrest Minard's 
store, and conducted merchandising in Hume village. Henry C, married Louisa C, daughter 
of John Fuller of Pike in 1872. Children : Roscoe F., Edna, Nathaniel M. Nathaniel M. Wells 
was born in Hume in 1852. At the age of 18 he learned the carpenter's trade, and was a con- 
tracter and builder for the next 16 years. In 1873 he married Otelia, daughter of Onson Beards- 
ley of Hume. Mr. Wells, always a Republican, was commissioner of highways from 1878 to 
1881, and supervisor of Hume from 1885 to 1888. 

Charles E. Wells, hardware dealer at Hume village, was born in Oswayo, Pa., in 1858. His 
father, Charles Wells from Orange county, N. Y., married Harriet Downs, children: Dr. W.F. 
Wells of Rushford, Charles E., George F., Rathbone and Sarah. Mr. Wells brought his family 
to Wellsville where Charles E. attended the Riverside school and in 1876 became a clerk in M. 
E. Davis' drygoods store at Belmont, then went into the hardware store of W. H. Somers to 
learn the tinsmith's trade. In 1878 he came to Hume and worked ten years in S. L. Doud's 
hardware store which he bought in 1888. In 1893 he sold the business to Fred Seeley and re- 
moved to Wellsville where he became a partner in the hardware firm of Lewis & Wells. In the 
fall of 1894 Mr. Wells re-purchased the business of Mr. Seeley and returned to Hume. He 
married in 1891, Mrs. Viola (Sweet) Manchester, of Hume. Mrs. Wells has one child, Louis, 
by her first husband, James P. Manchester. 

William H. Wilday, proprietor of the planing and feed mills at Fillmore, is the son of 
Sylvester and Roxana (Lee) Wilday, who settled in Hume from Schoharie Co., N. Y. Their 
children were : William H., Diadama, Franklin M., Martin D., and Leonard D. Mrs. Wilday 
was the daughter of Andrew Lee from Vermont. Mr. Wilday enlisted in the 104th regiment 
and went to the front, was taken sick and died in the hospital at Baltimore in 1865, William H. 
was born in 1851, bought a farm when but 15 years old and remained a farmer till he bought 
in 1889 of Wilson Tarbell the planingmill property in Fillmore village to which he has added a 
feedmill and lumber yard. Mr. Wilday worked in the lumberwoods in Portage from 1886 to 
1889. Mr. Wilday married in 1876 Sarah E. Frazier. Children : Grace B. Elenor A., Roy E., 
Lloyd R., Forest S.. Harold F., Ward A., Olive C. and Burdette O. 

Linus E. Wiles, dentist at Fillmore, is the son of George W., son of Daniel Wiles of Ger- 
man extraction, who removed to Perry from the Mohawk valley. George W. Wiles married 
Mary, daughter of Jonathan Wing, an early settler in Eagle from New Hampshire. Their 
children were Linus E., and Drusilla, who married C. K. Farnswonh of Hume, In 185 1 Mr. 
Wiles moved to Hume, where he died in 1887. Linus E. was born in Pike, May 19, 1850. He 
attended common schools and the Chamberlain Institute in Randolph, where he studied dent- 
istry with Dr. Joel Danforth. From 1875 to 1880 he practiced his profession in Andover, 
coming in 18S0 to Fillmore, and being the first settled dentist in Hume. He married in 1876, 
Mary, daughter of Stephen Robinson of Andover. Children, Lena, Charles H., Arthur, Reita 
and Lynn. Dr. Wiles has been excise commissioner, and is superintendent of the Wesleyan 
Methodist Sabbath school. 

Mrs. Mary Willey is daughter of Absalom, son of Aaron and Ann (Handisides) Agar, of 
Yorkshire, England, whose children were, Isabella. Jane, Absalom, Aaron, Mary and Ann. 
Absalom, born in 1811, came to Hume in 1832, and paid$i5o for the first half of his present 
farm of 200 acres. He married Mary Mattson. Children, John, who married Mary Ingersoll, 
children, William, Elmer and Milton, who went west and died in Colorado. In 1850 Mr. Agar 
married his second wife, Celia Fitch. Their children were Joseph and Mary, who was born in 
1857, attended the common schools and Pike Seminary, and taught school ten terms, in Hume 
village in 1876, Fillmore 1877, and Centerville in 1878. She married Wilson Willey in 1882, 
who died in 1885 leaving one child, Chester. Mrs. Willey and her brother Joseph live on the 
old farm with their father. Their mother died in 1894. 



Hume. 779 

Byron E. Woods is son of Wilbur F., and grandson of Ely Woods, who came in 1816 from 
Windsor, Vt., to Rushford, and married Nancy, daughter of Enos Gary, the pioneer settler. 
Nancy Gary, born in 1800, was said to have been the first white female who slept in Rushford. 
Daniel, William, Riley, Clarissa, Lucy, Laura, Maila and Louisa Woods, brothers and sisters of 
Ely, came soon after. His children were William W., Caroline, Maila, P., Esther, Wilber F., 
Catharine and Frank. Wilbur F. Woods, a hardware merchant in Macedon, born in 1833. in 
Rushford, was a farmer and justice of the peace. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Benja- 
min Claus from Herkimer Co. in 1857. Their children were Rose (Mrs. Winfield Persons), 
Byron E., Carlton, Grover and Mabel. Byron E., born in Rushford in 1861, attended Rushford 
Academy, married in 1883, Florence E., daughter of F. R. Palmer of Centerville, where they 
settled on a farm. Mr. Woods was elected constable in Centerville in 1894 and the same year 
was appointed deputy sheriff and moved to Fillmore. 

Wilson L. Young, son of Richard G. Young of Belfast, was born in 1856. When 18 years 
old he began making cheese and has since followed this occupation. He came to Fillmore in 
1886 and bought the Sisson cheese factory. His father married Harriet Warford. Children: 
Myron G., LeRoy, and Wilson L., who married, in 1892. Emma Meineka of Belfast. They live 
in the village of Fillmore and have 2 children, Hollis and Beulah. 

Winthrop G. Young, junior member of the firm of Young & Young of Fillmore, cheese and 
cheese-bo.x manufacturers, is son of William P. Young of Rushford, whose fattier, Josephus 
Young, was a native of New England. William P. married Sindonia, daughter of Joseph 
Wright of Rushford. Their children were : Monroe, Hattie, Everett, Carrie and Winthrop G., 
who was born in 1855, and was brought up on a farm. In 1880 he began making cheese, 
working in Sheldon, afterward in Java. Since coming to Fillmore in 1883, he has been manager 
of the cheese factories of Young & Young. In 1874 he married Attie, daughter of John F. 
Gordon of Rushford. Cora, their only child, married, in 1894, John Bagney of Fillmore. 

Stephen H. Draper of Granger is a son of John, and grandson of Jonas Draper, from the Black River 
country, N. Y., a late descendant from one of three Drapers, brothers, and first of that name from Scotland 
to the United States. Jonas Draper was one of the early settlers of Gainesville, Wyoming county, where 
John Draper was born, and was a school teacher, carpenter and joiner. He married Susan, daughter of Ste- 
phen Ralph of St. Helena, N. Y. Stephen H. was born at Gainesville Feb. 22, 1836. His father died Dec. 
16, 1836. Stephen H. left Gainesville when 6 years old, traveled by wagon through Short Tract, in Granger, 
to Carpenter's in Birdsall, N. Y., with his mother and uncle, in April, 1841 ; in November, same year, was 
adopted into the family of Ellery Gifford, who lived on farm now owned by Mr. Newton, and moved to 
Springwater, N. Y., February, 1S44. While living in Birdsall Stephen saw many deer, grey wolves, one 
black bear, and one panther, all wild and in the woods. April 17, 1S61, at Springwater, N. Y., he attended a 
war meeting, and was the first of 7 to enlist from the town in the war of the Rebellion, in Co. B, 13th N. Y. 
Inf., which was the first regiment to pass through Baltimore after the assault there on the 6th Mass. He was 
in most of the engagements for the first two years of the army of the Potomac ; was a scout, sharpshooter 
and army guide, and is the scout mentioned in the history of the first battle of Bull Run as bringing 
in a colored man and giving General W. T. Sherman important information. He was hit seven 
times m the second Bull Run, one bullet struck him in the forehead and he was reported killed, 
which news reached his home, and he has now his funeral sermon prepared by Rev. Mr. Hunter 
among his valued keepsakes. Afterwards the same Rev. Wm. Hunter officiated at the marriage of Stephen 
H. Draper to Ellen Burk March 26, 1867. Frank Draper, only son of S. H. and Ellen B. Draper, is a 
telegrapher, stenographer and typewriter for the N. Y. & N. E. Railroad Company at Stamford, Conn. 
Mr. Draper was honorably discharged with the regiment at Rochester, May 7, 1863. June 25, 1S63, he received 
authority to recruit for the 21st New York Cavalry, William B. Tibbets, commanding; enlisted over 300 men, 
having offices at Rochester, Troy, Dansville, Livonia, Conesus and Springwater. Accepted second lieutenant 
commission in K Co. in Nov., 1863, and was honorably discharged May 17, 1865, having served as ordnance 
officer, quartermaster and commissary, and lastly as special inspector under P. H. Sheridan from December 9, 
1864, to the close of the war, in the Middle Military Division, at Winchester, Va. He was severely wounded 
at White Post, Va., March 22d, and having his horse shot from under him was captured. He escaped, liber- 
ating five others, at Lacy Springs, 65 miles distant, and returned to Winchester March 27, 1865. He received 
the famous Col. Mosby for Gen. Chapman, April 18, 1865, with 17 of his command under flag of truce, at Mil- 
wood, Va. ; was at the grand review at final close of war, was honorably discharged at Washington, D. C, 
May 27, 1865, Major General P. H. Sheridan walking to the Adjt. General's office with him and recommend- 
ing the discharge. He is now living near Rossburg, assisting the state historian, Hugh Hastings, in writing up 
the services of the New York troops; is a member of Burnside Post, 237, G. A. R., and County Inspector of 
Allegany Co., Department of New York. He is totally disabled for performing manual labor by reason of 
army disabilities, has lately been granted a pension of $12 per month, and is a pension attorney in good 
standing before the Pension Bureau. He has been justice of the peace until declining to serve longer, prefer- 
ring the office of notary public, which he holds for Allegany and Livingston counties. Always voted the 
Republican ticket, commencing with John C. Fremont. He is a practical steam engineer and ran two loco- 
motives out from the enemy's lines during the late war. 



780 History of Allegany CouNT^i', N. Y. 



e E/NT-REVI LLE.* 

BY JOHN S. MINARD. 

CHAPTER LXII. 

THE TOWN of Centreville was created by an act of the legislature passed 
Jan. 15, 1819, out of territory which from March 6, 1818, had been in- 
cluded in Pike; Pike having been taken from Nundaat that date, and origin- 
ally including beside present Pike, Hume, Centreville and Eagle. Nunda 
was formed from Angelica, March 11, 1808; and Angelica from Leicester, 
which was formed March 30, 1802. Previous to 1802 Leicester had for a 
short period formed a part of Northampton, a town which included all the 
Holland Purchase and considerable territory east of it. So Centreville has 
formed a part in succession of Northampton, Leicester, Angelica, Nunda 
and Pike. Centreville was designated on the map of the Holland Purchase 
as township six, range two, and although the deeds refer to the survey as 
having been made by Joseph EUicott, William Rumsey subdivided the town- 
ship into lots in July and August, 1807. 

Centreville, the northwestern town in the county, lies on the summit of 
the ridge dividing the waters of the Genesee river and Cattaraugus creek. 
Its surface is moderately hilly upland, and the soil mostly a clayey loam . 
It is drained by the Sixth Town creek (improperly called Six Town) which 
has two principal tributaries, one having its source in the northwest part of 
the town; the other, starting from the southwest part, contributes more 
largely to its configuration than any other stream; Houghton creek, whose 
source is in the southeast part, and by a small and very sluggish stream in 
the northwest part, which is a branch of Cattaraugus creek. The first set- 
tlement was made directly at the " Centre " several years before the town 
was formed, and CentreviUe seemed the proper name for the new town. 

The first who " articled," or " took up " land were Joseph Maxson, Rus- 
sell Trail, Thomas Clute. Strong Warner, David Gelatt and Samuel Webster 
in 1808. Settlement was made by Joseph Maxson in April, and, as Turner, 
in his "History of the HoUand Purchase," well says, " his advent into this 
primitive wilderness is worthy of notice." He was only 18, and came from 
Otsego Co. Two cents and a few articles of provisions and clothing con- 
stituted his wealth. At Pike he took from his feet a pair of new shoes, bar- 
tered them for an axe, and pushed on into the wilderness, and in the center of 
the township near a small stream erected the rudest kind of a hut. For a 
bed he peeled basswood bark, used some pieces as a floor and others for 
covering. Not long after he came snow fell six inches deep. He persevered 

* The name as incorporated was Centreville. Usage and custom now frequently spell it Centerville. — 
Editor. 



Centreville 781 



in his labors and passed eight months alone. In the books of the land office 
an entry made July 22, 1808, shows that he had five acres cleared, which 
probably meant nothing more than felling the trees and burning the brush. 
He raised a few bushels of corn and some potatoes the first year, and had 
two acres prepared and put into wheat that fall. Success attended the 
young pioneer. He became an early tavern keeper and the owner of a large 
and w^ell-improved farm. After the country was considerably cleared up 
he became restive, sold out in the forties, went to Wisconsin, and engaged 
in building mills. "He preserved for years one of the cents before men- 
tioned, one kernel of the seed corn of 1808, and an old wooden fan with which 
he cleaned the first wheat raised in town." 

Before 1810 James Ward had erected a framed barn, the first it is said 
in town. He is also credited with planting the first orchard. Soon after 
this, settlement was made a little north of the center by Zacheus Spencer, 
Thomas and Strong Warner and Perkins B. Woodward from Ashford, Conn. 
Strong Warner afterwards kept a public house about 1^ miles northeast of 
the "Centre," on the Allegany road. He was a stiring, resolute, enterpris- 
ing man and often called to positions of responsibility by his townsmen. He 
removed to Michigan where he died. Woodward located about half a mile 
north of the village, where he ever after lived. He was the first to manu- 
facture brick in town. The business was abandoned some 40 years ago. 
Sargent Morrell, from Vermont, located in 1810 in the south part. Benja- 
min Blanchard, also from Vermont, came in 1811 settling on lot 25. He 
died 20 years ago. He had four brothers who located here, Mark, Lewis, 
Abel and Barnes, all had large families. But one only of the name is left in 
town. Luther Houghton located in 1811, but soon removed to Caneadea. 
In 1812 John and Samuel Leach settled on lot 26. Other early settlers were 
William Foy, Mr. Perry, Mr. Carpenter, Eber Hotchkiss, Mr. Thatcher, 
Russell Higgins, Russell Trail, Dr. Calvin Cass and Packard Bruce. Trail 
took "articles " for land in 1808, and became a resident during the war of 
1812. His location was on the "John H. Davis," or "Morris farm," where 
he died 50 years ago. Mrs. Russell Higgins was a daughter of Russell Trail, 
as was also Mrs. Timothy Higgins. One of his sons, Marvin Trail was once 
town clerk of Centerville, afterward a prominent lawyer of Wyoming 
county, and county judge and surrogate of that county. Russell T. Trail, 
another son, is the well-known physician, lecturer and medical author of 
New York City. 

Calvin Couch was among the new comers in 1820. He came from Pike, 
where his father settled ten years earlier. He died in 1829, leaving a widow 
and sons Jonathan and William B. Jonathan was supervisor for several 
years, and held other town offices. He died ten years ago, and William re- 
moved to the west. Hugh Gillis from Ontario county, located in 1825 about 
100 rods from where he died a few years since. He was justice of the peace 
many years. Morris Stickle from Monroe county located in 1822 on the 
farm now owned by Erwin Stickle, there passing the remainder of his days. 



782 History of Allegany County, N. Y 

Myron Stickle for years supervisor and justice, and side judge in the county 
is the only representative left in town of the immediate family of Morris 
Stickle. 

The first inn was kept by one Thatcher at the Centre in 1810, and the 
first store by Sparrow Smith in 1820. The first physician was Calvin 
Cass. The first one born and the first to die was Calvin P. Perry. The first 
marriage was that of William Foy and Ruth Merrill in 1811. The first school 
was taught in the winter of 1813-14 by Perkins B. Woodward. The first 
framed house was built by a Mr. Carpenter. The first sawmill was erected 
on Sixth Town creek, by Mark Blanchard and Eber Hotchkiss in 1813, and 
it was indeed a notable event, as any boards, or sawed stuff used before that 
date had to be brought from Mills' Mills. This sawmill stood on the farm 
now owned by Arthur B, Chase the noted violinist. 

In 1817 Russell Higgins and Packard Bruce erected the pioneer grist- 
mill on Sixth Town creek. It was a rude affair, but its noisy clatter made 
music which gladdened the ears and hearts of the early settlers, for it saved 
them weary journeys through the woods to Mills' Mills. This mill fixed the 
name "Higgins' Mill " on the little hamlet in the hollow. A gristmill was 
built at the " Centre " by John Thompson, Charles Tarry and others just 
before the Civil War, but it ran only two or three years. Thos. Symes has 
a feed mill in his shop at the " Centre." 

Russell Higgins' two daughters and a son still occupy the old home- 
stead; one of the daughters, Ellen, attained considerable eminence as a phy- 
sician, and practiced several years in the city of New York. Mr. Bruce 
did not remain long in town. His son, Edward S., was once sheriff of Alle- 
gany, and a daughter married Hon. Henry M. Teller. 

Center ville was not so heavily timbered with pine as were some of the 
other towns near by, but still there was enough of this valuable wood to 
attract attention, beech, maple, cherry, ash, cucumber, oak and elm were 
found in their perfection. Ashes were a great article of commerce, helping 
largely to defray the expenses of clearing the land and paying for provision 
and clothing. Sparrow Smith manufactured pearlash here from 1825 to 
1844, an ashery was almost invariably connected with a store, and the ash- 
gatherer, with his big team and capacious wagon or sleigh box, was a very 
familiar sight. He carried a trunk or box containing pins, needles, hooks 
and eyes, tape, calico, tea, coffee, spice, etc., to pay for the ashes. A store 
and ashery was conducted at Higgins' Mills for some years. Cook, Hale & 
Co. were for years the town's leading men in the ashery business. By the 
state census of 1855 only two asheries were reported in the county, both 
were in this town. 

When Porter Hanks came from Plainfield, Otsego Co., in 1831 a Mr. 
Cook was running a store here for Mr. Hale of Rochester, Joseph Maxson 
was keeping one public house and Russell Trail another at the Centre. Mr. 
Hanks opened another store with Bradley Higgins as a silent partner, and 
was succeeded by M. D. Higgins. The main part of the residence of D. A. 



Centreville. 783 



Hanks was the building- in which this store was kept. Mr. Hanks went to 
New York twice a year to buy goods, which were sent by canal to Rochester, 
poled up the river in flat-bottomed boats to York Landing, and from thence 
hauled by teams to destination. M. W. Skiff, then clerk for Cook, was post- 
master. A four-horse, old style stage coach, heavy, strong and capacious, 
was run from Geneseo to Jamestown, passing over the Allegany road. Mr. 
Hanks built an ashery. The pearlash was marketed in New York. Butter 
was taken for goods, at from 6 to 10 cents per pound, and eggs at about the 
same price per dozen. When a sufficient quantity had accumulated the but- 
ter would be mixed together, worked over and packed, and the eggs ]oacked 
and both sent to Rochester with teams. Mr. Hanks' partner went on one 
ocaasion to Geneseo, where was the nearest bank, with |500 which he wanted 
to send to New York, $300 to one firm and $200 to another. The bank 
wanted $1 per hundred exchange. This he thought too much and procured 
five $100 bills. These they sent by mail and lost all of it. In 1836 the firm 
sold the store, bought the farms of M. D. Higgins and Levi Luther and went 
into sheep raising. Dogs used to kiU many. Mr. Hanks sometimes had 
20 men at work in "haying." Money was scarce. John Bean let a letter 
lie in the office three months before he could get the money to pay the 
postage. 

In 1835 Morris Stickle was appointed enumerator for Centerville for the 
state census. He preserved some of the statistics, which his son Myron 
has kindly furnished us. This manuscript shows that there were 1,423 
inhabitants. No. doing military duty 92, no. of voters 266, married females 
under 45 181, unmarried females from 16 to 45 92, females under 16 311, 
marriages during the year 14, births in the year 58, deaths for same time 22, 
acres of improved land 6,621, neat cattle 2,062, horses 380, sheep 4,070, 
hogs 1,116, yards of fuUed cloth made 2,554, flannel 4,022, linen cloth 4,752. 
During the War of 1861-4 Myron Stickle's wife (Mary J. Lyon), spun and 
wove 25 yards of linen cloth for shirts and pants, rather than pay 60 to 70 
cents per yard for cotton cloth. This was doubtless the last home-made 
cloth made in town. 

In 1836 Lyman Lovell from Vermont taught a select school at the Centre; 
about 35 pupils attending. This was so well conducted as to attract atten- 
tion and inspired much zeal in educational aifairs in the town. Jonathan W. 
Earle, a graduate of Vermont University, started a school in the early forties 
which continued several years and drew patronage from Hunts Hollow, Pike, 
Hume, Rushford and some of the Cattaraugus towns. It was largely at- 
tended and sent out a good class of scholars. Mr. Earle's superior qualities 
as a teacher were however soon demanded in larger educational centers. To 
Mr. Earle's scholastic accomplishments, was added great fame as a wrestler, 
and experts in that line came long distances to " try titles " with him. 

To the names of early and prominent settlers we add the Veaseys, 
Lambertsons, Joel Nye, Ellis, Cole, Pratts, Binghams. Cleasby, Hopkins, 
Osgood, Hatch and others. SutJceedingDr. Cass, the early physicians were 



784 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



Dr. Wm. A. Stacy, Dr. F.Higgins, Dr. Stewart and later Drs. Crang, Hanks, 
Ware, Body, John Stacy, Fish, and L. G. Waterman, now the only physician 
in Centreville. Other early merchants were: Mr. Carpenter, G. S. Jenk- 
ins, R. O. Billings and John Thompson. D. A. Hanks and Elliott & Hancock 
now conduct the only mercantile enterprises in town. Symes Bros, run a 
successful carriage and wagon making establishment. Four cheese factories 
are in operation. T. B. Pratt, Thos. Symes and L. Higgins each have a saw- 
mill. There is now no gristmill. But one lawyer ever made lodgement here 
and he tarried only a short time. Sheep husbandry has been a leading in- 
dustry; dairying and hay are now the chief sources of revenue. 

The assessed valuation of real estate for 1894 was $355,654, of personal 
property $10,000. Equalized value of land per acre $15.45, state tax $740.42, 
county tax $1,530.02, town tax $2,286.23, other taxes $50.88. Total amount 
exclusive of school and road taxes, $4,556.67. The population was in 1830, 
1,195; 1835, 1,426; 1840, 1,513; 1845; 1,436; 1850, 1,441; 1855, 1,394; 1860, 1,323; 
1865, 1,181; 1870, 1,043; 1875, 995; 1880, 956; 1890, 911; 1892, 874. 

The officers elected at the first town meeting in 1819 were: Jesse Bullock, 
supervisor; Alfred Forbes, town clerk; Edward Crowell, Zacheus Spencer, 
everseers of the poor; Benjamin Blanchard, Mark S. White, Strong Warner, 
assessors; Abraham Dayton, Mark Blanchard, Nathaniel Moore, commis- 
sioners of highways; Jesse Hadley, Calvin Cass, constables; Calvin Cass, col- 
lector; David Smith, Benjamin Weaver, Simeon Forbes, school commission- 
ers; Calvin Cass, Jesse Bullock, Alfred Forbes, school inspectors; Perkins 
B. Woodford, pound master. 

Supervisors. — Jesse Bullock, 1819, '20, '22 ; Alfred Forbes, 1823 ; Russell Burlingame, 1824, '25, '35 ; 
Jesse Hadley, 1826-28; David Oaks, 1829; Benjamin Blanchard, 1830, '41 ; Strong Warner, 1831, '32 ; Orin 
Pell, 1833, '34 ; Hugh Gillis, 1836-38 ; Timothy Higgins, 1839, '40, 1842-45, 1856, '57 ; Gregory Metcalf, 1846, 
'47 ; Ezra M. Hopkins 1848, '49 ; R. O. Billings, 1850-52 ; G. H. Jenkins, 1853 ; Allen Simmons, 1854, '55, '60, 
'62 ; A. S. Barnnm, 1858, '59; Jonathan Couch, 1863-65, '69, '70, '74, '75, 1877-79, '80, '81, '82, '83, '84, L. B. 
Treeman, 1866-67 ; Thomas B. Edwards, 1868; John D. Ballard, 1871-73, '76; W. T. Elliott, 1886, '88 '89; 
Myron Stickle, 1887; J. S. Sawyer, 1890; M. D Hanks, 1891-92; D. M. Hancock, 1893-95. 

The town officers (1895) are : D. M. Hancock, supervisor ; A. L. Barnum, town clerk ; John Metcalf, 
commissioner of highways ; Alvah Powell, Richard Owens and F. R. Palmer, assessors ; F. R. Palmer, Vic- 
tor Crowell, E. E. Barnum, John McKerrow, justices ; A. P. Allen, overseer of the poor ; William D. Wil" 
mot, collector ; John Heald, Frank S. Slocum, Darwin E. Allen, William D. Wilmot, constables ; D. M. 
Lewis, E. E. Barnum, inspectors of election ; Thomas Gibby, commissioner of excise. 

The Presbyterian Gliurcli at Centreville, the pioneer in the religious field, 
was organized July 25, 1824, by Rev. Silas Hubbard, the first pastor. There 
were 14 original members. The church was received into the Genesee 
Presbytery August 31, 1834, and in 1829 transferred to the Presbytery of 
Angelica. In 1831 there were 30 members, in 1843 109, in 1846 78. Other 
early preachers were: Revs. Horatio Waldo, Horace Galpin, John T. Baldwin, 
Lemuel Hall, Phineas Smith, Leonard Rogers, Samuel Sessions, Smith 
Sturgis and H. B. Taylor. About 1850 came Rev. Lyman B. Waldo. Rev. 
John W. Lane succeeded him in 1853, and under his ministry a house of 
worship was erected costing $3,000, which was dedicated in the fall of 1859. 
Mr. Lane, in 1868, was succeeded by theological students as supplies. In 



Centreville. 785 



1878 Rev. Franklin S. Spencer, the Rushford pastor, was supplying the pul- 
pit. Since then very little Presbyterian preaching has been had. The 
Presbytery owns the church upon which there is a debt of ^500. The house 
is open for services of other denominations; the Baptists of late years hold 
meetings there quite regularly, Revs. Darling, W. N. Mason and Spencer 
officiating. A Sunday schooJ with 25 members is held. 

The Metliodlst Episcojml Cliurch was organized in June, 1842, with 13 
members by Rev. Charles D. Burlingame, the first pastor. In 1844 a church 
was erected at a cost of §1,000, with a seating capacity for 175. The pastors 
have been Revs. William Welling, D. W. Worthington, John Hills, W. H. 
McCartney, Mr. Long. J. L. Newton, J. L. King, John Vaughan, Mr. Bab- 
cock, G. H. VanVradenburgh, J. K. Underbill, N. B. Congdon, Mr. Jack- 
son, A. Mills, H. Peck, J. L. King, Mr. Farnum, A. H. Mason, W. L. Moore 
and Dr. W. F. Wells. Regular services are held. The membership is about 
20. There is a Sunday school of 35 members of which R. N. Byington is 
superintendent. 

The Fairview Congregational Church was organized in 1846 by Rev. John 
T. Edwards. In 1851 a small house of worship was erected. In 1865 a 
large and better one costing $900 was built. The people supporting this 
church are mostly Welsh. In 1878 Rev. W. R. Roberts was their pastor. 
A Rev. Mr. Roberts is now preaching there. There are 30 members. 
There is a Sunday-school. 

The Wesleyan Church (HigginsviUe). — Late in the forties Rev. John Wat- 
son organized a class (largely composed of seceders from the M. E. church 
on account of its attitude on the slavery question) at Higgins' Mill. Among 
them were Humphrey Palmer, Marcellus Palmer, Elisha Wood and Mr. 
Chamberlain. It was for years connected with Rush Creek, Bellville and 
East Rushford in "The Allegany charge." Among the earlier preachers 
were: Revs. L. R. Ward, C. K. Leonard, Z. T. Petty, Alanson Bixby, S. 
Phinney, H. Harris, Silas Brundage. Later, Revs. D. W. Ball, Geo. W. 
Cooper, and the present supply Rev. Sisson. The society has purchased an 
unused store building and converted it into a comfortable little church, 
erected sheds, etc., and has a Sunday school connected. 

The Centreville Tent, K. 0. T. M., was organized Feb. 10, 1893. There are 
now 22 members. Meetings are held semi-monthly. The officers for 1895 
are: Lott Smith, P. C; Wm. D. Wilmot, C; Frank Slocum, Lt. C; A. L. 
Barnum, R. K. and F. K.; Charles Clark, Jr., Chap.; John Vosburgh, Sergt. ; 
P. G. Jones, M. at A.; Reuben Lewis, 1st M. G.; Bird Hopkins. 2d M. G.; 
Stephen Reynolds, Sentinel; Warren Palmer, Picket. 

Royal Templars of TemiJerance, with a charter bearing date April 6, 1878, 
has a membership of 50. The officers are: Thomas Williams, S. C; Peter 
Hughes, V. C; R. N. Byington, P. C; Paul Morris, Chap.; Clara Cole. Sec; 
Samuel Symes, Financial Sec. and Treas.; D. L. Veasey, Herald; J. M. Fish, 
Guard; Thos. Symes, Sentinel. 



786 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Some Residents. — Azem F. Bowen, son of Elias Bowen, a soldier in the war of 1812, 
and son of Bijah Bowen of Madison Co., was born in East Otto in 1840. Elias came to Go- 
wanda soon after the war and married Lydia Wellington. Children : Mahaman, Alzina, Elias, 
Wellington, Lurana, Caleb, Jesse, Joseph, Lydia, Daniel, Azem and Judson. Elias, Daniel, 
Azem and Judson were soldiers in the late war. Azem enlisted in 1862 in the ist N. Y. Dra- 
goons, and was in the battles of Deserted House, Manassas Junction, Winchester, Cedar Creek, 
Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor, Trevillian Station (where there was severe hand-to- 
hand lighting), Shenandoah Valley, Weldon Railroad, and was present at the surrender of Lee 
at Appomattox. He was taken prisoner at Manassas Junction, was confined in Libby and 
Belle Island prisons, was paroled, came home and married Myra Squires, Christmas day, 1863, 
and returned to his regiment seven months from the date of his capture. He was in 36 differ- 
ent engagements during the three years that he served his country. After the war he settled 
in Franklinville, and since 1874 has lived on his farm of 71 acres in Centerville. Mr. and Mrs. 
Bowen have had two adopted children : May (Mrs. Julius Hogg ; children: Emmett and Cecil), 
and Newton Howard, now in the west. 

Frank D. Couch is the son of William B., son of Calvin whose father, a German, was 
impressed on the sea into the British service, but deserted and fought for America in the Revo- 
lutionary war. He married in Massachusetts and settled in Perry, N. Y., with his family of 3 
sons and 4 daughters. Luther and Lorren settled in Hume. Calvin settled in Centreville, 
married Mary Brown. Their children were : Jonathan, born in 1821, died April 16, 1883, and 
William B., born Aug. 29, 1826. The latter a farmer married Elida E. Allen in 1848, who died 
Nov. 2, 1 87 1. Their children were : Calvin, Mary R., Frank D., born Nov. 30, 1854, in Hume, 
Floyd, born in 1856 (married Martha Bell, children, Belle, Clifford and Margerette), Rose, born 
in i860 (Mrs. John Wright, children: Lloyd, Ernest and Herold). William B. came from Hume 
to Centreville in 1862. He went to Illinois in 1865, returned in 1872 and has been a resident of 
North Dakota since 1883. Frank D. married, in 1877, Emma R., daughter of John D. Ballard. 
Their children are : Luverne B., Forrest J. and Glenn F. Mr. Couch made cheese in Catta- 
raugus county 4 years, and i year in Hume. He bought his present farm of 214^^ acres in 
1882. Politically he is a Prohibitionist. 

John J. Davies, son of John and Mary (Samuel) Davies, was born in Cardigan, Wales, in 
1845, and was one of 9 children. He became a sailor for 6 years and rose to the position 
of first mate on vessels running from England to South America. In 1869 he came to America 
and to Centreville with Thomas T. Evans, whose daughter Mary was his wife. They crossed 
the ocean in the ship " City of Brussels." He at once became a farmer, chopping cordwood 
winters, which paid him $1.50 per day and his board. He has kept a dairy of over 30 cows, 
and has raised large crops, digging 300 bushels of potatoes per acre in 1895. The children of 
his first wife were : Mary E. (Mrs. William Thomas), Thomas J. (married Stella Gove of 
Livonia, N. Y. They have one child, Lora), and David J. (who married Annie Fuller, one 
child, Enah.) His second marriage was in 1872 to Deborah Evans, sister of his first wife. The 
children by his second wife were : Willie J. (married Floy Anstee), Maggie E., Samuel J., Dan- 
nie J. (married Mina Simmons of Mansfield, Ohio), Bennie J., Freddie J., Katie E. and Sarah 
E. Mrs. Deborah Davies died in 1889, and, in 1892, Mr. Davies married Louisa, daughter of 
Richard Jones of Centreville. They have twins, Annie E. and Willard J. 

John H. Davis is son of William Davis, who was born in Wales in 1828, and married 
Margaret Thomas. Children : David, Mary A., John H., Thomas, Hannah, Margaret, William, 
Myra, Edward and Dennis, all born in Freedom and Centreville. Mr. Davis came to Centre- 
ville in 1852 and died in 1885. John H. Davis was born Sept. 30, 1857, and has always been a 
farmer. He lived 3 years at Fairview, 3 years in Freedom and since in Centerville. He bought 
his present farm of 237 acres in 1892. He married, in 1879, Elizabeth, daughter of Stephen and 
Sarah (Chapman) Findley. Children: Margaret A., born May 28, 1842. William J., born Dec. 
2, 1884. Maud E., born Nov. 8, 1886, Nellie J., born Feb. 26, 1890, and Ella M., born April 20, 
1894. William J. died May 15, 1895. Mr. Davis was justice of the peace in Centerville from 
1888 to 1892. 

David M. Hancock descends from a family of coal miners in County Staffordshire, Eng- 
land, made historic in America by John Hancock of Boston. Joseph, born in 1800, son of 
Thomas, married Mary, daughter of George Newton, a naval commander under Lord Nelson. 
Joseph and Mary Hancock had two children, John and Sarah. John was born March 11, 1824, 
and began work in the coal mines with his father at the age of six. In 1846 he came to Boston 
in ship Thomas H. Perkins, thence went to Pittston, Pa., where his English employers had a 
coal mine. He became such an expert in the surface indications of coal that the government 
secured him in 1849 to travel with Prof. Owen of the Smithsonian Institute to examine all the 
coal fields in the United States which took nearly three years. He was next employed by coal 
corporations, locating and opening mines in the Lafayette district, and McKean, Forest and 



Centreville. 787 



Elk counties. Pa. In 1881 he went to New Mexico for a syndicate to locate gold and silver 
mines, While there he bought five claims in Sierra county which he is now developing. He 
married Mrs. Mary (Mitchel) McFarlin. Children. Keziah, Robert, Joseph, David M., Ida and 
Willie. David M. was born in Pittston, Pa., in 1857. He married Dell, daughter of Merritt 
Mead. Children, Ella, Grace, Inez, Robert and George. He is a progressive farmer and set- 
tled on his farm of 254 acres in 1880. He raised in 1895, i 5 acres of the largest corn in North- 
ern Allegany, and built the first silo in Centerville. He deals in live stock and sells agricultural 
implements. Mr. Hancock has been an assessor in Centerville three years and its supervisor 
since 1892. 

John H. Morgan is son of Daniel Morgan, who was born in Pembrookshire, Wales, in 1810, 
and married Ann Morgan. Children, John H., Anna, Benjamin. Samuel, Mary A., William, 
Daniel and David. Daniel Morgan brought his family to America in 1839, stopping at Utica, 
where he worked at farming. In 1842 he came to Freedom where he lived till his death in 
1888. John H. Morgan was born in Wales in 1834. He was brought up and has remained a 
farmer. He married, in 1857, Elizabeth Roberts. Children, David J., born in Freedom in 1858, 
married in 1885, Mary Edwards. Children, John and Lucian; Margaret (Mrs. William Hig- 
gins), children, Floyd, Katharine and Elizabeth; Samuel married Mary Williams. Children, 
Stanton and Stanley ; John married Catharine Evans, children, Lulu and William; Hannah (Mrs. 
John Higgirts), children, Frank and Emma; Annie (Mrs. Robert Williams), children, John. 
Roy and Lloyd; Mary (Mrs, Arthur Peet), children, William and a babe; Emma (Mrs. 
James Gibbons, one child John) and William. John H. Morgan bought in 1872 the farm of 
loi acres in Centerville on which his son David J. has lived for the past 10 years. While in 
that town he was assessor 7 years. In 1886 Mr. Morgan moved to his present farm of 87 acres 
in Freedom. Mrs. Morgan died in 1891. 

Flavel Ruthem Palmer is the grandson of Humphrey Palmer of Honiton, Devonshire 
county, England, whence government persecution drove him from an estate that rented for 
^300 per year, that was afterward confiscated, because he espoused the cause of the American 
colonies. He settled in East Guilford, Windham Co., Vt. Children : Humphrey, John, Will- 
iam, Hannah, Maria. William, born in 1786, came to Centerville about 1812, and bought of 
the Holland Land Co. 100 acres at $2.50 per acre. He married in 1814 Sally Vendermark, 
had one child Stephen. By his second wife, Elenor Knickerbocker, of East Bloomfield, N. Y,, 
his children were Silas W., Monroe, Jeremiah, Henry, Calvin, Flavel R. and Ellen. Mr. 
Palmer was a school teacher, a writer of prose and poetry, and a strong abolitionist. His 
mental traits had marked development in his children. Silas W. and Henry were Baptist 
ministers, Havel R. is a writer in prose and verse, and Ellen (Mrs. A. B. Allerton), who 
died in Padonia, Kansas, in 1893, was a poet of national reputation. Her volume, " Poems 
of the Prairies," is one of the classics of the west. Mr. Palmer died in 1865, Mrs. Pal- 
mer in 1863. Flavel R. was born Dec. 15, i83i,was a student in Leland Seminary, Ver- 
mont, two years. He married, in 1854, Cynthia A. Kellogg. Cyrus S., their eldest child, 
graduated from Cornell University in 1890. His health failed while principal of Monroe 
Collegiate Institute at Elbridge, N. Y., in 1893, and he is now on the old homestead in Cen- 
terville. He married, in 1891, Nellie Jones, of Pike. N. Y, Florence E., their other child, 
in the wife of Deputy Sheriff Byron E. Woods of Fillmore. Mrs. F. R. Palmer died in 
1893. and his second marriage was in 1895, to Mrs. Salinda M. (Frye) Whitney. Mr. Palmer 
is one of the assessors of Centerville, and is serving his ninth year as justice of the peace. 

Thomas B. Pratt is a son of Delanson Pratt who was born in 1805 in Tolland, Mass., where 
his father lived. Delanson came to Cayuga county, and from there in 1832 to Centreville. He 
married in 1831, Lucia, daughter of Thomas Bingham, who came from Riga, Monroe county, in 
18 1 9, and bought 900 acres of land, 120 acres in Hume, the rest in Centreville. Mr. Bingham 
never lived on it, but gave i 50 acres to each of his sons Joseph, Justin and Clark, who settled 
thereon. Mr. Pratt bought land where Thomas B. now lives, and, in 1840, the sawmill built by 
John Connell in 1830. The children of Delanson and Lucia Pratt were: Thomas B., Martha, 
Elmira (Mrs. Horatio Vedder), Amelia (Mrs. Palmer Watson), Marcia (Mrs. Orville Miller), and 
Hattie (Mrs. Adelbert Gillett of Buffalo). Mr. Pratt died in 1867 and Mrs. Pratt in 1878. 
Thomas B. Pratt was born in 1832. His earliest memories are his love for machinery, urging 
his father when only 8 years old to buy the sawmill in which he was a devoted worker till its loss 
by fire in 1867. The failure of Houghton Creek caused him to rebuild a steam mill in its place, 
to which was added a shingle machine, and later a run of stone for grinding coarse grain. In 
1880 this mill cut 800,000 feet of lumber. Material for building is here sawed, planed and fitted 
for use, doing a business of $5,000 a year. For many years the charge for planing boards on 
one side was $3 per M. now both sides are planed for $1. In 1858 Mr. Pratt began for himself 
on part of his present farm of 167 acres, and the same year married Lusina, daughter of Willard 
Higgins of Centreville, who came from Vermont. Their children have been : Finette E., and 



788 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Willard D. who married J. Belle Wilson and has children, Kirk W., M. Beryl and L. Irene. Ella 
J. Rice is an adopted child of Mr. and Mrs.Pratt. Her mother was Mrs. Pratt's sister Elizabeth. 
Thomas and Samuel Symes, wagon manufacturers and owners of the saw and feedmilis at 
Centreville, sons of Samuel and Mary (Scott; Symes were born in Somersetshire, England. 
Samuel Symes, elder, came to America in 1852. Thomas Symes came in 1855, joined his father 
and bought John Morris' blacksmith shop. In 1856 Mrs, Symes and two daughters Mary and 
Edith and one brother Samuel came. They all settled in Centreville and Samuel joined in the 
wagon and blacksmith shop. They put steam power in their shops in 1867, a mill for grinding 
feed in 1874 and the sawmill in 1895. Thomas married as his first wife, Sarah Mathias in 1858. 
By his present wife, Sarah Plumb, he has two children, John T. and Mary B. He has been 
town clerk 14 years and highway commissioner three terms. His father and mother both died 
in 1866. 

William W. Thomas is son of Lewis Thomas who was born in Wales in 1785. The chil- 
dren of Lewis were : Peter, Richard. Mary, William W., Leah, Sarah and Rachel. Mr. Thomas 
brought his family to America in 1831, settling near Utica, where William W. worked on con- 
struction of the New York Central railroad at 50 cents per day. In 1841 Mr. Thomas came to 
Freedom and 2 years after moved to Centreville, bought 55 acres of land of David Ellis, and 
his son, William W., helped pay for this by selling butter for 6 cents per pound, and drawing 
oats to Buffalo for i2>^ cents per bushel. In 1845 he drew potatoes to Buffalo for 25 cents 
per bushel to help make up the deficiency in the interest then due. As he could not spare the 
price of lodging, he was on the road two nights and one day. Another time he stopped at the 
" North Star " tavern 15 miles from Buffalo, and late at night when he went to feed his horses 
he found flames in the manger that reached to the roof, he ran aloft, threw more hay on the 
flames then jumped on the top and smothered the fire. The landlord, Mr. Sexton, was so 
grateful that he made his bills free ever after. William W. Thomas married Elizabeth, daugh- 
ter of John Davis from Wales. Their children were : John L., Mary (Mrs. David Davis, whose 
children are, Catharine and Mabel), John, Isaac, a railroad man now in British Columbia, 
Catharine (Mrs. William Young, has one child, Earl), Corner, who was married in November, 
1895, to Miss Helen Belle Bloomingdale of Alabama, Genesee Co., N. Y. Mr. Thomas has 
been a very successful farmer, owning at one time over 600 acres of land. On his farm of 380 
acres his sons John and Corner raised 2,300 bushels of grain in 1895 in spite of the drought and 
grasshoppers. 

John C. Vosburg is the son of Lorenzo D., son of Jacob, son of Abram Vosburg, whose 
father came from Holland. Abram came from Bainbridge, Otsego county, where Jacob was 
born, to Washington township, Wyoming Co., Pa., where Vosburg Station and tunnel on the 
Lehigh railroad were named after him. Lorenzo D. was born there Nov. 15, 18 15. He kept a 
hotel at Meshoppen, where John C. was born Feb. 15, 1859, was postmaster and merchant at 
Russell Hill, and gave the land for the first church built in Washington township. He married 
Eliza Wiggins. Children : Marion, Armina, Luella, Etta, Isabel, John C, Merritt and Lottie. 
Lorenzo D. came to Centerville in 1870, a farmer, where he died in 1892 and his widow in 1895. 
John C. was brought up a farmer and married in 1882 Mary Marsh. Children : Manley F., 
Ruth and Agnes. Merritt Vosburg married Etta Low. Children : Albert, Frankie, Ada, 
Amber and Stanley. Mr. Vosburg has rented this farm of 289 acres since 1882. He raised in 
the dry season of 1895 1,600 bushels of grain and 700 bushels of potatoes. 

Lucius Gilbert Waterman, M. D., physician and surgeon at Centreville, son of Eli and Per- 
sis (Edwards) Waterman, was born Sept. 16, 1849, in China (Arcade), Wyoming Co., N. Y. Eli 
Waterman was born in Blanford, Mass., June 8, 1789, and was a major in the War of 181 2. His 
first wife was Persis Wright. Children : Diantha, Anson, Robert, Nancy, Alonzo, Eliza and 
Persis. His second wife, Persis Edwards, was born in Suffield, Hartford Co., Conn., May 20, 
1801. Their children were: Caroline, Lucius E., Harrison, Franklin, Orlando, Alphonso, Jer- 
usha A., Eli W., Esther, and Lucius G. Mr. Waterman came to China soon after 1820, bought 
360 acres of land of the Holland company at $2.50 per acre, built the first sawmill in town, 
opened a public house in which he kept the first postoffice at East China, and was postmaster 27 
consecutive years. He died in Arcade, Jan. 24, 1861, and his widow Jan. 2, 1890. Lucius G. 
was educated at the University of Suffield, Conn., read medicine five years with Dr. Lusk of 
Eagle, attended lectures at Medical University of Buffalo, came to Centreville in 1878, was re- 
ceived into the Allegany County Medical Society and by it was licensed to practice. In 1883 he 
received his diploma from Buffalo Medical College. He married in 1871, Mary A., daughter of 
Capt. A. N. Richardson of Eagle. They had one child, James R. born July 5, 1875. He is a 
Latin academic graduate of Pike Seminary, and is now a student in Buffalo Medical College. 
Mrs. Waterman died in 1887. [See Medical Chapter.] 



RUSHFORD . 789 



•RUSH FO-RD- 

BY JOHN S. MINARD. 

CHAPTER LXIII. 

RUSHFORD lies on the western border of the county and comprises town- 
ship 5, range 2, of the Holland Land Company's survey. The sub- 
division into lots was made by Wilhara Rumsey in the summer of 1807, and 
immediately thereafter the land was offered for sale. The surface is mostly 
hilly upland divided into ridges and valleys by streams tributary to Canea- 
dea creek, the principal stream of the town, discharging into the Genesee 
river. Rush creek is its most considerable branch. The soil is generally a 
gravelly loam, though on some of the creek bottoms is a rich sandy loam. 
For upland the soil is better than the average, and though the town is better 
adapted to grazing and dairying, good crops of grain are raised, and in some 
parts potatoes and other vegetables find the elements just suited to their 
growth. The original forest, though pine in some locahties predominated, 
presented almost every variety of timber grown in this latitude, some being 
very valuable. The first iron bridge in town was put up in 1879 when A. L. 
Litchard was highway commissioner. It was at Hardy's corners and built 
jointly with the town of Farmersville. The town of Rushford is out of debt. 
Its assessed valuation in 1895 was $539,680, tax collected $4,909.14. Eneas 
Garey, a Vermonter, was the first settler. When he moved on to his new 
purchase with his family in 1808 it is said that he brought coals in a kettle 
from Centreville to start a fire on arriving at his place. It is said that his 
daughter Nancy, who married Ely Woods, was the first white woman who 
ever slept in Rushford. She and a brother came four days in advance of 
the teams. She was only 10 years old. 

In 1809 five brothers, James, Tarbell, William, John and Wilson Gor- 
don, from Vermont, settled in Rushford. They were sons of James, a 
Scotchman, w^ho came to this country during the Revolution, was in Bur- 
goyne's army, deserted, joined the Americans, and at 16 was a waiter for 
Gen. Washington. William, our pioneer, was a local M. E. preacher, and 
settled where R. W. Benjamin lives. Charles Swift, Abraham J. Lyon, 
Amos Rose, Abel Belknap, Joshua Wilson and Joseph Young came in 1810. 
Young was 22 days coming from Wethersfield, Conn. Samuel Hardy from 
Vermont came in 1811. Great hardship and privations were endured by 
these early settlers, some passing even months without bread. In 1810 
Bethiah Belknap and Samuel Gordon were born, the first births of white 
children. In 1811 occurred the first marriage, that of William Rawson and 
Luamy Swift. Jedediah B. Gordon was born in September, 1812, and is 
now the longest resident person in town. 



790 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Among other early settlers previous to 1816, were Daniel and David 
Vaughan from Washington county, Ezra Lewis from Massachusetts, 
Abraham Crabb, Roderick Bannister, John White, Luther L. Woodworth, 
the two latter coming from Connecticut on foot. Levi Benjamin came in 
1815 and located on lot 30. In the winter of 1813 and 14 was taught the first 
school in a log structure where now is the M. E. church, Pliny Bannister 
teacher. In 1813 was built by a Mr. Warren the first gristmill. This mill 
stood on land now owned by John B. Walker. "This was a very small mill, 
the bolting cloths made of book muslin, the upper stone hung upon a spindle 
at the end of the shaft of a tub wheel, with no intermediate gearing. The 
first miller was drowned in 1815, while repairing the dam." Mr. Warren 
also built the first sawmill. Pomeroy Johnson, another Vermonter, came in 
1814, settling north of present village. 

Before 1816 so many people had settled in the township, as to call for a 
new town, and March 8, 1816, the town of Rushford w^as created. It included 
present New Hudson until April 10, 1825. According to Mrs. Woods, mother 
of W. F. Woods, now of Macedon, N. Y., " the few residents agreed upon the 
name of Windsor for the town, after Windsor, Vt., the former home of most 
of them, and it was sent in to be inserted in the bill, but there was another 
town in the state by that name," and Rushford was suggested by some one. 
The venerable J. B. Gordon however says that the numerous patches of 
rushes along the streams, suggested the name as stated by early settlers 
Still another statement is that it was named for Dr. Rush, of Philadelphia. 

The first town meeting was held at the house of Levi Benjamin. The 
officers elected were: Supervisor, Dr. Dyer Story; town clerk, Phny Ban- 
nister; assessors, Abel Belknap, Matthew P. Cady, and Roderick Bannister; 
commissioners of highways, Tarbell Gordon, J. White, and James Orcutt; 
collector, Daniel Wood; constables, Levi Benjamin and Thomas L. Pratt; 
overseers of the poor, Ebenezer D. Perry and Levi Benjamin; school inspec- 
tors, Dyer Story and Abel Belknap. (The first returns of an election on 
record are for the year 1825, when 75 votes were cast for Benedict Brooks 
for state senator, and 22 for Ethan B. Allen.) The same year with the first 
town meeting the first store was opened by Judge James McCall, in what is 
claimed as the first framed building in town. This stood near Levi Benja- 
mins, over a mile north of the village. Mr. Benjamin kept a public house. 
The first taverns were kept by Eneas Gary, Charles Swift, Samson Hardy, 
Levi Benjamin, Josei)h Young, and William Gary. 

The town meetings to 1840 were held, 1817, at Samson Hardy's; 1818, 
'19, '20, '27, '28, at Joseph Young's; 1821, '22, '32, '33, '34, at the Baptist 
church; 1823, '24, '25, '26, at Eneas Gary's; 1829, at Jonathan Dunham's; 1830, 
at Samson Hardy's; 1831, at the Methodist Episcopal church; 1835, at J. 
Holmes; 1836; at Knickerbocker's; 1837, at J. Merrifield's; 1838, '39, at Chap- 
man Brooks'; 1840, at Winthrop G. Yoimg's. 

Early settlers on the road north from Elmer's cheese factory, were 
John Gordon, Tarbell Gordon, William Gordon, Judge McCall, Levi Benja- 



RUSHFORD. 791 



min, Mr. Beckwith, Elijah Lyman, Elijah Freeman, and on the Centerville 
road, Samson Hardy, Jonathan Dunham, Mr. Going, Mr. Swift, Eneas Gary, 
William Gary, John White, Jerry White, Leonard Farwell. Cephas Young 
kept an early tavern where James G. Benjamin now lives, and William Gary 
had a log tavern on the Centerville road. There were two rooms in it, a bar- 
room and kitchen, with a bed in each till about 1835. This show^s the con- 
veniences and simplicity of the primitive public houses. 

James McCall, in 1818 with Wilham B. Rochester, and in 1819 with 
John Dow, represented Allegany and Steuben in the assembly. Judge Mc- 
Call was a state senator from the 8th district in 1824, '25, '26, '27. At the 
town meeting April 17, 1818, it was voted to raise |50 for school purposes, 
and, in 1821, " all that the law will allow." 

Somewhere from 1820 to 1825, a carding mill was put up on Caneadea 
creek either by an Upham or J. B. Gordon's father. In 1830 J. B. Gordon 
joined and a new building was put up at Gordonsville. In 1840 Wm. Gor- 
don and sons, William and Samuel, added to the first 50 foot building, 90 
feet more and a woolen factory making 100 yards of flannel and f ullcloth 
per day w^as soon in operation employing 15 to 20 hands. An extensive 
business was done, people coming 30 miles to trade wool for cloth, and in 
1844 Avery Washburn, a teacher from Connecticut, becoming a partner the 
firm (Gordon & Washburn) engaged in the woolen mill business. The fac- 
tory was run until 1873 when it was burned. 

In 1844 Gordon & Sons built a gristmill, with 3 "run" of stones, and 
for years did alarge custom and some merchant grinding. It was first run 
by water, later by steam, and was burned in 1883. 

Before 1830 William Wilson and John Gordon built the first sawmill at 
Kelloggville and ran it for 25 years. George Colburn built a mill below the 
Gordon's at Kelloggville in 1851 or 52, and it ran till some 10 years since. 
Levi Benjamin w^as the first postmaster and kept the office at his place. It 
was established in 1816. Stephen Parker then a boy carried the first mail; 
the route being from Canandaigua to Glean and return. His father Ephraim 
Parker was the contractor. The exact time cannot be stated, though prob- 
ably it w^as soon after the postoffice was established. Oramel Griffin con- 
ducted the second store in town in 1822, in a log building. Bates Hapgood 
was next. Orville Boardman w^as an early merchant. Isaiah Lathrop was 
an early hardware dealer. Judge McCall built the second gristmill at East 
Rushford in 1832. 

In all these early years the people practiced putting bells on their cows. 
Sometimes in going after them they w^ould get lost in the woods; so it was 
arranged that if gone long, a gun should be fired, or a horn blown to guide 
them home. At an early day C. G. Leavens and O. D. Benjamin built a saw- 
mill on Thunder Shower creek. In 1863 it was worn out. The pioneer 
blacksmith was David J. Board, who located on lot 22 as early as 1816. His 
■descendants retain the homestead. 



792 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

In 1818 when Asa Benjamin, brother of Levi, moved in there were but 
four framed houses at the village. No store nearer than Angehca on the 
south or Pike on the north. He has taken wheat to Angehca and exchanged 
it for window hg-hts at the rate of 4 small hghts for a bushel. He drove the 
first team through to Mills Mills on the new (present) road. He was two 
days making the trip, and on his way out " shot a deer, dressed it and hung 
it in a tree, thinking to get it next day on his return, but the Indians stole 
it." He was a shoemaker and would work at his trade for his neighbors, 
while they cleared his land. He was one of the first justices. Tim Thomas must 
have his " pumps" for a 4th of July dance. Work was crowding, and Mr. Ben- 
jamin made the pumps by working extra time, two whole nights being de- 
voted to the work. For recuperation he took an occasional cup of tea, and a 
little sleep on a side of sole leather fitted him for renewed effort. The pumps 
were finished by noon of the 4th. He also worked as a mason, and many of 
the early chimneys were laid by him. 

Before the Genesee Valley canal was opened to Mt. Morris lumber was 
hauled to Buffalo, the trip taking four days. At the public houses 50 cents 
would pay for supper, lodging, breakfast and "horses to hay." The lumber 
was sold at ruinously low prices, bat "loading back " with iron, tin, leather, 
whiskey, pork, salt, helped them out, though 25 cents was the " regulation 
price " for hauling a barrel of salt pork or Wliiskey. 

Though the experiences of Rushford's early settlers were rough and 
pleasant, their stalwart energy and native "grit" and "gumption" tri- 
umphed, and before 1840 broad fields were basking in the sunlight, framed 
houses were quite common and things bespoke the thrifty habits of her peo- 
ple. Before 1850 Rushford village was the liveliest place (with possibly 
one exception) in the county, there being 8 drygoods stores and 3 or 4 gro- 
ceries, and other dealers and tradesmen in proportion. 

Though the Weavers are not named as pioneers they came early. They 
were three brothers, William, Joseph, and Benjamin, and they certainly 
were pioneers in cheese making. Theirs however was the old way of family 
dairying, each one using a hoop in size proportioned to the number of cows 
he kept, reckoning on making one cheese a day, and storing it till the 
whole season's make was cured and ready for market, turning and greas- 
ing them every day. Buffalo and Rochester were markets, either place in- 
volved a long haul, over bad roads, with lumber wagons loaded as heavy as 
their teams could draw, and sales at prices which would perceptibly elongate 
the faces of modern Allegany dairymen; six cents being considered a good 
price, though it was sometimes sold at four cents, groceries taken in part 
payment. When the canal was opened hauling to Rochester ceased. 

Rushford was the pioneer town of the state in the manufacture of pine- 
apple cheese. April 1, 1851, Robert Norton began to manufacture pine-apple 
cheese in a small building, a little south of the academy. Not long after Chas. 
J. Elmer became associated with Mr. Norton, and the managing man in the 



RUSHFORD. 793 



enterprise. The manufacture of pine-apple cheese in Rushford continued 
for 32 years and most of the time by this firm. The products of this factory 
gained great celebrity. The cheese has been sold as high as 40 cents per 
pound and as low as 12 or 14 cents. As a rule it brought about double the 
price of dairy cheese. Mr. R. H. Heald of East Rushford about 1856 made 
the first cheese boxes in Allegany county. 

The two decades from 1820 witnessed the greatest progress in " clear- 
ing up " the land, though this work was continued until 1850 when the town 
was practically all cleared. About 1852 the mowing machine was introduced 
and many labor-saving devices are used which materially lighten farm labor. 
The farmers of Rushford keep even with the advancing spirit of the age. 
Several silos have been made by Geo. H. Kingsley, A. W. and A. L. Litchard, 
J. S. VanDusen, E. T. James, Geo. W. Hall, etc. 

The New Hudson, Caneadea and Rushford Plank Road was built in 1852, 
the main projectors being Southworth & McGraw from Tompkins county, 
who owned 2,100 acres of timber land in New Hudson, and had 4 sawmills. 
The capital stock was $20,000. Timothy Rice, Abel S. Nicholson, Luke R. 
Hitchcock and John Smith were its active promoters in Caneadea, and J. B. 
Luther, Wilson Gordon and O. T. Higgins in Rushford. The road ran 
from McGrawville, following closely Rush and Caneadea creeks to Caneadea, 
with a branch from Kellogg's to Rushford. The plank were cut 8^ feet long 
and 3 in. thick, and were furnished at |5 per M. For a while the road did a 
good business. It was later sold by the sheriff and March 20, 1859, came 
into the hands of Columbus Balcom who continued it till the flood of 1864, 
which tore up and carried off a good share of it, especially in the gorge. 

Cheese Factories. — Rushford was the first town of the county to 
embark in the factory system of making cheese, the first factory being con- 
structed by Robert Morrow, Charles Benjamin, and H. K. Stebbins, in 1863 
and 1864, and beginning operations in July or August, 1864. In Novem- 
ber C. J. Elmer bought the plant and has since conducted it. For 2 or 3 
years the factory made up the milk from 2,200 cows, some of it being hauled 
7 or 8 miles. Other factories were soon erected, and the pioneer factory 
lost some of its patrons. Probably no town stands higher in point of excel- 
lence of her dairy products, and shipments have been made direct to London 
and Liverpool. There are now 7 factories, known respectively as the Elmer, 
Podunk, Kellogg, McGrawville, Hardy's, West Branch and Clear Spring; 
the annual product from each averaging 100,000 pounds, made from the milk 
of 2,500 cows. 

Rushford Academy and Union School. — The town had from its institution 
been liberal in the support of schools, and so in 1851 was quick to catch the 
inspiration of the times, which led her citizens to make liberal subscriptions 
to the fund for building the academy (chartered February 21, 1852), which 
went into operation in the autumn of 1852. The building cost nearly $5,000. 
The first board of trustees were: B. T. Hapgood, John Holmes, Israel 
Thompson, Titus Bartlett, William Merryfield, Robert Norton, James Gor- 



794 History op Allegany County. N. Y. 

don, 2d, Isaac Stone, Washington White, Samson Hardy, Charles Benjamin, 
John G. Osborne, O. D. Benjamin, William Gordon and H. Damon, with B. T. 
Hapgood, president; Robert Norton, secretary and treasurer; Dr. Wm. M. 
McCall, corresponding secretary, and Ira Sayles librarian. Prof. Ira Sayles, 
a teacher of Alfred Academy, was secured as principal, who, with his assist- 
ants, opened the school with flattering prospects. The first board of 
instruction was: Ira Sayles, A. M., principal; William W. Bean, Miss E. 
Frances Post, assistants; Mrs. S. C. Sayles, assistant teacher of French; 
Miss Aurora Bailey, assistant teacher of music; Miss M. B. B. Sayles, 
assistant primary teacher, though early in its history Miss Henrietta S. 
Claflin was first female assistant; P. F. J. Wehrung, assistant in French and 
German; Anna M, Scott, assistant in music, and Miss Jane Hammond had 
charge of the primary department. The school was a success and the 
attendance liberal. In 1867, in order to better meet the demands for 
increased and freer educational facilities, it was organized into a Union 
School, as which it has since been conducted, the veteran instructor Prof. 
Sayles being its first principal. The principals have been: Academy, Ira 
Sayles, 1852-57; G. W. F. Buck, 1857-65; J. E. Mclntyre, 1865-67. Union 
School, Ira Sayles, 1867-70; A. J. Crandall, 1870-71; Dana Jennison, 1871-73; 
Wm. Goodell, 1873-74; W. W. Bean, 1874-76; Frank Diamond, 1876-77; M. 
L. Spooner, 1877-80; H. J. Van Norman, 1880-82; J. McKee, 1882-85; W. D. 
Moulton, 1885; W. H. Wilson, 1885-87; Edward Maguire, 1887-93; Wm. C. 
White, 1893-94; H. J. Walter, 1895. The people of Rushford are deserving 
of great praise for the stand they early assumed in favor of liberal education, 
and even a slight acquaintance with its inhabitants who received their edu- 
cation at this institution, is a convincing proof of the wisdom of the fathers 
in founding Rushford Academy. 

Fires. — The village of Rushford has had its share of fires. The most ex- 
tensive conflagration occurred Dec. 20, 1883, when five buildings on the south 
side of Main street were destroyed. These firms were the sufferers: Pratt 
& Colburn, Mrs. M. A. Stacy, F. E. White, N. Jewell, C. W. Woodworth, W. 
W. Merrill, I. M. Seaman, C. McDonald, A. L. Green, Dr. Peters, dentist, 
Misses Butts & Weir, dressmakers, and the Spectator office. But little was 
saved. This was the third set of buildings burned on the same ground in 
less than 20 years. Losses |30,000; insurance $17,290. A fine brick block 
now covers the ground. A later fire starting in S. Root's furniture and un- 
dertaking rooms, caused a loss of from $8,000 to $10,000. The night was 
still fortunately or the loss would have been much greater. The insurance 
was small. The losers were: S. Root, Holden & Bond, A. Ray, R. R. Mur- 
ray, M. Claus, A. Peters and A. Edson. Only a portion of these burned 
buildings have been rebuilt. 

Flood of 1864. — The disastrous flood of Aug. 16th and 17th, 1864, is well 
remembered. Rain began falling at 6 o'clock P. M., and by 11 the flood was 
at its height. Much damage to property was done, some lives were lost, 
many endangered; whiJe others barely escaped with their lives. Orin T. 



RUSHFORD. 795 



Higg'ins' house was moved into the street, the lower story carried entirely 
away, while a lighted lamp standing on the mantel piece was undisturbed. 
Dr. O. T. Stacy's house was badly injured by a tree jamming into it, and his 
office was carried away. Israel Thompson's barn was utterly demolished, 
of the 15 cows in it 14 escaped. Alonzo Davidson had a cow taken away 
and never found. His floating house lodged against a tree, where he and 
his wife remained until the subsidence of the water. Mr. Welch, his wife 
and two children lived at East Rushford; the house was carried off. Welch 
swam ashore, leaving his wife and children in the house which went over one 
dam safely, but in passing over the next one went to pieces and all three 
were drowned. One Peterson, a peddler, put ivp at his sister's, Mrs. Harriet 
Dunn. The water twisted the house around, Peterson got into a tree; the 
barn was washed away and the horse drowned. The flood carried a calf 
across the Genesee river, and it was brought back safe and sound. 

East Rushford. — For some years previous to the flood of 1864 this 
place had attained considerable importance. It boasted of a foundry and 
chair factory, an oil mill, shingle mill, wagon shop, tannery, sash, door and 
blind factory, and melodeons were here manufactured. It had a postoffice 
and public house, a grist and sawmill, and was a lively enterprising little 
place. The flood nearly annihilated it, and since then the place has been but 
a little hamlet, the postoffice even, having been abolished. 

In the early days Rushford abounded in sawmills. In the " Podunk " 
neighborhood Benjamin Dake and Oliver D. Benjamin built the first one. 
The territory covered by the Farwells' and Edwin Weaver's farms was then 
" wolf meadows," and the little brooklet " wolf -meadow creek." Aaron Rice, 
Randolph Heald, and Ely and Daniel Woods built a mill on Ensworth Mc- 
Kinney's place, and Charles and Seth Colburn built a sawmill in 1840 on the 
Byron Woods farm. On Caneadea creek (beginning with Judge McCall's 
mill) next was Pliny Bannister down in the gorge. Leonard Walker had a 
mill in the gorge which was burned. Charles Colburn and his sons George 
and Caleb, in 1846, built a sawmill at " Kellogg ville, " sold about 1864 to Cal- 
vin Kellogg. Bannister here made grindstones and whetstones. The Walker 
mill and the grindstone business however was just in the edge of Caneadea, 
but the business relations of the parties were entirely with Rushford. Al- 
most every little stream which in spring and fall would furnish water suffi- 
cient to run an overshot wheel was utilized. 

If ever a town deserved a railroad it is Rushford. Her people have put 
forth efforts which richly deserve success, and it is hoped that soon modern 
means of transit will reach the town. It did once enjoy railroad facilities, 
and a brief history of the Tonawanda Valley and Cuba railroad will here be 
given. The road connected Cuba with Attica and the route lay on through 
Rushford, Centreville, Freedom, Arcade to Attica In Rushford J. B. 
Gordon, C. J. Elmer, C. W. Woodworth, O. T. Stacy, W. E. Kyes, W. W. 
Bush and others raised about |18,000 for bonds and $1,200 for right of way, 
and built the round house. In 1881 work was began at Cuba and later at 



796 History op Allegany County, N. Y 

Hardy's. Then work was suspended until February, 1882, when work 
was again commenced, and a little later was in prosecution all along 
the line, and the road hurried to completion. In June the track-laying 
gang reached Rushford, from Cuba, and the people turned out in great 
numbers and celebrated the event. On the fourth of July an excursion was 
run to Cuba. September 4th the whole road was opened for traffic, and Sept. 
25, 1882, a " time table " went into effect which gave Rushford the best train 
service of any town on the road. In May, 1884, a night freight was put on 
which was the culmination of the prosperity of the road. January 19, 1885, 
the mail train was taken off and the employees struck for four months' back 
pay. Soon business was resumed, but the trains were irregular. In Nov- 
ember, 1885, another strike for pay occurred. An irregular service was 
however kept up until Oct. 16, 1886, when trains were discontinued, by order 
of the receiver, south of Sandusky. Rust and weeds have since flourished 
unmolested along the line, and the rails have been removed. Nearly all the 
bonds taken by Rushford parties were sold in December, 1885, for 24i cents 
on the dollar. It is not a pleasant subject for Rushford people to discuss, 
but this railroad history proves conclusively that they are entitled to great 
credit for the determined fight they made for a road, and that they richly 
deserve better success than they then secured. 

Search for Petroleum. — In February, 1860, John T. and Elizabeth 
Moore contracted with certain oil operators to put down a well on their farm 
which was sunk 600 feet and left. May 3, 1864, the Moores contracted to sell 
10 acres of land including the well for $1,000; the purchasers were to " de- 
velope " but did not sink the well much deeper. A reservation of one-twelfth 
of the product was made in this contract. Afterward J. B. Gordon and others 
organized a stock company and bought this one-twelfth interest. In 1880 
another well was drilled 1,867.25 feet and abandoned. In 1864 some " wild- 
catting " was done on the Metcalf farm without result. Yet some insist that 
Rushford is oil territory. 

Cemeteries. — Probably the first place of interment was the "First 
Burying Ground of Rushford " in the west part of the village where burials 
were made as early as 1816. The deed of this projperty from David and 
Judith Searl to David Searl, Horatio Smith and Matthew P. Cady, trustees, 
bears date May 1, 1832. The grounds for some years suffered to lapse into 
neglect have recently, largely through the efforts of A. M. Taylor, been im- 
proved and renovated and now the cemetery has quite a tidy appearance. 
The trustees are A. M. Taylor, J. B. McFarland and Samuel A. Hardy. 

The White Burying Ground is on the eastern borders of the village. It is 
not under control of a legally organized association, but an individual enter- 
prise, the ground being owned by M. C. White and sold off as parties desire. 
Many interments have been made here, and some beautiful monuments 
erected. It is situated on a gentle elevation and is well adapted to its purpose. 

Rushford Cemetery Association was organized Oct. 2, 1850, with seven 
trustees. Ehhu Talcott, president; John G. Osborne, vice president; Charles 



Rush FORD. 797 



Benjamin, treasurer; Gideon L. Walker, secretary; Washington White, 
Luther Gordon and Geo. W. Green. The grounds had long been used for 
burial purposes, some of the stones bear inscriptions of an early date. Ne- 
glect and inattention resulted in a cemetery, which in the eighties some of 
the citizens deemed a' cause of reproach to the town, and about 1890 some of 
the leading citizens determined to restore the organization, and improve the 
grounds. In 1892 a survey and maps of the grounds was made, new and 
permanent fences built, grading done, and at present they are in an elegant 
condition. Ralph B. Laning devoted time and personal attention to the 
improvements, and to him the jjublic is much indebted. The present trus- 
tees are A. M. Taylor president, H. B. Gilbert vice president, W. H. Thomas 
treasurer, R. B. Laning secretary, P. W. Higgins Glean, Miles M. Tarbell 
and W. H. Benson. The grounds are pleasantly situated in the north part 
of the village on Lewellen street and are easy of access. 

The Press. — In 1846 Horace E. Purdy a practical printer and an editor 
of ability and experience established the Republican Era. A. P. Laning, 
then a practicing lawyer here, raised $500 to help the enterprise, the ma- 
terial of the suspended Seventh Day Baptist paper at DeRuyter, N. Y., was 
purchased for the outfit. The Era was Democratic and it was a newsy, 
bright, spicy sheet, but two weeks before the election of 1848 it was re- 
moved to Angelica. Rushford w^as then withouta newspaper office until in 1878 
Frank B. Smith founded the Spectator. He continued its publication till 
March 1, 1885, when he sold to W. F. Benjamin, the present proprietor. 
While its editor is a Republican, the paper is conducted so as to commend it 
to people of all shades of political thought, and it excels any other of the 
papers published in the county, in the diffusion of local and neighborhood 
news, and, with possibly one exception, it has the largest circulation in the 
county. 

Exchange and Banking. — Before the Civil War for many years the 
nearest banking facilities were at Cuba. In the early sixties, it is supposed 
that O. T. Higgins opened an account in New York for the convenience of 
his extensive mercantile business of this and surrounding towns. In a vil- 
lage directory of 1869, O. T. Higgins and W. Griffin are each put down as 
"broker and merchant." W. W. Bush says that he and Wolcott Griffin 
went into the exchange business in 1865 as "Griffin & Bush," selling their 
tirst draft on New York Oct. 10th. In 1871 W. W. Bush & Co. (W. E. Kyes 
and O, T. Stacy) succeeded this firm and did business until 1872. " Stacy 
& Kendall " (O. T. Stacy and Charles B. Kendall) have since conducted pri- 
vate banking, the business being mostly done by L. E. Hardy as cashier. 
White & Elmer, cheese buyers, have had an account in New York for many 
years. 

Vickery's Music School. Bands. — About 1854 John A. Vickery, from 
Vermont, instituted a music school in the old M. E. church in Rushford 
village. His two daughters were assistant teachers. This school ran for 
five or six years, and was quite popular, 75 pupils in the vocal department 



798 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

and from 25 to 30 in the instrumental, have been in attendance at the same time. 
During the continuance of this school an excellent orchestra was organized, 
of which were members, Barnes Blanchard, Dr. J. C. Pitts, I. B. Gordon, J. 
Lambertson, A. L. Adams, A. Kimball, J. G. Benjamin, Lyman Beecher. 
Rushford has had several bands of music. In 1844 a band of 16 members, 
(quite likely this was one of the "jaw bone " bands peculiar to that presi- 
dential campaign) went to Ellicottville to hear Millard Fillmore speak. The 
leader of the first brass band was Ransom Dennison, of the second Archi- 
bald Adams and W. F. Benjamin is leader of the present band. 

James McCall, Oramel Griffin, Orville Boardman and Bates T. Hapgood 
were early merchants. Isaiah Lathrop had the first tinshop in the early 
thirties. John Gordon was the first brickmaker. Well along in the thirties 
a rude fence of hemlock logs, stakes and poles, was exhibited along the 
north side of Main street, and in 1838 the present cemetery grounds were 
mostly covered with old logs, brush heaps, etc. During the forties and 
down to 1856 or 57 Rushford village was the liveliest place in the county. 
In 1847 9 dry-goods stores were in operation, I. & L. Gordon opening the 
9th. H. Hyde was an early jeweller. The Republican Era of Oct. 20, 1847, 
says that W. A. Stewart, Albert P. Laning and G. L. Walker were prac- 
ticing law. L. B. Johnson, McCall & Smith and Wm. B. Alley were physi- 
cians. The Washington House (temperance) was kept by Wm. McCall. A 
drug and book store by W. McCall & Co. Clark McCall, Irwin & Reming- 
ton, B. F. Lewellen, J. D. Boardman, H. George, were business men. Car- 
riage factories, hardware stores, cabinet shops, tailor shops, clocks and 
watches are advertised. From the 1869 directory is learned that True 
Bradford kept the Washington House (now Tarbell House). O. T. Higgins 
and W. Griftin were brokers and merchants, also W. W. Bush & Co. E. E. 
Mulliken grocer, H. Hyde jeweller, I. Lathrop hardware, J. B. Gordon & 
Son woolen mills, W. T. Galpin furniture, White & Blanchard foundry and 
machine shop, D. B. Sill produce dealer. In 1879 A. M. Taylor, William E. 
Kyes, W. W. Bush were with others engaged in merchandising, C. J. Elmer 
and Stacy & Kendall in banking. The leading business men now are James 
& Benson and A. M. Taylor dry goods, Thomas Bros, clothing, E. C. Gilbert 
drugs, medicine and groceries. Hardy Bros, and Frank Jager markets; two 
jewelry shops, a bakery, Homer Brooks boots and shoes, White and Elmer 
drugs and grocers, Stacy & Kendall private bankers, W. W Merrill hard- 
ware and tin. Merchandise has to be hauled from Caneadea and Farmers- 
ville, but still the village wears a tidy aspect and is really one of the pleas- 
antest places in the county. 

Fire Department. — "After the horse is stolen lock the stable door "; 
so after Rushford had been swept by fire, a fire department was organized. 
This has two good Gleason and Bailey engines, 600 feet of hose, is supplied 
with water by cisterns and wells, and is considered efficient and good pro- 
tection against fire, and its eifect is felt in reducing the expenses of insur- 
ance in a marked degree. The presept organization is R. B. Lanning, presi- 



RUSHFORD. 799 



ident; C. J. Elmer, vice president; Wm. H. Thomas, secretary; L. E. Hardy, 
treasurer; W. H. Benson, P. Jagers and M. Claus, executive committee. 
The active fire company is organized with W. W. Thomas, chief; W. H. Ben- 
son, assistant chief; Will Ingleby, foreman of engines; D. L. White, assist- 
ant; P. Jagers, foreman of hose company; J. McMurray, assistant. 

Semi-centennial. — This was celebrated in Academy Hall Jan. 1, 1859. 
According to all accounts it was the most interesting and enjoyable occasion 
ever experienced in town. The hall was early filled with people and Rev. 
T. L. Pratt delivered the introductory address. It is a great pity that it 
was not preserved, for it was awarded high praise by all who heard it. Dr. 
S. P. Dickinson read a history of the town from its first settlement. Anec- 
dotes of the pioneer period were related, interspersed with martial music. 
Old relics were exhibited, and a lady dressed in the costume of 50 years 
before presented herself, much to the surprise and merriment of all present. 
A bounteous repast was provided and eaten in the town hall. Prom an 
account of this celebration written probably by Samuel White, Esq., and 
kindly loaned to us we give a few excerpts: 

In i8i6 there were only two frame buildings in town. Mr. Freeman, one of the first set- 
tlers, had a frame addition to his log house, and on the farm where Mr. Morrow now lives 
there was a frame barn, built by Esq Gary in 1814. The oldest man in town is Mr. Luther 
Woodworth, his age is 88. The oldest woman is Mary Williston at the advanced age of 93. 
She is the only Revolutionary pensioner in this vicinity. * * * The number of men who have 
died in Rushford within 40 years, to say nothing of women and children, is not far from 130, 
and the number of men now living who settled in Rushford before the year 1817, is only 18, 
* * * The first match made in Rushford was on the south side of the creek ; the parties were 
Wm. Rawson and Luany Swift ; I cannot tell the precise time, but probably 181 1. * * * Mr, 
Wm. Gordon's first wife, a daughter of Esq Gary, was the first person that died in town. A 
young man by the name of Hubbard was the second, and Mr. Warren, who was drowned, was 
the third. In 1816 the only grave near the center of the town was Mr. Warren's. Elder Ban- 
nister, a Methodist minister from Vermont, came with his family to Rushford. He was a very 
good sort of a man, rather eccentric, full of fun for a preacher, and always ready to receive or 
crack a joke. Soon after the reformation (a revival of which he was probably the cause), he 
happened to go to Burrow's tavern in Castile. There he found a brother Methodist, with 
whom he commenced a conversation in relation to the revival in Rushford. He told his broth- 
er Methodist that the Lord had at last found the way to Rushford. A wag who was present 
wanted to know how the Lord could find his way to Rushford through the woods without a 
pilot.'' " Why," said the Elder, " he followed the marked trees, I suppose." Some time after 
this the old Elder was praying for the people of Rushford. There was in the place a very 
wicked sort of a chap, Wm. Burns, Jr. The old Elder commenced a prayer in his behalf, and 
said, " Oh Lord, convert Wm. Burns ; we don't mean old Mr. Burns, but Wm. Burns, Jr." He 
meant to lay it down so the Lord could understand it. At another time Elder Bannister was 
interceding and praying for others, and used this expression, " Oh, Lord, convert the whole 
world ; oh ! and John Gordon too!" When I told you of the homespun dresses of the ladies, 
I should have said something about the patches that ornamented the apparel of the men. 
Patches were in fashion, and it was not considered a crime or a disgrace to wear them. They 
were probably as fashionable at the time we speak of as the best of broadcloth garments are 
at this day. You young people will be surprised when I tell you that a patch on a certain pair 
of pantaloons made Wm. L. Marcy governor of New York. January i, 1817, the dwelling of 
Samson Hardy was burned to ashes. It was in the morning. By 12 o'clock (noon), the neigh- 
bors had assembled with axes and teams, and before night they hauled logs enough to rebuild 
the house. About this time Judge McCall came and advised them not to build a log house, but 
to put up a plank house, and offered to saw the lumber gratis. The next day a sufiicif^nt quan- 
ty of logs were at McCall's mill, and in a few days Mr. Hardy's family were comfortably quar- 
tered in their new house. If ever there was a time when every man loved his neighbor as 



800 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

himself, it was when the country was new. They were all full of love and good will, and 
sometimes full of whiskey. If a man had a log house to raise, every one would make the busi- 
ness his own, and attend to it faithfully, until it was made comfortable and convenient. 

The Soldier Dead.— Soldiers of the Revolution Buried in Rushford. — 
Capt. Jonathan Gowing, died Aug. 26, 1848 ; James Gordon, died Dec. 9, 1844 ; David Kinney, 
Daniel Kingsbury, Eneas Gary. 

Soldiers of the War of 181 2 Buried in Rushford. — John Lamberson died Jan. 
20, 1874, Leonard Farwell died Sept. 24, 1846, Amos Peck, Samuel Hardy, David Babbitt, Ira 
Bishop, Alvin K. Morse. 

Soldiers of the Civil War who died in service and in Rushford since the war. 
Albert Babbitt, killed July 21, 1861 ; Martin White, sent to hospital July, 1862, never heard 
from ; Enoch Hibbard, died hospital, Aug. 20, 1862 ; Charles Hobart, died hospital, Nov. 29, 
1862; Stanley Hobart, died Stafford C. H., Va., Dec. 3, 1862; Capt. Wm. W. Woodworth, 
died Falmouth, Va., Dec. 28, 1862; Leonard Van Alst, killed Fair Oaks; Alonzo Brown, 
wounded Fair Oaks, died hospital; Thomas Russell Wilmarth, killed May 3, 1863; John H. 
Farwell, wounded and died Chancellorsville ; David R. James, d:ed Chancellorsviile ; Philander 
Kellogg, killed Chancellorsville; Ralph L. Benjamin, killed Chancellorsville, May 3, 1863; 
DaniefT. Ely, killed Chancellorsville ; Enoch W. Cheney, killed Fair Oaks ; Charles J. Hurl- 
bert, died Portsmouth, Va., February, 1864 ; Hiram L. Wickwire, died Feb. 10, 1864; Charles 
A. Van Duzen, killed Spottsylvania, Va., May 12, 1864; Albert K. Damon, wounded, died 
July 25, 1864; Clayton C. Jewell, killed July 30, 1864; James Patterson, died Andersonville, 
1864 ; William Starkweather, died prison, 1864; Thomas J. White, died prison, Aug. 9, 1864; 
Riley Pettit, died hospital, September, 1864; Ira Petty, died hospital, Jan. 6, 1865 ; Harrison 
T. Smith, killed March 25, 1865; John W. Bishop, died in prison Richmond, Va.; Warren B. 
Persons, died Andersonville ; Howard Root, died at home on furlough ; John Cole, died hospi- 
tal ; Lafayette Mead, died hospital ; Dewitt C. Pelton, killed ; William Hutchins died hospital ; 
Sylvester Hall, died Aug. 30, 1862 ; Charles McMullen, Abram Howell, Charles A. Woodruff, 
Aaron Wright, John Peters, Lyman Beecher, Philip Ellithorpe, Edward W. Beecher, Henry 
Boardman, George P. Walker, died June 3. 1864; Adelbert Hall, Titus B. Chapin, died Dan- 
ville prison, Feb. 17, 1863 ; Lewis E. Tarbell, Elijah Metcalf, died Oct. 10, 1876; Dr. Corodon 
Mason, died Jan. 21, 1891 ; Dr. Robert Y. Charles. Aaron C. Eaton, died Jan. 28, 1893 ; Horace 
Bullock, died Nov. 26, 1893; Hosea B. Persons, died Jan. 4. 1894; James Kingsbury, died 
May 9, 1894. 

156 men enlisted from Rushford, tilling her own quota and helping 
other towns to fill theirs. Jan. 30, 1865, at a special town meeting a bounty 
of $600 was offered for enlisting, or furnishing a substitute, to be credited 
to the town. Rushford 's war record is one to which its people can " point 
with pride." 

Joseph Enos Lodge, No. 318, F. A. ilf.— Meetings of the Western Union 
Lodge, then of Caneadea, now of Belfast, were held in Rushford soon after 
1823 at the house of Levi Benjamin, and members of the fraternity living in 
town up to 1854 were of different lodges, and June 9, 1854, Joseph Enos 
Lodge was chartered, and Levi Benjamin appointed Master U. D. The 
masters since have been: Hiram Johnson, 1854; H. K. White, 1855; David 
Babbitt, 1856; Samuel F. Dickenson, 1857, '58; C. W. Woodworth, 1859, '64, 
'65; E. George, 1860, '61, '63; W. White, 1862; J. P. Bixby, 1866-69; Wilham 

E. Kyes, 1870-74, '76, '77; E. F. McCall, 1875. Since 1877: Alexander Eraser, 
Myron Glaus, E. G. Gilbert, Wilham Barber, W. F. Wells. Alex. Eraser, E. 
G. Gilbert and Marshall B. Nye. There are at present 31 members. 

K. 0. T. ilf.— Rushford has a flourishing tent of this order organized 
Mar. 3, 1890, with 23 members. It now has 68, with these principal officers: 
Wm. Ingleby, Jr. Com.; D. W. Woods, Lt. Gom.; E. G. Gilbert, R. K, and 

F. K. 

. /. 0. 0. F.—K lodge of this fraternity with 20 members is still kept up. 



RUSHFORD. 801 

It was organized in August, 1879. L. E. Hardy is N. G. and F. W. Beaumont 
Sec. A lodge was organized in the fifties and went down. 

Various societies, Equitable Aid Union, Order of United Workmen, etc., 
have been organized at different times, of which some have survived. The 
W. C. T. U. has a local union here, and there are historical and literary socie- 
ties and circles. 

Board of Trade. — This association of the business men of the town 
and village was organized Sept. 20, 1890. Its object is to promote the inter- 
ests of the place, and of its members, stimulate industries, and aid all legiti- 
mate enterprises calculated to benefit the town. The officers are: A. M. 
Taylor, president; M. C. White, vice president; E. C. Gilbert, secretary; K. 
E. Hardy, treasurer. 

Religious. — Rev. Ephraim Sanford is said to have been the first to con- 
duct religious services in 1813. He had settled at North Urbana, near Keuka 
Lake before 1800, and preached the first sermon in the town of Urbana, 
Steuben county, in 1795, "dressed in a buckskin suit, and a coonskin cap, 
covering his long black hair." In this garb he would travel about the 
country, searching for the souls of sinners. Quite likely this was the dress 
he wore when he preached the first sermon in Rushford. Where this ser- 
vice was held does not appear. It was said of him that " it made no differ- 
ence whether a log cabin or a small clearing filled with blackened stumps 
was his auditorium, or whether his listeners were a large camp-meeting, or 
a dozen settlers, he was just as willing to preach to one as a thousand. " His 
work was not that of organization, and he was followed by those who estab- 
lished churches. 

The Baptist Church of Rushford was organized in 1815 with James Mc- 
Call, Levi Benjamin, Eliab Going, Joshua L. Delano, Aaron Capen, Jerusha 
Gordon, Abigail Benjamin and Sally Benjamin as members. Elder Beck- 
with presided at the meeting which was held November 7th, and James Mc- 
Call was chosen standing moderator, Eliab Going church clerk and Levi 
Benjamin deacon. June 29, 1816, the Lord's Supper was first celebrated. 
The first minister was called in March, 1817. The first salaried pastor. 
Elder Titus Gillett, was settled in June, 1818. The salary was " house rent, 
one-fourth of an acre of land for a garden, horse and cow kept, and seventy- 
five dollars." In 1821 the church united with the Holland Purchase Asso- 
ciation, and Elder W. W. Powers was offered $150 in produce to preach one- 
half the time but did not accept, and Elder Eliab Going was engaged for the 
other half. Eliab Going's salary was to be "at the rate of $12 per month for the 
time he stayed, and be paid in produce, wheat $1 and corn 62^ cents." Elder 
Going preached occasionally until 1829, most of the meetings being held at 
Peter Freeman's or at the schoolhouse. In 1829 Elder Absalom Minor was 
settled and remained pastor till 1840. The Holland Land Company gave the 
church 100 acres of land (where A. W. Litchard's farm is). Turner says 
the first church edifice was built in 1817. It must have been a very small 
and rude affair. In 1838 the present edifice was built. It has been re- 



802 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

modeled from time to time to keep pace with the times, and is now a con- 
venient place of worship. Since 1840 the pastors have been. Revs. C. Ward- 
ner, E. L. Harris, 1845-50; E. J. Scott, 1851-54; Ira W. Simpson, 1854-63; A. 
T. Cole, 1863-68; C. Wardner, 1869-72; A. V. Eddy, 1872-76; M. Livermore, 
P. S. Everett, W. L. Hunger, C. B. Smith and Alfred R. Spencer, the pres- 
ent incumbent. The membership is about 100. The property, including 
parsonage, is worth $4,500 and free from debt. A Sunday school of 175 
pupils has A. M. Taylor as superintendent. The library has 262 volumes. 

Methodist Episcopal Church. — Rev. Elijah Metcalf preached the first Meth- 
odist sermon, and in 1816 organized a Methodist Episcopal Church, with 10 
members. He was a missionary on the Holland Purchase and preached till 
his death in 1861. In 1826 or 27 a small church was erected west of the 
creek. In 1854 the present large house of worshij) was erected. Pastors: 
Revs. Cyrus Story 1820, M. Preston, Mr. Hazen, D. Shepardson 1826, Elijah 
Boardman 1827, Mifflin Hooker, J. Wiley 1829, D. Anderson, John Cosart 
1830, Philo Brown, S. W. Wooster 1832, Wm. D. Buck, Fuller Atchinson 1834, 
Alvin P. Walker, Francis Strand 1835, Augustus Anderson, H. M. Seaver, 
Mr. Bell, Mr. DuBois, Albert Tury, C. S. Balker, A. F. Comfort 1841, Nathan 
Fellows 1843, C. D. Burlingham 1845, David Nichols 1847, Charles SheUing 
1850, B, T. Roberts, Mr. Chaney, Sanford Hunt 1853, Milo Scott 1855, Jason 
Miller 1857, Geo. W Terry 1859, W. S. Tuttle 1860, John McEwen 1862, Major 
Lyon 1863, M. H. Rice 1864, E. A. Rice 1867, Buel Blake 1869, E. L. Newman 
1870, C. C. Wilbur 1872, R. S. Pierce 1874, A. M. Leggett 1876, C. S. Daley 
1878, Wm. Magavern 1879, W. B. Wagner 1881, A. H. Johnson 1884, R. C. 
Grames 1887, J. E. Wallace 1889, J. A. Gardner 1891, T. W. Chandler 1891, 
W. H. Manning 1895. The membership is 95. A large and flourishing Sun- 
day school is conducted, of which A. W. Litchard is superintendent, and all 
the different church interests are well looked after. The church is an ag- 
gressive and prosperous one. 

The First Presbyterian Church. — April 16, 1838, after a public notice, a 
meeting was held in the schoolhouse in the west part of the village where a 
Presbyterian church or society was organized. Rev. Lemuel Hall of Centre- 
ville, Rev. A. S. Allen of Cuba, Rev. Phineas Smith of Portageville, and James 
R. Bell and James Simons, elders of the Presbyterian church in New Hudson, 
were present. The members were: Eneas Gary. Esther Garey, Earle Baird, 
Ruth Baird, Joel Griffin, Clarissa Griffin, Submit Griffin, Sarah McDonald,, 
Warren McKinney, Betsy McKinney, Alvin Congdon, Roana' Congdon, 
Lyman Congdon, Fanny Morrison, Rosina McCall, Alfred Bell. Juliette Bell, 
Huldah McCall and Electa McKinney. Alfred Bell was chosen clerk and 
Earle Baird, Joel Griffin, and Lyman Congdon, elders. A resolution favor- 
ing temperance was adopted unanimously. In June a committee was ap- 
pointed to obtain a minister at each communion, and raise funds to defray 
expenses. The records say nothing of the erection of a church edifice, but 
Aug. 20, 1842, mention is made of the first meeting "in their new church," 
and Rev. C. W. Gillam the next day administered the Lord's Supper. In 



RUSHFORD. 803 



1853 it was changed to a Congregational church, and in 1867 changed back 
to its present form, Presbyterian. Pastors: Rev. C. W. Gillam, I. Rawson, 
Doolittle, Miller, Henry, Johnson, Lane, Frost, Ballard, Cofrin, Spen- 
cer, Ward, Watkins and Cone. For some years no pastor has been settled 
over this church. The membership is small and growing less. 

TJte First Free Methodist Church. — This church was organized in 1871 by 
Rev. J. W. Reddy. Some of the original members were, James Gordon, 
Abigail Gordon, Charles English, Lavanche Van Duzen, George Worthington, 
Ophelia Van Duzen, Adelia Clement, Robert English, Elijah Metcalf, Cordelia 
Metcalf. Elijah Metcalf, Jr., Saloma Metcalf, Cornelia Metcalf, Harris Gil- 
bert and Levi Metcalf. Their first house of worship was the old M. E. 
church, used for a music school. This was afterwards burned. The pres- 
ent one is the old Universalist church, which was purchased, repaired and 
rededicated in 1873. It will seat 250 persons. The pastors have been. 
Revs. J. W. Reddy, T. B. Catton, C. C. Eggleston, A. H. Bennett, M. E. 
Brown, Thomas Slocum, Noah Palmer, Mr. Rowley and G. D. Mark. 

Universalist Church. — In the forties a Universalist church was organized 
and in a few years a church edifice was constructed and dedicated. Isaiah 
Lathrop, Mr. Leavens and Mr. Colburn were early Universalists. Early 
preachers were, Nathaniel Stacy, Wm. Gowdy, I. B. Sharp, J. B. Saxe, J. 
J. Brayton. Owing to deaths and removals, and lack of others to take their 
places, the church declined -and meetings ceased to be held and the church 
building was sold to the Free Methodists. 

Supervisors from i8i6. — Cromwell Bennett, 1817-19; Matthew P. Cady, 1820-24 ; William Hull, 1825 ; 
Samuel White, 1826-27, 1841-44; Tarbell Gordon, 1828-30, 1832-44; Samson Hardy, 1831, 1837-38; John 
Hammond, 1835-36 ; Abraham J. Lyon, 1839-40 ; Isaiah Lathrop, 1845-46 ; Orville Boardman, 1847-48 ; 
Samuel Gordon, 1849-50; James Gordon, 1851-52 ; Avery Washburn, 1853-54, 1863, '65 ; Ebenezer P. Lyon, 
1855; John W. Hill, 1856 ; Winthrop P. Young, 1857-58; Washington White, 1859-60; Bates T. Hapgood, 
1861-62; Charles VV. Woodworth, 1866-74, 1884-86; Jedediah B. Gordon, 1875-76; William E. Keyes, 1877 
-78 ; Willard A. Stone, 1879-81 ; Charles B. Kindall, 1S82; A. L. Litchard, 1883, 1894-95; Henry S. Hol- 
den, 1887-88, '93; Wm. A. Benson, 1889; Grover M. Pratt, 1890-92; H. A. Holden, 1893. 

The present town officers are, supervisor, A. L. Litchard ; town clerk, W. W. Bush ; collector, Wm. H. 
Thomas ; assessors, Harry Wheeler, John J. Thomas ; overseers of the poor, Lorenzo D. Weaver, Lyman 
Barber; inspectors of election, W. S. Mullikin, Frank W. Beaumont, James G. Benjamin, and Obed T. Wil- 
mot ; constables, W. H. Thomas, Will D. Woods. Will Ingleby, Abel M. Tarbell, Willis H. Leavens ; excise 
commissioners, Densmore Lyman, Marshall Herrick, Andrew Kimball; justices, Eddy C. Gilbert, S. E, Kil- 
mer, C. H. Ives, H. C. Dresser. 



Of Rushford's Townsmen. — Amby H. Alderman, sawmill proprietor in Rushford vil- 
lage, is the son of Amby, born in Hartford, Conn., where his father John Alderman lived and 
died, came to Rushford in 1814 and bought 100 acres four miles northwest of Rushford village, 
of the Holland Co., at $3 per acre, paying for it in oxen, a pair at a time. He married 
Rhoba Johnson. Children, Sophronia, Lois, Amby H., Chauncey (dec), Eluthera. Atha A. C. 
now Mrs. Evans, living on the old place, and Chauncey L. Amby H. was born in Rushford in 
1822, married in 1845 Maryette Bishop and settled on 40 acres of the old farm. Children, Al- 
mond, Lutheria. Flora and Florence, twins, the latter Mrs. DeWitt Thayer, in South Dakota, 



804 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



children: Mary E. and Arthur; Flora married Homer Colburn, children, Ruth and Clyde. Mrs. 
Alderman died in 1878, and in 1880 Mr. Alderman married Mrs. Harriet (Tyrrel) Penfield, born 
in Massachusetts. They have one child, Arthur. Mr. Alderman enlisted in 1864 in isl N. Y. 
Dragoons and served under General Sheridan whom he saw on his famous ride in the Shenan- 
doah Valley, and at the battle of Cedar Creek. He belongs to A. K. Thorpe Post, G. A. R., at 
Belfast. In 1872 he came to Rushford village and built the steam sawmill in which he has 
sawed an average of 250,000 feet of lumber per year ever since. Since 1882 he has rented the 
basement of his mill to Woods Bros, for a cheese box factory, he furnishmg the power; previ- 
ously Wm. Henry & Son, now of Farmersville, had rented the basement for 5 years. 

Remain W. Benjamin is grandson of Levi Benjamin, from Vermont, whose first wife was 
Nancy Willard. Children, Nancy and Betsey, the second wife was Abigail Kimball. Children, 
Sally, Lucy, Eliab, Almon K., Albert and Charles E., who was born in 1817 in the house in 
which his father kept the first postoffice, and one of the first taverns in Rushford. Charles E. 
was a farmer, married Huldah, daughter of John Lamberson, from Herkimer county. Children, 
Romain W., Arcelia (Mrs. George Hall), and Ralph L. (killed at the battle of Chancellorsville). 
Remain W. was born Aug, 20, 1840, on the old farm where his father was, was educated at 
Rushford Academy, taught his first school in winter of 1 860-1, and his last in 1874, teaching 13 
winters. He married in 1863 Ellen, daughter of William E. Williams of Freedom, who was 
born in Wales. Children, Charles (a hardware merchant in Olean, married Ella Michael, has 
one child Fannie M.) and Lucian L. R. W. Benjamin left his farm of 136 acres which he still 
owns and settled in Rushford village in 1892. His father, a successful breeder of cattle, became 
a specialist in treating their diseases, a calling which Romain W. early acquired, and to which 
and as an auctioneer he now devotes most of his time. In 1864 Charles E. Benjamin, H. K. 
Stebbins and Robert Morrow built and run in Rushford, the pioneer cheese factory of Allegany 
county, Mr. Benjamin died in 1891. Romain enlisted in 1861, in Co. I, 27th N. Y., and was 
in the memorable Bull Run battle Sunday July 21, 1861. His division under Gen. Slocum left 
Camp Hunter at 2 A. M., marched 23 miles and went into battle with no breakfast and no rest, 
and got nothing to eat till Monday night when they reached Arlington Heights. He was dis- 
charged in August following on account of a rupture caused by the excessive march. Mr. 
Benjamin, always a Republican, served as justice of the peace from 1886 to 1894. He is special 
agent for the Society of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. ' 

William H. Benson is son of Amos F. and grandson of Samuel Benson, a native of Con- 
necticut of English extraction, who came at an early day to Mt. Morris, and settled in 
Portage, where Amos F. was born. He learned the blacksmith trade, and married Julia Dona- 
hue. Childran, William H., Irvin, Mary and Eugene F. (a commercial traveler). Amos F. 
Benson moved to Rushford village in 1856, where William H. was born July 20, 1858. He at- 
tended the Union School, taught school two years then entered the store of W. E. Keyes where 
he was a clerk six years. In 1883 he formed a partnership with John G. James in the mercan- 
tile business, which now occupies two stores in the Kendall block on Main street. Mr. Benson 
has long been a member of the board of trustees of the Union School, and for the past six years 
its president. He was postmaster in Rushford from 1885 to 1890. He was supervisor of 
Rushford in 1889. tie married in 1886 Alice, daughter of Rev. A. H. Johnson. They have 
one child, Harold. 

Oscar F. Board is the son of David J. Board, who was born in Castleton, Vt., in 1792. He 
married Laura Woods from Windsor, Vt., a sister of Ely Woods. Mr. Board and his young 
wife left Vermont in 181 5 and came to Olean, and in 18 16, to Rushford. He established a 
blacksmith business on his farm in Podunk, now the home of Frank Board. Oscar F., the 
only child of David J. and Laura Board was born there Feb. 22, 1820. He was a farmer and 
married in 1848, Clarissa, daughter of Thomas and Clarissa (Woods) Richards, born in 1819. 
Mr. Richards was a native of New London, Conn. Mr. and Mrs. Board have two children, 
Frank and Anna. Podonque, or Podunk, was first called the Woods Settlement. Daniel, 
Elv and Riley Woods owned adjoining farms, William Woods was a little east of them and all 
we're pioneers in that section. Albert Woods, a fifth brother, came later. Five of their sisters 
also lived in Rushford, Clarissa (Mrs. Thomas Richards), Lucy (Mrs. Calvin Leavens), Laura 
(Mrs. David J. Board), Maila and Louisa. 

Homer Brooks, shoe dealer in Rushford village, is grandson of Joseph Brooks of Paris, 
N. Y., born in 1776, who married Thais Kendall, both from Massachusetts. Chapman, fifth 
of their nine children, was born Oct. 9, 1799 in Paris, Oneida county. In 1804 Joseph moved to 
Champion, Jefferson county, where he died in 1813. The family removed in 1816 to Otisco, 
Onondaga county, returning in 1820 to Champion, all but Chapman, who, with pack on his 
back, came on foot to Rushford. The first meal he ate in town was at Ephraim White's, all 
they had was hulled corn and molasses. In February, 182 1, he married Maria Roberts in 
Otisco. They made their journey to Rushford in a lumber wagon. Mr. Brooks was a school 



RUSHFORD. 805 



teacher. Leaving home Monday morning to teach in another town, his wife would sometimes 
not see a person to speak with till his return Saturday night, their neighbors were so far away. 
Their children were Caroline (Mrs. Dr. William B. Alley of Nunda), Cynthia C. (Mrs. Charles 
W. Woodworth), Mary J. (Mrs. S. R. Remington), Homer and Amelia E. (Mrs. Dwight Atkins 
of Nunda). Homer Brooks was born in RushJord, April 22, 1840, in the Brooks Hotel, now 
the Tarbell House, which his father owned and kept over twenty years. When 14 he worked 
one year in the county clerk's office for William B. Alley, county clerk, was next a clerk for 
Wolcott Griffin, manager of the New England Protective Union Store for two years thereafter. 
He was then clerk in Hornell>ville, later at Killbuck on the Indian reservation, and last for R. 
O. Smith at Olean. From 1864 to 1866 he conducted a clothing store at Corning, then was in 
•the same business at Cuba until 1868 when he came to Rushford. For 15 years he worked for 
O. T. Higgins, eight years in his Rushford store, and then superintended the 1 1 stores Mr. 
Higgins had in different •owns. Since 1884 he has conducted the first and only shoe store in 
Rushford. Mr. Brooks married, in 1864. Philinda, daughter of Elihu Talcott from Vermont, 
a Yankee peddler, who sold goods from his wagon in the South. They have two children, Frank 
(who married Rebecca Argue and has one child. Homer) and Talcott. 

Darius Clark, son of (Talvin and Clarissa (Ames) Clark, whose children were : Martha, 
Laura, Darius, and Hiland, was born in Mt. HoUey, Vt., in 1821. His grandfather Goodyear 
Clark, of English descent, was a native of Connecticut. Darius came in 1844 to Rushford and 
bought his present f^rm of 80 acres on Rush Creek in 1868. He married Eliza, daughter of 
David Chase from New Hampshire, children : Monroe ; Quincy, married Lottie Welch, children, 
Charles, Ralph, Clara, Guy, Harland and Rena ; Irvmg, married Alma Lafferty, children : 
Orville, Bruce, Eva and Clara ; Clara married Elbert, son of Isaac N. and Betsey (Marsh) 
Baker, one child Clair ; F'lora who became Elbert Baker's second wife and has children : Colonel, 
Jennie and Eddie. Calvin Clark moved to St. Lawrence Co., N. Y., in 1820, where Mrs. Clark 
died in 1852 and he in 1868. 

Mrs. Harriet Colburn, daughter of Asa and Abigail (Swinerton) Benjamin, was born in 
Rushford Oct. 31, 1823, near that part of Podunk called by the pioneers Wolf Meadow, where 
her father settled, in 18 17, from Windsor, Vt. His children were Sylvia, Percy, Asa, Abigail 
and Harriet. Asa Benjamin was appointed justice of the peace in Rushford in 1817, and 
served 17 years. He was also a road commissioner. He died in 1853 71 years old. Harriet 
Benjamin and George C. Colburn were married April 1 1, 1847. He was the son of Charles 
Colburn who came to Rushford from Shrewsbury, Vt., in 1833, and settled on land now 
belonging to Martin Lyon. He married Nancy Wetherel. Children : George C, Caleb, 
Charles and Abijah. Charles and his sons George C. and Caleb built a sawmill in 1846 on 
Caneadea creek. After cutting vast quantities of lumber they sold the mill to Calvin Kellogg. 
Mrs. Colburn died in 1847, and Mr. Colburn in 1866. The children of George C. and Harriet 
Colburn were Wallace (married Mary J. Gray, children. Bertha, Ella and Harry), Flora, and 
Homer, who married Flora Alderman of Rushford. Children Ruth and Clyde. Mr. Colburn 
was a farmer and also a lumberman while the pine timber lasted. He was for a time highway 
commissioner in Rushford. He died in 1878 57 years old. 

Charles J. Elmer, the veteran cheese manufacturer and dealer of Rushford, is grandson of 
of Joel Elmer, a Revolutionary soldier who lived in the Mohawk Valley. He was one of the 
pioneers of Hume, settling near Flanigan Pond, where he died about 1842. His son David, 
born in the Mohawk Valley in 1802, married, in 1828, Annie, daughter of Jacob Potter of Cen- 
treville. Children : Charles J., Lucretia (married Henry Brua, who died in Andersonville prison ; 
married, 2d, Asa Morse), and Nellie. Charles J. Elmer was born in Hume in 1830, and from 
common school advantages became a common school teacher. In 1851 he went to Pennsyl- 
vania where he taught school till 1856, when he came to Rushford and in 1859 engaged with 
Robert Norton in making pine-apple cheese. In 1864 Mr. Elmer bought the Rushford cheese 
factory which he has since owned and operated. He began dealing in cheese in 1862. His 
yearly operations for several years have averaged 40,000 boxes. He is constantly buying and 
shipping. He has also been a private banker for 28 years. He married, in 1855, Jane, daugh- 
ter of Deacon Ashley of Freedom. Herbert C. Elmer, their only child, was born in i860, pre- 
pared for college and graduated from Cornell in 1883. After a year's study in Europe and four 
years at Johns Hopkins University, he became professor of Latin at Cornell. He has a wide 
reputation as an author, and a scholar of original investigation. He married Bertha Beebe of 
East Aurora. They have one child, Basil. 

Alonzo Farwell, son of Leonard and Susanna (Pratt) Farwell, was born in 181 2. The 
same year his parents came to Rushford and settled on 100 acres now owned by Will Acker, 
adjoining Centreville. They were Vermont people and came in 1 810 to Ontario, Monroe 
county. Their children were Armenia, Amanda, Arvilla, Roland, Alonzo, Aldula, Eliza A., 
Lemuel, Hannah, Charles, Clarissa A, and Sally. Alonzo was raised a farmer and lived from 



806 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



1833 to 1838 in Stafford, Genesee Co. He married, in 1835, Electa, daugliter of William Gary, 
son of pioneer Eneas Gary. From 1838 to 1843 they lived in Podunk, and then settled on the 
Fairview road, coming to Rushford village in 1885. Their children have been, Elsie (Mrs. Miles 
M. Tarbell), Ann (Mrs. William Guild, one child, Frank) and Albert, who married Viola 
Adams, one child, Dorrance. Leonard Farwell died in 1848, Mrs. Farwell in 1868. 

Jedediah B. Gordon, son of William, son of James, was born in Rushford, Sept. 7, 1812. 
James came from Scotland when 16 with Burgoyne's army, deserted and became a waiter for 
Gen. Washington's staff. He married Jerusha Tarbell in Windsor, Vt., and Thomas. James, 
William, Tarbell, John and Willson were born there, all except Thomas came to Rushford, 
John and William in 1809. William married Myra, daughter of Eneas Gary the pioneer, a 
Revolutionary soldier. Children : Samuel and Jedediah B. Mr. Gordon's second wife was his 
first wife's sister, Martha. Children : Lorenzo, Castorn (Mrs. Avery Washburn of Kansas), 
Stanbury, Stoddard, Saloma (Mrs. Russell Bell of Sterling. 111.), Johfi Copeland, John Wesley, 
Asbury and Tarbell. William Gordon organized the first M, E. church in Rushford, was a 
local preacher, liberal in building and supporting churches, and an early abolitionist. Jedediah 
B. married Juliette, daughter of Eliphalet Hovey ; children : Ellen, Albert, Mary, married W. H. 
Acker (a banker in Richmond, Mich) and Fred, married Jennie, daughter of Daniel C, Woods 
of Rushford. Mrs. Gordon died in 1870. He married, second, in 1872, Mary C. A., daughter 
of Israel Thompson, who came from Tompkins county in 1832. In 1838 Mr. Gordon was com- 
missioned colonel of militia by Gov. Marcy. He has been many years assessor and supervisor. 
Although 83 years old he is vigorous in both mind and body. 

Milton E. Gordon is the owner of Brookside cheese factory in Rushford which he built in 
1886, and makes an average of 100.000 pounds per year. This cheese on account of its uni- 
form excellence is largely bought by local merchants for their retail trade. John F., son of 
James Gordon, married Sophronia Adams from Vermont. Their children were Frank W. 
(married Cora Burr, children, Edwin B., Milton E., Nellie, Carlton and Louis, Lucy R. and 
Maria B. (Mrs. W. G. Young, one daughter Cora B.). Ella (Mrs. Bert B. Holmes, one child, 
John Lanning). Milton E. was born in 1857. When his school days were over he learned 
cheese making and worked in factories at Sheldon and Fairview before he came to Brookside. 
In 1879 he married Paulina, daughter of William P. Young. They have one child, Berthie. 

Samuel A, Hardy is grandson of Samson Hardy, a pioneer of Rushford, who brought his 
family in 181 1 from Cavendish, Vt. He was born in Bradford, Mass., in 1753, and mar- 
ried Mary Spaulding. Children: Polly (Mrs. Samuel Upham, born 1787); Rachel, (Mrs. 
Blakesley, born 1789) ; Lucy (Mrs. Matthew P. Cady, born 1791); Hannah, 1763 (Mrs. Ezra 
Nott, born 1793); Luclnda (Mrs. Dutton, born i795); Stephen, 1797 ; Samson, 1799; Betsey, 
(Mrs. Fayette Ely, born 1802); and Rebecca (Mrs. Phillips, born 1804). He bought of the 
Holland Land Co. 200 acres on lot 37, at $2.25 per acre, and was a soldier in the War of 181 2. 
His son Samson, born in Cavendish, Vt., in 1799, married in 1823. Sophronia Wright, from 
Westford, Mass. Children; Rolon, born 1824; Susan, 1825 ; Samuel A., 1827 ; Maria, 1829 (Mrs. 
Andrew Kimball) ; Lucy, 1830 (Mrs. D. C. Butts) ; Webster, 1832 ; Sophronia, 1835 (Mrs. D. 

D. Persons); Asa W., 1837; Martha, 1840 (Mrs. A. H. Claus), and Mary, 1845. Samuel A., 
born in 1827, bought 95 acres of land, and married, in 1850, Catherine, daughter of Henry 
Young. Their son Elbert C. married Florence Hill ; Children: Dazell J., and Elbert C. Mrs. 
Hardy died in 1852, and in 1855 he married Ann, daughter of Evan Williams ; Children : Lucian 

E. (married Anna R., daughter of Charles B. Kendall ; Children : Grace and Kendall) ; Cather- 
ine A. (Mrs. Dr. W. F. Wells; Children : WilliamA., and Herbert) and Martha E. In 1867 
Mr. Hardy exchanged his farm for the old homestead in Rushford village, where he has served 
as justice of the pesce. 

James B. Haynes, son of William, son of James, was born at Helpstone, county of North- 
hampton, England, in 1883. William Haynes married Ann Mills, daughter of John Burwell 
and granddaughter of Bishop Mills of Peterborough, England. Children : William, John, Sarah, 
Elijah, and James B. The latter attended the village schools and worked in his father's meat 
market business and upon the farm till he was 21 years old. He came to America in 1854 and 
settled in Rushford. In i860 he married Amy Edwards, a native of England. Their six chil- 
dren are Rebecca S., Jonathan E., Eben, Anna E., Ruth M., and David J. Their grandchildren 
(children of Rebecca S., Mrs. John J. Wilson, four), James M., Katie A., Leigh and Ralph. 
(Children of Anna E., Mrs. Fred McElheney two), Leslie C. and Amy A. Eben married Ethel 
Miller. Mr. Havnes bought his farm of 185 acres in 1877, for $5,900. He has been quite 
a traveler both west and east having twice re-visited his native England in 1876 and in 1888. 

John Dezell Hill is son of John W. Hill who was born in 1814, one of eight children in Mid- 
dlebury, N. Y., where his father, John Hill from Vermont, was an early settler. In 1828 Mr. 
Hill brought his family to Centerville, where he spent the rest of his life as a farmer. John W. 
Hill married Sophia McClure. Children: Jeanette (Mrs. M. M. Tarbell), John D., Wealthy J. 



RUSHFORD. 807 

(Mrs. W. W. Bush), Fred O., Sophia E., Florence A. (Mrs. Elbert Hardy) and Walter. He 
came to Rushford in 1853 and bought the farm of 214 acres now the residence of his son John 
D. Here he spent the balance of a useful and active life. He served the town as assessor, and 
as highway commissioner, and was supervisor in 1857 and 1858. He died in 1S91. John D. 
was born in 1843, ^rid has always been a farmer. He married in 1884 Esther, daughter of 
Charles Wilmot. They have two children, Milford and Winifred. 

Henry A. Holden is son of Anthony Holden whose father, Benjamin Holden, lived in 
Charleston, R. I. Anthony married Maria Clark ; their children were Joseph N. and Henry A., 
who was born Aug. 25. 1848. In 1871 he came to Rushford and engaged in the grocery trade. 
In 1875 he married Alice, daughter of Isaiah, and AUathyna (Green) Lathrop. Children: Mary, 
Ellen and Lathrop. In 1889 Mr. Holden moved to Buffalo where he is now in business, Isaiah 
Lathrop, son of Simeon Lathrop of Vermont, was born in Bethel, Vt., Aug. 2, 1805. He was 
for many years a school teacher, living in Pike before he came to Rushford in 1835. He was a 
hardware dealer here till his death, the first in town. He was a school commissioner from 1837 
to 1S42, town clerk in 1843 and 1844, supervisor in 1845 and assessor in 1850. He was one of 
the most active founders of the Rushford Academy, his name being first of the sixteen citizens 
incorporated by the Board of Regents as its trustees March 4, 1852. The children of Isaiah 
and AUathyna (Green) Lathrop were America, Julia (Mrs. Clinton Bond). Willis, Ellen, Janie, 
Mary and Alice. Mr. Holden is an active Republican, and supervisor of Rushford in 1888, '89, 
'93. During his last term he was chairman of the committee that built the new jail at Belmont. 
The fact that the appropriation of $15,000 was not all expended is worthy of record. 

Charles F. Howard is the grandson of David Howard, a Welchman. and the son of 
Eleazer Howard who came from England and settled in Perry in 1830. He married Nancy, 
daughter of David and Hannah (Agett) Hillary, who also came from England and settled in 
Perry in 1830, and to Rushford in 1832. Eleazer and Nancy Howard had four children, Mary 
J., Emma (Mrs. John T. Moore, now of Oramel, on whose farm the first oil well in Rushford 
was drilled in 1880), Charles F. and Walter E. Charles F. was born on the George Cady farm 
in Rushford, and has always been a farmer. His farm of 85 acres adjoins that of his brothers 
on the road leading from Rushford to Hardy's Corners. He married in 1878 Carrie D., daugh- 
ter of William Capen, of Silver Springs. They have three children : Bertha E., Maud M., and 
Clarence W. Mr. Howard is an active member of the Baptist church in Rushford. The How- 
ard family is one of England's most distinguished ones, and is very prominent in New England. 

Hiram Kellogg is son of Calvin Kellogg, son of Aaron of Cayuga county. Calvin mar- 
ried Sally Davis and came from Eden, N. Y., to Caneadea Creek in 1849, living in Caneadea 
till i860, then in Rushford till his death in 1883. 75 years old. His widow died in 1891, 79 
years old. Alice (Bartoo) Davis her mother, of French extraction, was born in Redding, Conn., 
Dec. 14, 1783, and died in Rushford Oct. 28, 1884. She sewed a bedquilt of 840 pieces during 
the last year of her life. She married in 1799 William Davis and bore him seven children, of 
whom six were alive on her looth birthday. Their ages added to hers were 518 years. Six 
generations were present. A representative of each, the youngest in its great-great- great- 
grandmothers's lap, formed a group that was photographed. The children of Calvin and Sally 
(Davis) Kellogg were, Alfred, Cornelius, Hiram, Aaron D., Philander (a soldier, killed at Chan- 
cellorsville), and Orlena. Calvin, born in Locke, Cayuga county in 1808, came to what has 
since been known as Kelloggville in 1849, ^nd in 1853 built a sawmill in the Gorge and ran it 
till the great flood of 1864 washed it away. Hiram Kellogg, born iu Freedom, Cattaraugus 
county, April 8, 1836, was brought up in the shingle-and-lumber business at Kelloggville. He 
married in 1865, Sophia, daughter of William and Caroline (Swan) Chaffee. They have one 
child. Philander H. a graduate of Houghton Seminary. He is an artist, making photography a 
specialty. Hiram Kellogg owns 51 acres of land mostly devoted to small fruits and market 
gardening. The income one year was $1,050 cash, besides keeping 8 cows. 

Mrs. Betsey E. Kingsbury was the daughter of John C. Bassett, born in Windsor, Vt., in 
1795, and Martha St. John, born in 1798 in Delaware county, N. Y., who were married in 1818. 
Mr. Bassett lived in Vermont until he came to Independence, N. Y. in 1827. In 1848 Betsey E. 
married William W. Kingsbury, son of Benjamin, son of Daniel. Benjamin lived in Cherry Val- 
ley, N. Y., where he married Joanna Jennings. Children, William W., Adelia, Daniel, Hannah, 
Benjamin, Alvin. Edward, Julia and Sophia. In 1830 he brought his family to Rushford and 
settled on the present Israel Thompson farm. He died in 1850, 71 years old. William W. 
was born in 181 7. and became a carpenter, builder and contractor, living at Black Creek when 
married. His children were, Frank D. born Sept. 25, 1849, married in 1880 Arlouine Smith, 
children Harry and William; George H. born Feb. 18, 1853, married in 1873 Laura, daughter 
of Sullivan B. Morrison of Rushford, children. Earl M. and Belle M. ; William C. born in 1857, 
married in 1884, Bessie Willaid, children, Jessie and Lynn W. William W. Kingsbury bought 



808 History of Allegany County, N. Y, 



the farm now the home of his son George H. in 1835, but did not settle in Rushford till 1852, 
where he died in 1891. 

Ralph Bonham Laning, attorney at law, is the eighth resident lawyer in the village of 
Rushford, his predecessors being, Abram J. Lyon, William A. Stewart, Albert P. Laning, R, 
Bonham Laning, Gideon L. Walker, Charles W. Woodworth and Asa R. Burleson. Ralph B. 
is the son of R. Bonham Laning, who was born in Dryden, Tompkins county, in 1827, where 
his father. Rev. Ralph Laning, who married Anna Pierce, a cousin of President Frankhn Pierce, 
was a minister m the M. E. church, and had a brother. Rev. Gideon Lanmg, an eminent Meth- 
odist divine. R. Bonham Laning came to Rushford, read law with his brother A. P. Laning, 
was admitted to the bar in 1844, and settled the same year in Oramel, where he practiced law 
till his death in 1861. He married, in 1851. Helen, daughter of Luther Woodworth of Rush- 
ford. Children, Nelson, Ralph B. and Genevieve, now a teacher in Corning. Ralph B. born 
in Oramel in 1857 was educated at Rushford Academy, read law with C. W. Woodworth at 
Rushford and with A. P. Lanmg in Buffalo, and was admitted to the bar in 1880 at Syracuse^ 
where he stood at the head of his class and was elected its president. He at once became a 
partner with his preceptor, and the law-firm of Woodworth & Laning existed till Mr. Wood- 
worth's death in 1891. Mr. Laning has been the only lawyer in Rushford smce. He makes a 
specialty of the settlement of estates, the foreclosure of mortgages, and the sale of infants' real- 
estates, practicing only in surrogate, county and supreme courts. Mr. Laning married in 1880,. 
Nellie, daughter of Gideon L. Walker. They have one child, Ruth W. 

Alonzo H. Lyman and George W. D. Lyman, sons of Elijah Lyman, were both born in 
Rushford, where their father settled in 1817, from Susquehanna county. Pa., where his father 
Gideon settled in 1802, from Vermont. Richard Lyman, their ancestor, left the parish of On- 
gar, Essex Co., Eng., in 163 1, crossing the ocean from Bristol to Boston in the ship Lion, in 
which also came Eliot, the renowned Indian missionary. Richard, after a few years in Charles- 
ton, Mass., went to Connecticut and was an early settler at Hartford. The line of descent was: 
Richard i, Richard 2, John 3, Gideon 4, Gideon 5, Gideon 6, Elijah 7. Elijah married Prudency 
Carrier of Hebron, Conn. Children, Reuben L., Emily E., Maranda P., Dolly A., Alonzo H., Sally 
A., George Washington Densmore and Gideon S. Elijah Lyman was born in 1783 and died in 
i87i.Mrs. Lyman died in 1857. Alonzo H. was born Dec. 1 1, 1 817 and married Mary A., daughter 
of John and Susy (^Dieffenbacher) Miller of Avon, N. Y., in 1840. They have one child, Ellen, 
G. W. D. Lyman was born June i, 1823. He attended the Centerville high school two terms, 
and worked (except the winters in school) nine years in the Gordonville woolen factory. He has 
served his town many years as highway commissioner and assessor. The two brothers bought 
and moved to their present home in Rushford village in 1893. They have since sold their large 
farm. 

Abram J. Lyon, son of Ebenezer P. and grandson of Abraham J. and Mary (Pratt) Lyon,, 
was born in Rushford Feb. 10, 1841. Abraham J. Lyon was born in Walling, Conn., in 1789, 
one of II children. His wife was born in New Haven, Conn., in 1792. They came to Rush- 
ford in 1810. Children, Ebenezer P., Eliza A., Emeline (Mrs. John N. Kingsbury) and Merritt, 
all born in Rushford. Judge Lyon was the first lawyer in town, was justice of the peace over 
30 years, was of the session justices of the county court, was supervisor in 1845-6, and was 
noted for his generosity and public spirit. He died in 1862. Ebenezer P. his eldest son was 
born May 17, 181 2, was raised a farmer and married in 1832, Lucy, daughter of Daniel Kings- 
bury. Children, Martin, Mary A. (Mrs. R. D. Charles), Laura and Abram J. who was born 
Feb. 10, 1 841. He was raised a farmer, attended common schools and Rushford Academy, and 
in 1862 enlisted in Co. D, 64th N. Y., serving as drum major, was in most of the great battles, 
Fredericksburg, Spottsylvania, Gettysburg, the Wilderness and was present when Lee surren- 
dered. Returning home he married in 1866 Rebecca, daughter of William Swift of New Hud- 
son. In 1889 he married for his second wife Velma Richardson of Cazenovia, Madison Co. ^ 
daughter of Nelson Richardson. They have one adopted son, John. Mr. Lyon's farm of 120 
acres is the old homestead his grandfather settled on which his father was born and passed 
his life. He was highway commissioner and in 1856 supervisor of Rushford. 

Frank E. McCall is the grandson of Judge James McCall, who came with Levi Benjamin in 
1814, was the first storekeeper, bought and ran the Warren grist and sawmill built in 1813, 
built East Rushford gristmill in 1818, filled many town and county offices, represented Allegany 
in the state legislature in 1818, 1819 and 1823, and was the most prominent citizen of Rushford 
for many years. The children of James and Elizabeth (Dey) McCall were : Sophia, born Sept. 
27, 1800 ; Milton, born Sept. 22, 1801 ; Matilda, April 16, 1803 ; Emily, May 2, 1805 ; Seneca, 
Oct. 30, 1807 ; Nelson, March 25, 1810; Maria, Feb. 20, 1812 ; Ansel, March i, 1814; Naomi,^ 
Oct. 5, 181 5 ; Eliza, Jan. 25, 1819 ; James, July 23, 1820; Ira Newell, Aug. 3, 1821 ; Catharine, 
Oct. 10, 1822, and Jacob R., April 12, 1824. Judge McCall is remembered as a man of 
broad views, and charitable deeds, reflected in a long unselfish life. Ira N. McCall became a 



RUSHFORD. 809 



farmer and lumberman. He was an expert judge of standing timber. He passed 15 years 
locating pine lands, 100,000 acres of which he selected for O, T. Higgins and Hon. Alfred Bell. 
He married Jerusha, daughter of Wilson Gordon ; children : James W., Ella and Dell, twins, 
Frank E. and Corvie E. Mr. IVfcCall removed to Rochester in 1861, where he died in 1892, 
and his widow in 1895. Frank E. was born fn Rushford in 1858, and attended school in 
Rochester. His present farm of 258 acres is the old homestead of his grandfather Gordon. 
He married a daughter of John Ryecraft of Rushford ; children : Newell, Jesseviene, Erwm, 
Ethel and Gordon. 

Lyman B. Metcalf is the son of Rev. Elijah Metcalf who was born in New Hampshire in 
1777, married Hannah Blaksley and settled in Herkimer Co., N. Y. Children : Lyman B. born 
in 1814, Levi. Zephi and Elijah. Lyman B. was brought up a farmer and came to Rushford in 
1832. He married, in 1835, Eliza, daughter of Cyrus Porter. Children : Elijah, a soldier, 
Hannah, Juliaette (Mrs. Wm. Stone, children, Alfred and DeWitt), Rachel L. and Fred, married 
Ette Elmer, children, Lyman and Orlando. Rev. Elijah Metcalf was a pioneer Methodist 
preacher on the Holland I^urchase. He formed the first class in Rushford, and was an active 
minister till his death in 1861. Lyman B. enlisted in the 64th N. Y. Regiment in 1861. and 
served under Gen. McClellan, was in battle of Malvern Hill. His health failed and he was 
discharged and told he could not recover, but he did and re- enlisted in the 2d Mounted Rifles 
and served till close of the war. Mr. Metcalf receives a pension of $14 per month. 

William S. Mulliken is son of Edwin E. Mulliken, who was born in Ovid, N. Y., in 1805, 
where his father, Samuel, had settled from Vermont. The children of Edwin E. and Lucebe 
(Bond) Mulliken who came to Farmersville were : William S. (born in 1843), Lucebe (Mrs. 
Henry Thomas of Farmersville) and Lorenzo, dec. William S. was "raised " a farmer and 
came to Rushford in 1867. In 1880 he bought of the estate of William T. Galpin the furniture 
and undertaking business and conducted it till 1894. He married in 1883 Blanche, daughter of 
Joseph E. Bixby, whose father, Joseph, settled in Rushford about 1816. Joseph E. was born 
in Rushford in 1820, and has been a wagon maker since 1840. Mr. and Mrs. Mulliken have 
two children, Erna and Ely. Mr, Mulliken has served a term each as justice of the peace, and 
as assessor, and 9 years on the school board, of which his father was also a member many 
years. 

Cornelius Kimber Benham Smith, son of Alfred, son of Elihu Smith from Connecticut, was 
born in Windham, N. Y., April 13, 1824. His father, Alfred, born in 1799, married Polly 
Brandow and came in 1828 to Rushford and bought 100 acres of wild land of the Holland Pur- 
chase Co., at $2. 50 per acre, to which he added other purchases and became a large land holder. 
He died in 1874, and his wife in 1880. C. K. B. Smith, their only child has always been a 
farmer, is now the owner of 950 acres, 360 of which are the old homestead his father settled. 
When a young man he taught 5 terms of common school in Rushford. In 1849 he married 
Maria, daughter of Kingsbury Howe. Their children have been, Henry, married Cora Tarbell, 
children : Alfred, George, Clarence and Ida. Children by his second wife, Betsey Carpenter, 
were Lawrence K., married Ida Chapin, children, Charles, Kimber and Allen ; Eliza, (Mrs. 
Daniel Lewis, children : Lillie, Maggie, Bertha, Verna, Marie, Frank and Archie) ; Arlouine, 
(Mrs. Frank Kingsbury, children, Harry and Willie) ; Grant, married Elizabeth Peet, children, 
Millard and Margaret ; Irene (Mrs. Emerson Kendall, children. Mane, Dallas and Zoe). 

Dr. Orrin T. Stacy, now of Rochester, N. Y., was born in Centreville in 1835, son of Dr. 
William A. Stacy, who was born in Rochester, Vt., where his father. Ebenezer Stacy, of 
EnglisTi extraction, lived. William A. took his medical degree at Castleton, Vt., married in that 
state Nancy, only child of Nathan Bingham, whose parents accompanied the young couple to 
western New York and Allegany county. They settled first in Boston, Erie county, coming 
from thence at an early day to Centreville. The children of Dr. W. A. Stacy were : Thomas, 
Minerva (Mrs. Samuel Blodgett), Jerome E., Nathan, who died at the age of 25 in Iowa, where 
Thomas and Jerome now live, John, died in Centreville in 1864, Orrin T., Ellen (Mrs. Charles 
Brown), Jane (Mrs. William E. Kyes), William and Warren who died in infancy. Orrin T. 
attended school at Rushford, where his father removed in 1856 and practiced till his death. 
He taught school 9 terms, read medicine in his father's office, graduated from the Buffalo medi- 
cal college in i860, and settled in Rushford, where he practiced medicine for 25 years. He 
served two terms in the slate legislature (1875 and 1876), elected on the Republican ticket. He 
married, in 1862, M. Antoinette, 'daughter of Emerson Ki ndall of Rushford. They have 3 
children : Minnie, Marie A. and W. Allen. In 1885 Dr. Stacy removed to Rochester where he 
settled as a physician at 284 Alexander street, quitting practice however in 1893. 

Miles M. Tarbell, proprietor of the Tarbell House in Rushford village, is the son of Abel 
and Julia (Mills) Tarbell, whose children were Nelson, Mary (Mrs. Hosea B. Persons), Eme- 
line (Mrs. William Babbitt), Amelia (Mrs. Igel Peck), Lewis', Myra (Mrs. Ouincy Chamberlain, 
two sons, Joel C. and George B), and Miles M., all born in Rushford. Abel and his brother 



810 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

James, natives of New Hampshire, came in 1820 from Vermont with ox teams and settled on 
lot 52. Their cash capital was twelve and a half cents, an old fashioned shilling. Miles M. was 
born March 18, 1840, attended the old Rushford Academy, and became a farmer. In 1863 he 
married Elsie, daughter of Alonzo and Electa (Gary) Farwell. They had one child Clayton M. 
married Jessie Cook. Children : Berton and Elsie. His second wife was Jennette, daughter of 
John W. Hill. Children : Jennie (Mrs. Stephen Wilmot, one child Jennie), Abel M., and John. 
His third wife was Julia, daughter of Emory Bosworth of Belmont. They have one child, Car- 
rie M. While on the old homestead which he still owns, Mr. Tarbell was proprietor of the 
meat market in Rushford village for one year, 1875. In 1881 he bought his present hotel, and 
from 1890 to 1894 he was a partner with Clark T. Rice in the stage route from Rushford to 
Caneadea. 

Edwin H. Taylor is the son of Zebina, son of Silas Taylor, who lived in Granby, Mass., and 
married Lydia Townsend. Ten children were born to them : Ozial, Justice, Allen, Zebina, 
Roland, George, Clarissa, Roxa, Alzina and Marilla. Mr. Taylor moved to Vermont where his 
son, Zebina was born in 1808, and married Melintha Taylor in 1828, and came the same year to 
Rushford, settling on Taylor Hill, which has born the family name ever since. Their children 
were Philo, Silas, Lydia M. (Mrs. Marshall Nye), Martin and Edwin H. The childhood and 
youth of Edwin H. were passed on the farm and in the common schools. In 1867 he married 
Cordelia, daughter of William G. Lafferty. Their children are : Verner A., born Feb. 6, 1870, 
married Jennie Thomas; Elmer S., born April 12, 1872; Edna L., born July 25, 1875, now a 
school teacher; Bret H., born Nov. 11, 1876, died June 14, 1894, Elvie C, born Aug. 7, 1878; 
Erwin F., born July 3, 1880; and Eric L., born Oct. 16, 1892, died March 17, 1893. Mr. Taylor 
has passed his entire life in the vicinity in which he was born, Nov. 25, 1839 His farm com- 
prises 152 acres. 

John J. Thomas is grandson of John Thomas of Wales, whose son William G., born in 
1789 married Phebe Reese. Children: Mary, David W., Benjamin, Elizabeth, Ann, John J., 
Margaret (Mrs. John D. Charles), and Phebe. William G. left Wales for America in 1848 and 
settled in Rome, N. Y., till 1852 when he brought his family to Rushford, and, in 1854, bought 
251 acres of land and 30 cows. He sold his cheese as high as 22 cents a pound, and dressed 
pork for $16 per 100 pounds. He died in 1879, his widow in 1880. John J. Tnomas was born 
in Wales in 1842 and has always been a farmer. He married in 1868, Margaret Roberts of 
Freedom, also a native of Wales. Children : William, married Emma Washburn ; Carrie (Mrs. 
Charles Thompson, one child Milton E.) ; Mary ; a school teacher ; John ; Minnie ; Homer. Mr. 
Thomas has been overseer of the poor, also assessor. Through his efforts largely the total 
assessment of Rushford was reduced $50,000 in 1895 to correspond with the general shrinkage 
in values. It is a curious fact that a discrepancy of 400 acres exists between the actual number 
of acres in town, and the sum total of acres assessed. 

William W. Thomas, postmaster at Rushford, is son of George P. Thomas who was born 
in Wales, Eng., in 1819, and came in 1851 to Rome, N. Y., where he married Mary Thomas 
from Wales whose father had settled in Centerville. Mr. and Mrs. Thomas lived a year at 
Cleveland, Ohio, and 7 years in Cuba, N. Y., before coming to Rushford in i860. Mr. Thomas 
after some changes bought in 1 863 the old Eneas Gary farm which the family still own (the home 
of the pioneer settler on which he opened the first tavern, the most historic farm in Rushford). 
The children of George P. and Mary Thomas were: William W., John P.. David G., Benjamin 
F., George H., Luther J., and Edward R. Mr. Thomas died in 1891. William W. was born 
in Centerville in 1853 and was raised a farmer, attending the Rushford Union school, and the 
school of Telegraphy in Oberlin, Ohio. He was a merchant in Farmersville in 1881, and in 1893 
with his brother Luther J., established in Rushford the present gents' furnishing and clothing 
firm of Thomas Bros. The W. U. telegraph office is in their store (of which William W., has 
been manager since 1891), also the telephone office. He has been a member of the Rushford 
brass band six years. He married in 1870, Luella, daughter of Alvin S. Hovey of Holland, 
Ohio. Children : Clarence H. and Bessie. Luther J. Thomas married, in 1884, Flora, daughter 
of Elijah and Salona (Gordon) Metcalf, Mr. Metcalf's father. Rev. Elijah Metcalf, came from 
Herkimer Co., N. Y., to Rushford in 1832, and was a noted Methodist divine. The father of 
Mrs. Thomas, a prosperous farmer, was killed by falling from a load of hay in 1894. His wife 
died in 1893. 

William F. Wells, M. D., of Rushford village, is son of Charles Wells, who was born in 
Goshen, Orange Co., N. Y., in 1819, and went to Oswayo, Potter Co., Pa., where he married a Miss 
Rathbun and had one child, Rathbun A., late a merchant in Wellsville. His second wife was 
Harriet A. Downs of Horseheads, N. Y. Children are William F., Charles E. (hardware mer- 
chant at Hume), Sarah S. and George F. Charles Wells brought his family to Wellsville in 
1862 after the loss of his sawmill and lumber by a flood at Oswayo. William F. was born in 
Oswayo, Dec. 14, 1856, learned the carpenter's trade and came to Rushford in 1877, following 



RUSHFORD. 811 



his trade till 187Q, when he read medicine with Dr. O. T. Stacy, clerking in Dr. Stacy's drug 
store. He graduated from the Buffalo Medical University in 1883, since which time he has been 
a practicing physician in Rushford, and belonging to the Allegany County Medical Society. Dr. 
Wells married in 1881, Catherine, daughter of Samuel A. and Ann (Williams) Hardy of Rush- 
ford. Their children have been William A., Winona (dec), and Herbert E. Dr. Wells has a 
large library of professional and metaphysical books, is a wide reader and a constant student. 

Deacon Cyrus Westcott is on the 9th generation from Stukely Westcott, who, born in Eng- 
land in 1592, settled in Rhode Island as a member of Roger Williams' Baptist church, that was 
so bitterly persecuted by the Puritans for its stand for religious freedom. The line is Stukely i, 
Jeremiah 2. Benjamin 3, Benjamin 4 (born 1684), Samuel 5 (born 17 19), Daniel 6 (born 175 1), 
Samuel 7 (born 1781), Urian D. 8, Cyrus 9. The last three were Baptist deacons. Urian D. 
one of 8 children came to Rushford, Allegany county, in 1834. and bought 7 acres of land. He 
married in 1840, Melinda, daughter of Frederick Farrington of Farm:irsville. Children, Cyn- 
thia (Mrs. A. D. Dennison) of Arcade and Cyrus who was born in 1843. He attended Rush- 
ford Academy 2 terms under Prof. Buck, and became a farmer, now owning 167 acres and 
keeping 20 cows. He married in 1877, Jennie, daughter of Thomas Gibby of Centerville, a 
Welchman, who brought his family to America in 1852 Urian D. Westcott died in 1881, 
his wife in 1877. Cyrus Westcott enlisted in 1864, in Co. E, ist N. Y. Dragoons, and served in 
the Shenandoah Valley under Gen. Sheridan. At the battle of Five Forks he was wounded in 
his hand. Mr. and Mrs. Westcott are active members of the Baptist church in Rushford 
village. 

Leonard Williams, son of Solomon, son of Solomon, was born in Essex Co., N. Y., in 1818. 
Solomon, his father, married Aurilla Handy from Vermont. Children, Angelina, Leonard, 
Martin and Franklin. He moved from Granville, Washington Co., N. Y., to Centerville in 1836, 
Leonard, always a farmer, married in 1840, Sarepta, daughter of Daniel Ely, whose ancestor 
came in the Mayflower. His wife was Mrs. Mary (Goss) Carrier. Her children by Mr. Car- 
rier were, Julia A. and Parmelia; by Mr. Ely, Caroline, Betsey, Christopher C, DeWitt C, 
Sarepta born in 1820 and Cordelia. Mr. Ely settled on the present Metcalf farm, on which an 
oil well was drilled in 1865. Near this well on Eneas Gary's farm was a sulphur spring that 
Sarepta used to drink from after removing a scum of oil half an inch thick. People came and 
boarded at her father's to drink this water about 1826 to 1830. Mr. and Mrs. Williams settled 
in Farmersville where they lived till 1867. They had two children, Wilbur E. and Julia. Julia 
attended Rushford Union School and married George Straight of New Hudson, where they 
now live. They have two children, Arthur and Edith. Mr. Williams served as assessor in 
Farmersville, removed to New Hudson in 1867, and to Rushford village in 1885. 

Thomas R. Williams was b^rn in Wales, England, county of Pembrokeshire, in 1836. His 
father, William J. Williams, married Sarah Rowe, and brought his family in 1849 in ship Ply- 
mouth Rock, to New York, being 38 days on the ocean. William J. settled in Freedom, and 
in 1 85 1 moved to Farmersville. In 1854 he came to Centreville, where he died in 1885. His 
children were Eliza, Thomas R., James, Ann, Mary and Samuel. Thomas R. was raised a 
farmer, came to Rushford in 1859, and married, in i860, Sylvia E., daughter of Oliver D. Ben- 
jamin. Children were Benj. B., married Gusta Netcher, children: Gearld, Oleo ; Addie J., 
married Euen H. Morris, one child, Sylvia ; Harriet R., married Newell W. White, children : 
Allice and baby ; Bertha A., married W. W. Dorman, one child, Bernice ; Daniel H. Mr. and 
Mrs. Williams have 147 acres of land. Mr. Williams carefully kept a daily diary for the past 
35 years. He is a successful farmer. 

Lester Wilmarth is the grandson of Gersham Wilmarth, a Revolutionary soldier, a native 
of Rhode Island, who married Sarah L. Stanton and settled in Victor, N. Y., then called 
Boughtontown, bears were so thick they stole pigs from his hogpen. He was a comb maker, 
sawed the wood or ivory teeth by hand, Lester still has some of the saws. His children were : 
Amanda, Mark, a soldier in the war of 181 2, Sally, Gersham, Roswell, Lewis and Lydia. Ros- 
weil was a shoemaker, and married Catharine Lane, their children were Adoram, Christiana, 
Lester, Sarah L., Mary ]., Orson, Roswell S. and Thomas R., twins. Both were soldiers, 
Thomas R. was shot at Chancellorsville ; Roswell lost his right arm at Fredericksburg, was 
promoted and served through the war. Mrs. Roswell Wilmarth had 2 brothers v^^ho served in 
the War of 1812. 

William Wilmot is the son of John and Mary (King) Wilmot, of Northamptonshire, Eng- 
land, whose children were John, William, Thomas, Mark, Ann, James, Mary, Fannie, Sarah, 
Charles, Fannie and Mark. William came to America in 1839, worked in Mt. Morris and vicin- 
ity 3 years, returned home, coming again in 1855, in ship Harvest (2ueen, bringing his wife 
Maria Keeton (whom he married in 1850), also his brother Charles and sisters Ann and Sarah. 
Sarah and his wife both died on the ocean with cholera. He settled in Rushford and in 1857 
married his second wife, Jane Spires, who came from Lincolnshire, England, the same year. 



812 History of Allegany County, N. Y 

They have two children, Obed and Stephen Ctwins) born Jan. 8, 1859. Obed in 1887 married 
Frona, daughter of Hiram Gilbert of Rushford. Stephen married in 1889 Jennie, daughter of 
Miles M. Tarbeli of Rushford. They had one child, Jennie S. Mrs. Wilmot died in 1891. 
The sons and their families live with their parents on the old homestead of 240 acres, that their 
father worked on shares 12 years, and then, in 1867, bought of John Keeton. They built in 
1893 the largest and most complete barns in Rushford, at a cost of $2,000. 

Milton M. Woods is son of Daniel Woods, born in Windsor, Vt., in 1792, came to Rush- 
ford in 1 801 and settled in Podonque. He married Laura Wilson. Children: Lucia, Myra A., 
Leaveret, Rebecca, Sarah, Lucy, Daniel C, Milton M., Cornelia and Mary J. Milton M. Woods 
was born in Rushford in 1 83 1. He married in 1853 Emily, daughter of Laartis Fuller from 
Massachusetts. Children : Will D, (married Ida White. Children : Fred, Robert, Marena and 
Harland), Fred, Elbert (married Lizzie Myers ; one child, Leland), Newman M. (married Min- 
nie Sarsfield, one child, born in the same room as her father). Mrs. Emily Woods died in 
1894. Mr. Woods' farm of 167 acres is the old Judge McCall farm. He has spent his life as a 
farmer, all in Rushford except 10 years in Mount Morris. He has always given attention to 
music, teaching singing schools over 40 years, was for many years a member ot the Rushford 
brass band, and has been chorister of the M. E. church in Rushford village most of the time 
since 1850. 

William R. Woods is the son of Riley Woods, whose brothers, Daniel, Ely, William and 
Albert, were early settlers of Rushford, from Chester, Windsor Co., Vt. Daniel came m 18 10 
and bought 100 acres in Podunk, where Ely and Riley also settled on adjoining lands. Riley 
married Abigail Heald. also a native of Vermont. Their children were Daniel, Albert, Wil- 
liam R., Fanny, Mary, John, Edwin, Ann and George. William R. was born on the Podunk 
farm in 1827, where he became and still is a farmer. He married, in 1855, Mary Charaplin , 
children, Elizabeth, died 18 months old, and Ellsworth who died at the age of 6 years. He 
bought in war times the H. K. Stebbins farm of 202 acres on which he cleaned in one year, 
with a dairy of 30 cows, $1,742. In 1876 he traded his Podunk farm, for his present farm of 
72 acres on the Hardy's Corners' road, with his brother Daniel. 

Mrs. Cynthia C. Woodworth, daughter of Chapman Brooks, was born in Rushford, May 2, 
1830. With a faculty for school teaching, at the age of 14 she adopted her father's profession 
and taught her first school in district No. 5 on the Buffalo road, donning long skirts for the first 
time, that she might command more respect from her pupils in consequence of older and more 
dignified apparel, and for that first term the received 87^^ cents per week. This of course in- 
cluded board. Average number of pupils 25. The next year she taughtin district No. i7inthe 
village and having had a successful experience she was paid $1.50 per week and she was more 
than satisfied, and the year following this, in consideration of increased average attendance 
(which was 75) her wages were advanced and she was paid $2 per week, the highest ligure then 
paid, or demanded by a woman for teaching a summer school. Each term commenced in March 
and continued six months without vacation, save the usual half day on Saturday of each week. 
She remembers the subject of a two weeks' vacation in midsummer was once broached, but the 
voice of many mothers went up in protest, announcing their belief that no school at all would be 
as satisfactory as one with a two weeks' break right in the middle. Of course at the wages 
named, it was always expected the teacher would forage among the patrons of the school and 
this was assumed to be — not the bugaboo teachers of the present time are wont to consider it — 
but comfortable and enjoyable all around, for if desirable to leave a place, that was the recognized 
order and nothing said, and if a place was particularly desirable and pleasant you were urged to 
lengthen your stay without limit. She continued teaching summers and winters until her mar- 
riage in October, 1850, to Charles W. Woodworth. whose grandfather Luther Woodworth set- 
tled on lot 28 in 1813. A few brush heaps only then marked the site of the present village. 
Luther Woodworth, son of Luther L. was a farmer who lived east of the village. His son 
Charles W. Woodworth, born in 1822, was educated at Springville Academy and read law with 
A. P. Laning, was admitted to the bar in 1856, and became a member of the law firm of .Stewart 
& Woodworth. In i860 Mr. Stewart went to New York and Mr. Woodworth was alone till 
1880, when he made Ralph B. Laning a member of the firm of Woodworth & Laning, which con- 
tinued till Mr. Woodworth's death in 1891. (See page 278.) Mr. Woodworth was a Republi 
can in politics, was postmaster here from i860 to 1885 was supervisor for many years and justice 
of the peace from 1852 till hi,« decease. He was one of Rushford's ablest and most rep- 
resentative citizens, and from his many and rare qualities of head and heart won and retained 
the esteem of his townsmen and of a large range of acquaintance. 



Cuba. 813 



CUBA. 

BY JOHN S. MINARD. 

CHAPTER LXIV. 

CUBA WAS created by an act of the legislature of February 4, 1822, and 
originally embraced Clarksville and Genesee.* It lies in the west- 
ern range of townships, and is the first town south of the center (north 
and south) of the county, and is distinguished as "Township 3, Range 
2 " of the Holland Purchase. Its surface is rough and mountainous, di- 
vided into ridges by Oil creek and its tributaries, whose deep and nar- 
row valleys are bordered by steep hills, some reaching an altitude of 800 
feet above the W. N. Y. & P. Railroad which is here 1,485 feet above tide 
water. It is claimed that in this town is found the highest altitude in the 
county, on the farm of Wm. McClaughlin in the southeast part. Its soil is 
mostly a gravelly loam, in some parts clayey, and generally better adapted 
to grazing than grain-raising. The principal drainage is by Oil creek, which 
finds the Allegany at Olean, though some of the head waters of White, Black 
and Van Campen creeks, which discharge into the Genesee, are found in the 
north and east parts. In this town was the summit level of the old Genesee 
Valley canal, and the next to the highest summit on the line of the Erie rail- 
road, Tiptop summit in Alfred being 1,783 feet above sea level, and Cuba 
summit 1,699. The oil spring reservation of one mile square lies on its 
western border, partly in Cattaraugus county. The oil spring which this 
reservation covers was visited by curious and enterprising whites in 1627. 
(See page 40. )t 

The famous Cuba reservoir. Lake Cuba, covering an area of nearly 1,600 
acres, the largest artificial body of water in the state, is almost entirely 
within the town. This is quite a pleasure resort : a hote] is located on its 
banks, and the reservoir is well stocked with fish. The reservoir was con- 
structed to feed the Genesee Valley and Erie canals, and at an expense to 
the state of $150,000. The dam is about 60 feet in height, and it has been 
considered by many as a great menace to the village of Cuba. The reser- 
voir is a permanent one, and competent engineers have estimated its capaci- 
ty when full to be equal to 200 miles of canal. The reservoir is now a feeder 

* It was at first called " Oil Creek," from its principal stream and the famous oil spring. The name was 
soon changed to Cuba, at whose suggestion or for what reason the writer has not been able to learn, but will 
offer the suggestion or the name Gah-nooks, by which the oi! spring was known by the Senecas. We have 
only one town in the county which has an Indian name. Would not Gah-nooks be a good one for Cuba ? 

J. s. M. 

t According to Col. Thomas Proctor, who visited this region in 1791, there were at that time an " upper" 
and a " lower " " Cornplanter's town." In his journal he speaks of " oil springs, near which Cornplanter had 
his residence." The " upper one" was probably Olean, or near it, and I have so referred to it in the text of 
the county history. J. s. m. 



814 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

for the Erie canal. Its waters are thereby diverted from their natural 
course, as before the construction of the dam the drainage of this pond or 
reservoir area was all tributary to Oil creek. 

The population of Cuba in 1830 was 1,059. Genesee was set off in April, 
1880, so the enumeration probably included the present town of Clarksville 
as well as present Cuba. In May, 1835, Clarksville was taken off. The pop- 
ulation that year is given as 1,478, showing a fair growth if the enumeration 
was made before May 11th, and a remarkable increase of it was made after 
that date. In 1840 the number of inhabitants was 1,768, while in 1845 it was 
only 1,585. In 1850, during the construction of the public works, the cen- 
sus returned 2,243; in 1855, 2,116; 1860, 2,187; 1865, 1,978; 1870, 2,397; 
1875, 2.260 ; 1880, 2,203 ; 1890, 2,328 ; 1892, 2.348. 

The Holland company, in 1806, " articled " land to Enos Silsby, Andrew 
Hawley, Stephen Coles, Benjamin Riggs, George W. Higgins, James Has- 
kins, Richard Friar and Levi Gregory, but no improvements were made nor 
any attempt at settlement on the land for some time after. Turner says 
that "four miles from Deacon Rawson's, toward Cuba, on Oil creek, two 
settlers located soon after 1808, but' the prominent settler in that vicinity 
was Col. Samuel H. Morgan who located there in 1811 (others say as late as 
1815), and became the founder of a public house that was widely known in 
all the early years. " Other authorities award Salmon Abbott the distinc- 
tion of commencing the settlement of this town in 1812. He came from 
Luzerne Co., Pa., and made his beginning near the location of the reservoir. 
About the same time Connecticut sent in a delegation. Andrew Hawley, John 
Bennett, Stephen Cole and two others, one Hall and one Frier 

In 1816 Gen. Calvin T. Chamberlain settled two miles out from Cuba 
village, and in 1817 built the first sawmill. James Strong in 1817 purchased 
the land now covered by the village. Judge John Griffin in 1820 succeeded 
to the possession of the land which Strong " took up." 

In 1822 the first school was taught by David Row in a log house. The 
first inn had been kept in 1814 by Stephen Cole, 2^ miles from the village on 
the Friendship road, and on the farm now owned by Mary E. Crandall. The 
first store was kept by King & Graves, in 1821 or 22. (This may have been 
the first store devoted exclusively to merchandise, but Judge Griffin had 
offered for sale in his tavern, in addition to whiskey, tea, tobacco, and cotton 
and woolen cloths ) 

Adam Renwick, father of Mrs. Reuben German, came to Cuba in 1824, 
and in 1825 settled permanently on lot 26. He never settled in Friendship 
as has heretofore been stated. James McMonagle was the first settler in 
the south part of the town about 1823. David S. German came in from Che- 
nango Co. in 1827 and settled on a farm near his son Reuben. He afterward 
moved to Wisconsin. Jeremiah Beebe settled on a farm east of Cuba vil- 
lage in 1829, and died there. Job Anson and Hosea Capple settled on farms 
in the southeast part of Cuba about 1823. William Grove became a resident 
there about 1824. Robert Kirkwood settled on the farm now owned by 



Cuba. 815 

Ralph N. Wright in 1824 or 25. Benj. Abies and Nicholas Everson both 
settled here in 1826. 

John CoUer, of English stock, born in 1775 in New Jersey, came from 
Susquehanna Co., Pa., with wife, Hannah Rynearson, and several children, 
with wagons, in June, 1829, and located 150 acres on the southwest corner 
of lot 9, where he resided until his death in February, 1860. Both he and 
his wife were members of the Free Will Baptist church of Wirt. They 
were typical pioneers. Mrs. Coller died in 1850. The children who came 
with them were Isaac R., Rachel, who married John Belcher, and for some 
years lived in the southwest corner of the town. Hannah, who married 
Urial McKinster, lived on the Coller farm for some years, James V., an ec- 
centric but extremely industrious man, William, who succeeded to the old 
farm where he died in 1888. 

Keller Hill receives its name from Christopher Keller, its first settler 
in 1822. Here Andrew and Christopher Keller, brothers, made their home 
in the forest in that year, and the bounteous fields they and their descend- 
ants developed from the wilderness attest the faithfulness of their labors. 
William Jackson settled early in the woods on Jackson Hill, thus giving his 
name to the locality. Beebe Hill was named from its first settler, Jeremiah 
Beebe, in 1829. 

North Cuba was early the prospective business center. The first 
gristmill of the town was here built in 1818. and a sawmill not far from 1820. 
It was first called Cady town, from Stephen Cady, who was connected with 
Jacob Baldwin in these early enterprises, and went west in 1835. Mr. Baldwin 
remained and his family has been one of the representative ones of this sec- 
tion. Robert Campbell came in 1821. His sons James M. and Dillon came 
the next year. This family has made much progress in the development of 
the place. Rufus R., son of Robert, was an energetic pioneer. The embryo 
city has given way to a small hamlet surrounded by beautiful, well-kept 
farms. The principal business is the North Cuba Creamery, now owned by 
O. J. Warren (600 pounds of butter was churned here in one day in March), 
loan Powers, son of John M. Powers, a native of North Cuba, was city at- 
torney of Rochester, N. Y., in 1886 and 1887. 

The turnpike was completed to Olean in 1822, and one of the principal 
streams of western emigration passed over this road, which through 
present Cuba village followed substantially the course of Main street. An- 
other avenue of- emigration was the Allegany road, which passed from the 
Genesee river at Cuylerville to Moscow, Perry, Castile, Pike and Centre- 
ville, where one branch went through Rushford, Rawson and by the old 
Morgan stand, meeting the turnpike at the old Simeon Hicks' tavern just 
beyond the county line, while another passed more to the west through Fair- 
view, Farmersville and Franklin ville, reaching the turnpike only a little way 
this side of Olean. The number of people who passed over these roads was 
truly marvelous. For a few years many emigrants made Cuba a place of 
embarkation for the west. Families would move into the place in the fall or 



816 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

winter, construct a rude temporary habitation, and devote the time before 
the first spring flood to building boats or rafts with which to prosecute their 
journey. The boats were made of sufficient size to carry from two to five 
famines each, were ingeniously constructed of logs and plank, and, in many 
cases, the lumber was prepared to use in building their new homes at the 
places of their destination. The rafts were made small to safely navigate 
the creek, but when Olean was reached, a number of these rafts were joined 
together, and the journey resumed. 

Previous to the construction of the turnpike the roads over which this 
immense tide of emigration poured were of the most primitive character. 
For some parts of the way, especially over the low grounds, where now is 
the village of Cuba, was one continuous mudhole, with seemingly unfathom- 
able depth. It is said that 800 pounds then made a heavy load for a three- 
horse team, and it took from three to four days to make the trip to Olean 
and back, carrying a load one way. Many were the horses that gave out, 
their owners selling them for whatever they could get and taking to boats 
and rafts. Indeed, so frequent was this the case that some men conducted 
quite a lucrative business in buying up these " fagged-out " animals and re- 
cruiting them, then selling them. It was the " old, old story " of one man's 
misfortunes being another's opportunity. 

In all these early years the wolves and wildcats laid claim to the terri- 
tory as their paradise, and they made it a veritable pandemonium for the 
settlers. Gaunt and hungry, they were always prowling for something 
upon which to exercise their ravenous jaws, and the keeping of sheep and 
the raising of lambs were greatly retarded, as they were especially fond of 
mutton. Large bounties were given by county and state for their destruc- 
tion, and the business became quite lucrative. It has been claimed that, 
notwithstanding the purity of motives and honesty of purpose with which 
we are prone to invest our worthy pioneers, that great frauds were perpe- 
trated, and that, if the truth could be clearly estabhshed, it would be found 
that not nearly so many wolves have actually been killed in our county and 
towns as the records of the boards of supervisors show. This of course 
made the non-wolf-kilhng taxpayers complain, and Cuba (in sadness be it 
said), enjoyed a reputation for wolf -killing inhabitants second to none in the 
county. But the town and county survived the wolf-kilhng period, and the 
last " wolf's long howl " was heard not far from 1840. 

Before the wolves had disappeared the Erie canal had been opened and 
the great celebration of its successful completion been held. Though re- 
mote from the line of that great artery of commerce, its effects were soon 
felt at Cuba, as goods need only be hauled from Rochester and Buffalo. 
And so improvements and the " clearing up " of farms was stimulated. 

During the thirties it became apparent that Cuba possessed men of sa- 
gacious minds and commanding influence. Turner, in his " History of the 
Holland Purchase," says that the idea of the feasibihty of the construction 
of the Genesee Valley canal was first publicly suggested at a meeting in 



Cuba. 817 

this town, attended by Gen. C. T. Chamberlain, John Griffin, Samuel Mor- 
gan. Daniel Raymond, Simeon C. Moore, and others from Allegany and Cat- 
taraugus counties. In 1836 an act was passed authorizing its construction, 
and, after 20 years of waiting, the first boat passed the summit level. The 
Erie railroad (the construction of which was agitated about the same time 
as the canal enterprise), in the interest of wiiich one of the largest and most 
enthusiastic of a series of meetings along its proposed route, was held in 
Cuba in 1839, was completed in 1851, anticipating the completed canal by 
five years. As a great outlay of work and the expenditure of large sums 
of money w^as necessary in the immediate neighborhood of Cuba, this town 
was largely benefited by the construction of these public works, and proba- 
bly the best years the town ever experienced were those in which the w^ork 
was prosecuted. 

In 1882 and 1883 the Valley railroad succeeded the canal, and gave the 
town first-class railroad facilities, contributing materially to its prosperity. 
The wild lands have been so cleared up and reclaimed that further improve- 
ments in that direction are not advisable. The village has had a good healthy 
growth, and is now one of the best business points in the county, and, all 
things considered, a successful future is assured for both the town and 
village. 

For these few things the town of Cuba is distinguished. As having the 
highest altitude of land in the county and the highest summit of the W. N. 
Y. & P. Railw^ay in the county; the oil spring, not only as a natural curiosity, 
but as being one of the very first places in the county mentioned in the 
journals of early explorers ; the oil spring reservoir, the largest artificial 
pond in the state ; the popular Cuba camp-ground ; and for the milk record 
of D. B. Whipple's wonderful cow, "Pietertje, 2d,'' of "112 pounds 7 ounces 
in one day, 3,289 pounds 11 ounces in 31 consecutive days, and 30,318 pounds 
8 ounces in one year of 365 days." Her udder, by " careful measurements, 
contained 1,292 cubic inches, and she had to stand on a platform of eight 
inches elevation for the first eight months to be milked." 

In 1894 the number of acres assessed on the tax roll was 22,150, and the 
equalized value per acre was i^36.83. The total equalized value of real and 
personal estate was ii>l, 017,921, and Cuba was then in this respect the third 
town in the county, which relation it still retains. For 1895 the total valua- 
tion was §1, 175,630. 

Cheese Market, Cheese Factories, etc. — At present there are in 
Cuba five cheese factories. North Cuba, Cuba Village, Marsh, Keller Hill, 
and the Sheldon; probably using the milk from 2,000 cows. The Cuba 
cheese market has, it is claimed, won the second place on the list of three 
notable cheese markets, Utica being first and Little Falls third. Three 
firms are extensively engaged in handling cheese in Cuba, and the integrity 
of the dealers and superior quality of the cheese of this section have been 
the main factors in the grow^th of the trade here. Ackerly, Sill & Co., 
George H. Harris & Co. , and Demcey & Sibley. 



818 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

The cold storage warehouse of Ackerly, Sill & Co. was the second one 
built in the county. It was erected in 1894, and before building some of 
the best cold storage establishments in the country were closely studied, 
and the proprietors have combined all the best and latest features in their 
building. This is 76 by 36 feet in size on the ground. Its storage capacity 
is about 20,000 boxes, and with a stock of 400 to 500 tons of ice the storage 
rooms can be kept at a temperature practically the same during the extreme 
heat of summer and cold of winter. Ackerly, Sill & Co. buy cheese from 
over an extended section of country; from Almond on the east to Randolph 
on the west, from Tioga Co., N. Y., from Tioga Co., Pa., the Snyder com- 
bination, and others. Their sales are made to large jobbers, wholesale deal- 
ers and retailers, and aggregate from 400,000 to 500,000 boxes annually. 
Ackerly, Sill & Co. claim for the cheese of this section (and particularly of 
Allegany) that it sends out " the best white cheese in the world." 

To Cuba belongs the honor of producing the largest milk record from a 
single cow in the world. This was the famous Holstein-Friesian cow, 
" Pietertje 2d," No. 3272, H. H. B. She was calved April 25, 1877, in Fries- 
land, Holland; imported by Alonzo Bradley, of Lee, Mass., in 1882; sold to 
Elizar Smith, of Lee, and purchased and brought to Cuba by Dallas B. 
Whij)ple in September, 1874. Here in one year (365 days) she produced 
30,3181 pounds of milk — a record not broken before nor since. During the 
making of this record she gave over 112 pounds of milk in one day. This 
record is supported by affidavits of 12 persons. Mr. Whipple several times 
refused $10,000 for the cow. She was sold with her family (7 in all) to Hon. 
J. B. Dutcher & Son, of Pauline, N. Y., at a large figure. Her daughter, 
"Pietertje 3d," H. P. H. B., produced in 1888 the world's milk record for a 
four-year-old, her record for 12 months being 24,125 pounds. Her son 
"Holland King" was the first and only Holstein-Friesian bull whose ser- 
vices were patronized at |500. Both were bred and owned in Cuba by Mr. 
Whipple. 

" Soldier dead " buried in the Cuba cemetery, as furnished by Clinton 
H. Miner, Esq. As only a small part have company and regiment attached, 
the names only are given. 

War of the Rebellion. — Lester Beckwith, Col. C. T. Otis, Charles Gallup, 
J. O. Gallup, James Carpenter, Harvey Van Horn, Wilfred Bradley, Charles 
Haskell, Jerome C. Brown, Darius German, Eugene G. Snyder, Robert Or- 
ton, Alexander Frazier, James Brown, Aaron Gear, Henry Sizer, George 
Stewart, Stephen T. Bartle, Capt. Amos F. Davis, Myron Brown, George 
Fowler, Frank Masseson, A. F. Dekay, J. S. Webster, W. H. Walrath, W. H. 
Root, Frank Page, Charles Coy, Cicero Phelps, John Foot, Judson Cutter, 
Charles Wilcox, Edward Bradley, Charles Eaton, Harvey Graham, Edward 
Adams. The following were either buried on battlefields, or from hospitals 
and prisons: W. D. Setchel, Lee man Sheldon, Albert Gallup, James Presho, 
and Fitch. 



Cuba. 819 

War of 1812. — Joseph Palmer, Ananias Wisner, Wm, Dunkin, Philo Rob- 
erts, Martin Smith, Jacob Woodard. 

Second Baptist Church of Cuba. — Jan. 18, 1834, members of the Friend- 
ship Baptist church living in Cuba met in covenant meeting and discussed 
a separate church organization. James Jordan, Abraham Rude and William 
Dunkin were appointed a committee to request of the Friendship ciiurch 
the dismission of its Cuba members. This was granted, and Feb. 15, 1834, 
these persons organized the Second Baptist church of Cuba: John Jordan, 
James Jordan, Abraham Rude, William Dunkin, Benjamin Abels, John 
Dakin, David Rose, Alden Stone, Jacob Bower, John Shafer, William South- 
worth, Nathan Southworth, Asa Southw^orth, Nicholas Everson, Job Anson, 
William German, Leonard Anson. Rufus Cone, James Ayers, John Carter, 
Cornelia Jordan, Katherine Jordan, Anna Rude, Patty Dunkin, Cynthia 
Abels. Amerilas Dakin, Betsey Rose, Amanda Rose, Lucy Bower, Laura 
Shafer, Elvira Luroy, Amelia Partridge, Carohne Rude, Mary Everson, 
Charlotte Anson, Arvilla Rude, Almira Keller, Mrs. R. Cone, Mrs. J. Ayers, 
Julia Jordan, and Harriet Coller. James Jordan and William Dunkin were 
chosen deacons; John Jordan, clerk; and Abraham Rude, Benjamin Abels 
and David Rose, trustees. June 4, 1834, a council from the churches in 
Friendship, Amity, Bolivar, Rushford and Hinsdale convened in Cuba and 
recognized the new church. The first pastor. Rev. Anson Tuthill, closed 
his labors August, 1834, and died in October. Rev. J. G. L. Haskins then 
became pastor until December, 1836. He later became a Presbyterian. 
The third pastor was Rev. Leonard Anson, from April, 1837, to January, 
1840. During his pastorate, in 1838, the first meetinghouse was built. Mr. 
Anson contributed $100 toward the edifice and Gen. C. T. Chamberlain gave 
the lot. Gen. Chamberlain, Joseph Palmer and Stephen Smith gave $100 
each. Abraham Rude had charge of building the house. The bell weighed 
466i pounds and was of unusual excellence. The fourth pastor, Rev. B. F. 
Robins came in April, 1840, and remained until Jan. 1, 1845. He received 
by baptism 59 and by letter 58 members. At this time the church was di- 
vided by the Millerite excitement. The pastor and many of the members 
were so carried away with it that they sat up one Monday night until 2 
o'clock anxiously awaiting the end of the world. Throughout the village 
the excitement was equally intense. Rev. Mr. Robins embraced Sabbata- 
rian views and in 1848 united with the Seventh-day Baptist church of Nile. 
"After a few years he was excommunicated for heresy in advocating the 
speedy coming of Christ, the sleep of the dead, materialism and the annihil- 
ation of the wicked." The next pastor. Rev. Daniel M. Root, assumed 
charge early in 1845 and stayed one year. This year was mainly occupied 
with disciplinary measures consequent upon the Millerite craze, and 45 were 
dropped from the church lists, but afterwards most of them returned. The 
sixth pastor was Rev. O. W. Gibbs, from May, 1846, until May, 1849. He 
was ordained at Cuba, July 19, 1846. Rev. Z. Smith came in 1849 and con- 
tinued until 1852, and received 39 by baptism and 21 by letter. In 1850 the 



820 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



parsonage, costing $650, was built, the site being given by Gen. C. T. Cham- 
berlain. The eighth pastor was Rev. A. T. Cole, from May, 1852, to May, 
1863. During eleven years 112 persons were added to the church by bap- 
tism and 75 by letter. 1854 and 1858 were years of especial revival interest. 
In 1860-61 the edifice was repaired, the pulpit removed from between the 
doors to the opposite end of the house, the seats turned about, the audience 
room enlarged, and a lecture room built on, at a cost of |2,300. At the close 
of Rev. Mr. Cole's pastorate the church numbered over 180 members. The 
next pastor. Rev. Ira W. Simpson, continued about one year. Rev. Harvey 
H. Stockton began in May, 1864, and remained until his death, March 2, 
1866. The eleventh pastor, Rev. S. W. Titus, began in 1866, continued 15 
months, added 39 by baptism and 59 by letter. Rev. W. C. Learned was 
pastor from Oct. 1, 1867, and continued a year and a half. The next pastor 
was Rev. Isaac C. Seely, from 1869 until his death, Dec. 22, 1874. In 1870 
the meetinghouse was burned and the present brick edifice erected. A fine 
organ was purchased in 1874. In the erection of this building Mr. Seely 
was tireless in efforts to bring it to completion and led the movement to se- 
cure the organ, but was privileged to preach only once after it was ready 
for use. The pastorate of Rev. V. A. Sage began in April, 1875, and closed 
Jan. 1, 1887. In May, 1892, at their annual meeting the trustees voted to 
change the corporate name of the church to the "First Baptist Church of 
Cuba, " but so far no legal steps have been taken to carry out this action. 
Since, the pastors have been in succession, Rev. T. M. Davis, 1887-89; Rev. 
E. L. Scott, 1889-91; Rev. D. H. Denison, 1891-96. There are 247 members 
in this church and a Sunday school of 178 members. In 1873 Daniel B. Sill 
was chosen superintendent and re-elected each year until 1885, when Prof. 
W. H. Kinney assumed the office. He was succeeded by the present super- 
intendent, Robert Bowen. Connected with the church are the senior and 
junior societies of Y. P. S. C. E., Woman's Home and Foreign Mission Cir- 
cle, The Northern Lights (the young woman's mission circle), and the 
Ladies' Aid Society. 

Christ Church (Episcopal).— The first Episcopal services in Cuba 
were held in the Presbyterian church in 1839 by Rev. Mr. Bruce, w^ho offi- 
ciated occasionally for several years after. The first baptism into this 
church was that of Mrs. Wealthy Ann Maxson, wife of Dr. Stephen Max- 
son, January 29, 1843. In the summer of 1843 W. H. DeLancy, D. D., bishop 
of the diocese, held service, preached and made an effort to unite Rushford 
and Cuba in one parish. Subsequently Rev. Thomas Morris of ElUcottviUe 
occasionally held services, still using the Presbyterian house of worship. 
The first communicant who resided in Cuba was Mrs. Sarah R. Chamber- 
lain, wife of Gen. Calvin T. Chamberlain, in 1846. In 1852 Noah P. Love- 
ridge, the first male communicant arrived. In 1852 Rev. Mr. Wilson of 
Clean began holding services in the Methodist church once in two weeks, 
which was continued for some years. At this time a parish, "Christ's 
Church Parish of Cuba," was organized. Calvin T. Chamberlain and An- 



Cuba. 821 

son Stewart were wardens; Rufus L. Colwell, Dr. Stephen Maxson, D. A. 
Kirkpatrick, Noah P. Loveridge, Marshall B. Cham plain, Stephen L. David- 
son and Samuel M. Russell vestrymen. At a later period meetings were 
held in school rooms, halls and ofRices, as convenience seemed to dictate, and 
when no clergyman was present, Noah P. Loveridge read sermons. Mrs. 
Ann Champlain was the first person confirmed from this parish, in Olean, 
May 21, 1854. Rev. Moses E. Wilson resigned the rectorship of Olean and 
Cuba parishes at Easter, 1855, and was succeeded by Rev. Charles E. 
Beardsley who officiated every third Sunday till Easter, 1859. A chapel 
was erected in 1856-57 and occupied the latter year, continuing to be their 
place of worship till it was burned in 1871. Rev. John A. Bowman took 
charge of the parish in 1859, alternating with Wellsville. From 1860 to 
1865, Rev. John Dobyns was rector three years and services were continued 
by lay reading. Prom 1865 to 1867 Rev. J. H. Waterbury had charge. Rev. 
S. S. Lewis officiated from 1867 to 1870, and was succeeded by Rev. Thomas 
Bell, under whose rectorship the present church edifice was erected, the 
cornerstone being laid May 30, 1871, by Rev. D. E. Loveridge of Norwich, 
N. Y. The architect was Col. C. N. Otis. The building is of brick, seats 
300 people, and together with the lot, furniture and appointments is worth 
$15,000. Since and including 1871, the rectors have been Rev. E. J. Cooke. 
Rev. J. W. Greenwood, Rev. J. Sidney Kent. Rev. J. E. Goodhue, Rev. W. 
W. Rufter, and Rev. P. N. Bouck. The present officers are, E. D. Loveridge, 
senior warden; Geo. H. Brooks, junior warden; A. J. Phillips, treasurer. 
Hon. E. D. Loveridge is superintendent of the Sabbath school of 40 members. 

First M. E. Church. — Rev. S. Y. Hammond in 1844 organized the First 
Methodist Episcopal Church of Cuba, with about a dozen members. In 1850 
a church costing )i>2,000 was erected by subscription. William Waterbury 
and Erastus Kinney and families were early members, and among the early 
pastors were Revs. McKinster and Bradley. In 1870 $1,500 was laid out in re- 
pairs to the church and a few years ago a parsonage was erected by sub- 
scription. Since 1879 the pastors have been Revs. J. J. Payne, E. P. Hub- 
bell, J. Albert Smith. T. W. Chandler, P. D. P. Beckley, J. B. Countryman, 
W. B. Wagner. The present pastor is Rev. P. P. Carroll. A Sunday school 
of 150 members; superintendent, A. C. Fisher. 

First Presbyterian Church. — At a meeting held July 19, 1827, " The 
Presbyterian church of Cuba " was organized with these members, Rev. 
Reuben Hurd and Capt. James Davidson delegates from the Presbyterian 
church in Haight being present, Henry Stevens, William Hicks, Kendal 
Wilder. Gordon Kenedy, Horatio Orton, Elinor Baird, Margaret Huntley, 
Lucy Hicks, Eunice Brownson, Lucy Kenedy. The Confession of Faith of 
the Presbyterian church, and a covenant were adopted. The first ruling 
elders elected Feb. 8, 1833, were Mr. Kendal Wilder and Mr. Josiah Bond. 
At first this church and the church of Friendship seemed to be almost one 
organization, meeting alternately at Cuba and Friendship. During the early 
days of the Cuba church services were held in available schoolhouses and 



822 History of Allrgany County, N. Y. 

even in a barn. On Feb. 12, 1835, the congregation met in the stone build- 
ing of Stephen Smith in Cuba, and it was decided to adopt the Congrega- 
tional form of government on the " Plan of Union " idea, which still left them 
in connection with the Presbytery. This continued until June 4, 1842, when 
another congregational meeting was called to determine the sentiment of 
the congregation as to government, whether for the Presbyterial, Congre- 
gational, or mixed form that was then in use. A committee was appointed 
which reported June 18, 1842, and the Congregational form was adopted. 
A Covenant, Confession of Faith and Discipline, Congregational in character 
was adopted July 9, 1842. This held until Oct. 1, 1842, when the congrega- 
tion, in meeting, decided to join the Presbyterian body and adopt the " Dis- 
cipline of the Presbyterian church of U. S. A.," repealing the discipline 
adopted July 9th. From this time the church has been Presbyterian, and 
has been called "The First Presbyterian Church of Cuba, N. Y." The first 
officers of this organization were Elders Kendal Wilder, Stephen Prentice, 
Stephen Bartle and Joseph Backus; and Horatio Orton and Jabez Fuller 
deacons. The church grew and had a quiet and a comparatively uneventful 
history from that time until the present. It has had 11 pastors; the first, 
Rev. Samuel W. May from 1833 to 1885; Revs. A. L. Allen 1837-46; N. Leighton 
1846-9; J. Wynkoop 1849-52; N. Allen who was stated supply during 1853-4 
and pastor 1854-59; W. C. White 1860-61; John E. Baker 1863-65; C. B. Gard- 
ner 1865-74; John C, Taylor 1875-82; Chas. P. Luce from 1883-89; William 
G. White 1890-94 and Robert Clement from June 1, 1894 and who is the 
present pastor. The present church building was erected on the site of the 
former church, which was removed and afterward burned. The building 
is brick and cost about $20,000. The corner-stone was laid July 4, 1871, and 
the church was dedicated with appropriate ceremonies June 13, 1872. The 
membership is now 249. The Sabbath school has an average attendance 
that is remarkable. The superintendent, Mr. Clinton H. Miner, is also the 
secretary of the "Sabbath School Association of Allegany county." All 
branches of the church work are prospering. The present officers are. 
Elders emeriti Charles Amsden, J. M. Barnes, W. J. Amsden; active, A. B. 
Webster, P. P. Peckham, Amasa Fuller, Clinton H. Miner, Charles Fuller, 
A. H. Bishop; deacons Frank Amsden, F, J. Ehman and G. W. Alexander; 
and trustees Sandford Cole, Frank Sibley and Walter D. Ormiston. Of the 
former pastors whose residences are known. Rev. C. B. Gardner, D. D., is 
pastor of Westminster church of Rochester, N. Y.; Rev. John C. Taylor is 
in Kansas City, Mo.; Rev. Charles P. Luce, Ph. D., is pastor of First Pres- 
byterian church, Owensboro, Ky., and Rev. William G. White pastor of 
Westminster church, Youngstown, Ohio. The present pastor, Rev. Robert 
Clements, was born July 19, 1869, in Schenectady, N. Y., was graduated 
from Union College in 1891, and from Auburn Theological Seminary in 1894, 
and was installed as pastor of the Cuba church in June, 1894. 

Universalist Church. — Rev. S. Goff, if not the first, was one of the 
first to preach the Universalist doctrines in Cuba in 1844-5, in the village 



Cuba. 823 

sclioolhouse. From 1845 to 1847 Rev. J. B. Saxe held regular services in 
Indei:)endeiice Hall. In 1847 Rev. I. B. Sharp came and preached one year. 
From 1848 to 1853 only occasional services were held, and then Rev. G. S. 
Gowdy preached one year. Rev. F. M, Alvord from the Friendship church 
then preached about a year at North Cuba, part of the hearers being those 
formerly assembled at Cuba village. Rev. Elhanan W. Reynolds organized 
a society of 84 members, Feb. 3, 1867, and preached in Palmer Hall for about 
three months, when failing health obliged him to discontinue. The trus- 
tees were, L. A. Reynolds, John Brooks and Freeman L. Sibley. Rev. E. 
W. Fuller was made pastor in 1868 and preached two years; during his pasto- 
rate a church edifice was erected at a cost of $7,000 free from debt. The 
size of the structure which is of brick, is 40x70 feet. It was dedicated on 
the 27th of June, 1870, Rev. E. W. Fuller preaching thesermon. Rev. I. D. 
Laurie succeeded Mr. Fuller for a short time, then Rev. L. P. Blackford 
was pastor for 3^ years. During his pastorate a church consisting of 43 
members was organized, and during that of his successor Rev. Henry Shep- 
ard, who came March 1, 1876, 11 were added. The succeeding pastors have 
been Revs. J. W. Broffael, W. H. McLaughlin, Charles Palmater, and J. J. 
Brayton, who lived and preached in Friendship and supplied this church. 
Since June, 1893, this church has been without a pastor, and services are held 
only occasionally. Of those who have been prominently connected with this 
church and foremost in building it are A. M. Scott, F. L. Sibley, Lonson 
Baldwin, L. A. Reynolds, M. B. Champlain, Oramel Griftin, S. H. Conant, H. 
Kinney, Lewis Graves, Rev. E. W. Reynolds and Russell Smith. The present 
trustees areWm. Currier, F. O. Prouty, G. W. Baldwin; clerk, Gideon Sisson. 
Church of our Lady of Angels. — Previous to 1853 mass was cele- 
brated at various places and in private houses, by priests from Java, Olean 
and Allegany. In that year a church was bought and deeded to Bishop 
Timon of Buffalo. There were 43 original members of the church, among 
them Michael McBride, Thomas Donaldson, Peter Kenny, Mrs. Kane, Mrs. 
McCarthy, James Donovan, Mrs. McGrath, Jerry Leam, Garrett Hurley, 
Walter Butler, W. J. Baxter. James Druam, H. Moore, Bernard Keating, 
Thomas Mangan and Dennis Casey. The first settled pastor was Father 
Doran. He was succeeded by Father McKenny who stayed a year, leaving 
March 1, 1855. Priests from St. Bonaventure College at Allegany, supplied 
the services from that time till September, 1872, when Father M. Ryan came 
and remained till April, 1873. He was succeeded by Father O'Mara, who 
remained till August, 1875, when Father Ledwith came and stayed tiU July, 
1877, and was then succeeded by Father Lee. Father Thomas Carraher 
succeeded him in April, 1879. Rev. James Griftin came in March, 1889, and 
January, 1895, Rev. J. J. Rogers, the present pastor, began his labors. In 
1883 on a commanding site in the southwest past of the village a new church 
was erected. In 1855 burial grounds were purchased and consecrated by 
Father Pamphilio. The church property is considered worth $10,000. The 
membership averages 400. 



824 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

The Cuba Temperance Camp-Meeting Association was organized in 
1882 by Rev. John A. Copeland and a few of the citizens of Cuba. Mr. Cope- 
land that year instituted a number of these associations throughout this por- 
tion of the state, terming them the St. John's Circuit of Camps. Rev. 
V. A. Sage, (Baptist) was president until 1890, when Daniel B. Sill, the 
present incumbent, was elected. Mr. Sill was secretary all the time and 
treasurer a portion of the time until 1890, when Major George H. Eldridge 
assumed and has since held the secretaryship. It was on the grounds of 
this association, then located about a mile south of Cuba village, that John 
P. St. John received official notification of his presidential nomination in 
1884. In 1887 the association was incorporated as a stock company and a 
beautiful grove just outside the village was leased and the association moved 
its home thither. Here the necessary buildings (chief among them a large 
auditorium) have been constructed, pipes laid, and gas for lighting and fuel 
for cooking purposes introduced. These grounds during the annual meet- 
ings, which are conducted on the Chautauqua plan, in August, are brilliantly 
lighted by natural gas and otherwise attractively decorated. While it is 
emphatically a temperance organization, it nevertheless invites and fosters 
literary and social enterjDrises. Its program each year bears the names of 
those who are prominent on the American stage, whose lectures are instruct- 
ive as well as entertaining. Special days are set aside for certain classes of 
people, such as the W. C. T. U. day, "Farmer's day," etc. Last but not 
least it offers to the people of Allegany county a place of quiet recreation 
much cheaper and more convenient than Chautauqua, the Thousand Islands, 
or the seaside. The present stockholders of the association are men and 
women of prominence and enterprise throughout the county. The present 
officers are: trustees, George H. Eldridge, J. M. Barnes, E. D. Loveridge, J. 
B. Bradley and D. B. Sill; president, D. B. Sill; vice-president, E. D. 
Loveridge; secretary, George H. Eldridge; treasurer, Charles A. Ackerly. 
Mr. J. G. Halstead was manager of the grounds till within two or three years 
when H. D. Bliss gave his attention to them. 

Young Men's Christian Association. — This organization has per- 
formed a work which inseparably connects its name with the moral and 
religious interests and develox3ments of the place. It was organized Octo 
ber 23, 1887, with these members: R. A. Bruce, Jr., W. H. Kinney, C. S. 
Prosser, F. W. Westford, F. A. Rude, H. T. Wilcox, S. D. Morgan, L. E. 
Lacy, Adelbert Enos, R. G. Lafever, George S. Hills, A. A. Gail, J. Albert 
Halstead, Theodore J. Marsh and C. B. Wasson. "The moral and religious 
development of themselves and associates " is set forth in the preamble to 
their constitution as the object of the association. At the first meeting a 
delegation from the W. C. T. U. kindly tendered the use of their rooms. 
The generous offer was accepted. The first officers were: President, Prof. 
W. H. Kinney; vice-president, Robert Bruce; secretary, C. S. Prosser; 
treasurer, F. A. Rude; corresponding secretary, Frank Taylor. The organ- 
ization has now no active existence. 



Cuba. 825 



Supervisors. — Calvin T. Chamberlain, 1822-30; Edward H. Johnson, 1831-86; William 
Hicks, 1837-38, '40, '41, '42; Samuel M. Russell, 1839; Joseph Palmer, Jr., 1843 ; James M. 
Campbell, 1844; Stephen Maxson, 1845, '46; James O. Spencer, 1847, '48 ; Lewis Nash, 1849- 
1852; Ithiel V. Stone. 1853; James A. Willard, 1854, '55 ; Wm. A. Kirkpatrick, 1856, '57 ; 
Noah P. Loveridge, 1858 ; R. L. Colwell. 1859; E. D. Loveridge, i860, '61, '64; Samuel H. 
Conant, 1862, '63, '69 ; J. W. Rowley, 1865 ; Russell Smith, 1866-68 ; RusseU T. Maxson, 1870, 
'73; Charles Guilford, 1871, '72, '73. '79, '80. '81, '82 ; G. Bishop, 1874, '75 ; F. R. Sibley, 1876, 
'n, '91. '92; Samuel H. Morgan, 1878; Fred C. Reynolds, 1883, '84; F. E. Hammond, 1885, 
'87, '88; Oscar H. Amsden, 1889; F. M. Todd, 1890; George Amsden, 1893-96. 

Present Town Officers.— George Amsden, supervisor; W. F. Bement, clerk; Oscar 
H. Amsden, William Campbell, Sandford S. Cole, assessors; Geo. P. Wall, highway commission- 
er ; Edwin A. Bartlett, collector ; Norman Boon, overseer of the poor ; W. D. Ormiston, C. H. 
Miner, John Straight. T. P. Snyder, justices of the peace ; J. Fenton Olive, Thomas A. Quinn, 
Albert A. Adams, Charles A. DeKay, Charles D. Amsden, constables. 



CHAPTER LXV. 

CUBA \aLLAGE. 



PROBABLY no other village of its size on the line of the Erie Railroad be- 
tween New York and Chicago attracts the attention of the tourist so 
much as Cuba. There are several reasons for this. The village lies com- 
pactly on a level site in one of the most bewitching of valleys, the hills sur- 
rounding it are of graceful and imposing appearance, the altitude of the rail- 
road is such as to present an almost bird's-eye view of the quiet place with 
its regular and finely shaded streets, imposing public buildings, churches, 
etc., while its graceful private residences stand out in view in fine ornamen- 
tation to the scenery. Add to this the fact that the Erie makes a large de- 
tour around the village, so that the tourist views it from the east, the south 
and the west, giving an idea of a much larger place and the attraction is 
partially explained. No finer landscai:)e can be seen in many miles of dis- 
tance than is i)resented from the Erie station. Cuba is an important center 
of trade and from the first settlement has been the home of wealthy, cultured 
and distinguished people. While many villages of its class, which do not de- 
rive growth and population from manufacturing industries, are losing their 
importance, Cuba has had a steady, reliable and valuable growth. Its pop- 
ulation in 1880 was 1,251, in 1890 1,386. 

The site of the village was purchased in 1817 by James Strong, but 
Judge Griffin became the owner of the claim in 1820. In 1818 Simeon Hicks 
erected a tavern near the site of the Erie station and three years later sold 
to Ira Tracy, who had in 1818 bought the house and claim of George Dovener 
an early settler. Tracy soon erected a frame tavern with a frame barn, 
which for many years was the largest in town. John Nash moved from 
Chenango county to Hornellsville in 1815, and in February, 1819, to Cuba, 



826 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



settled on the hill east of Cuba village where he took up land at $8 per acre 
Later the land was purchased at $3 per acre. Lewis Nash, son of John says: 
"After we left Hornellsville our first hard day's work was to reach Angelica 
where we arrived late in the evening. The next night we got to James 
Strong's tavern, four miles east of Cuba." The next day they arrived at 
their new house, completed and ready for their occupancy. The first house 
west of Nash's in the corporation limits was that of Samuel Nowlin, a log 
structure. Hiram Griffin had a log house. Other buildings between that 
point and Ira Tracy's tavern were Griffin's tavern and Richard Brownson's 
house. Beyond Tracy's lived James Hicks, brother of Simeon of the Hicks 
tavern. Between Hicks' clearing and the county line was Calvin T. Cham- 
berlain, where the main road crosses the Erie railroad. No very percepti- 
ble improvements were made until after 1832, when Stephen Smith pur- 
chased the land of Judge Grifiln, and Gen. Chamberlain put up a public house 
and opened a store. This was the beginning of Cuba village. 

It was not a promising outlook to build up a charming village. Main 
street was a mirehole in the center of a swamp. The ragged clearing pre- 
sented a multitude of unsightly stumps and burned and charred trees were 
towering here and there over the water and the mud, the tall grass and 
coarse weeds of the fields. But intelligence and industry have marvel- 
lously transformed the place, and much, very much, is due to the energy and 
capability of the first business men. 

The first blacksmiths were'Israel Howsell and Vernon Clement. In How- 
sell's shop Myron Bigelow did a good business in gunsmithing. A small 
pottery was conducted for some years by Hiram Griffin. 

An important industry in early years was tanning. Erastus Kinney, a 
shoemaker, had a small tannery in the village, while one was built by the 
Ferrins, which for a time was run by Alfred Brand, who was the town's first 
manufacturer of boots and shoes. W. P. Stevens bought the Stephen Smith 
and Robert Adams tannery in 1844. This had been run for 10 or 12 years, 
but under Mr. Stevens' control the business assumed quite large dimen- 
sions. The plant was burned and rebuilt several times (the last time as a 
tannery in 1877). Robert Adams about 1870 built a tannery on the site of 
Phelps & Sibley's mills which he sold to W. A. Phelps. It was burned in 1878. 

Stephen Smith, a pushing, energetic man had " many irons in the fire," 
and an ashery all through the thirties. By 1840 he abandoned the massive 
stone mills he had built on Oil Creek at the northwest corner of the fair 
ground some years earher. Here he had also a large trip hammer in active 
operation, manufactured bricks, kept a store and, in other ways tried to 
build up the chief center of business there. It was a strife between giants 
when he and Gen. C. T. Chamberlain opposed each other. Both were early 
merchants on Main St. One owned all the land north of Main St., the other 
all south of it. (It is said that every early deed of village lots north of Main 
St., were given by Stephen Smith) and no other two men had so much to do 
with bringing hither that tide of business operations, which has never ceased 



Cuba. 827 

to flow. In 1841 and 1842 Cuba was quite a place. Work on both canal and 
railroad was in progress, and there was nearly 400 population and it had a 
newspaper, the Cuba Advocate, started in 1839 by I. C. Sheldon. Hon. 
Wilkes Angel described it at that period thus: 

The country around was comparatively new. The village was mostly located on swampy 
ground. It had no sidewalks, and locomotion was extremely disagreeable and difficult, espe- 
cially in wet weather. There were several dry goods stores and groceries, and two hotels. The 
merchants were Rufus Colwell, a young man just commencing business, Stephen Smith, an 
illiterate but a very active and good business man. He was a land owner, merchant, miller and 
husbandman, and at the same time carried on other kinds of business, all with success. He 
erected many of the first business buildings in Cuba, none of which resembled any style of 
architecture then known to the world. Robert Guilford, another merchant, usually attended to 
business in his shirt-sleeves, and generally went around bare-footed and bare-headed. Edwin 
W. Park was an extensive grocer. Joseph Palmer was a successful merchant. Among the 
old settlers of prominence residing at or near the village were Calvin T. Chamberlain, Dr. Gil- 
bert Champlain, Judge Griffin, Simeon C. Moore, Edward H. Johnson, Deacon Wilder, Dea- 
con Orton, Joseph Palmer (who also was a merchant), Thomas Scott (grocer), Walter O. Tal- 
cott (jeweler), Lewis Nash and Deacon Dunkin. Wolcott Hatch, afterwards county judge, 
came about 1836 or 1837. Samuel M. Russell was then practicing law ; W. and W. P. Angel 
opened their law office in Cuba m 1838. Hon. Marshall B. Champlain was then a student. 
William Orton, late president of the W. U. Telegraph Company, was a son of Deacon Orton. 
and learned prmting in the office of the Cuba Ach'ocaie in 1840 and 1841. There was then but 
one meetinghouse in the town, the Baptist, in which Elder Anson officiated. Presbyterian 
meetings were held in an old schoolhouse. Dr. Griffin. Dr. Palmer and Dr. Maxson were the 
physicians, all of the allopathic persuasion, and very respectable. Judge Griffin was a large, 
raw-boned man, uncouth in conversation and manners, but of sound common sense, and he 
was judge of the court of common pleas. Gardner Sheldon was an early settler, so were the 
Scotts and the Baldwins, substantial and good citizens. 

The decade from 1840 to 1850 was one of prosperity. Money w^as brought 
in and times made brisk by the building operations on the line of the railroad 
and canal, but no great advance was made in the appearance of the village. 
The hotels, stores, shops, etc., clustered around the corner of east and west 
Main, and South and Genesee streets, but, with the exception of the Davison 
block, built in 1835, few buildings were built with great capacity. Every- 
thing that Stephen Smith built w^as solidity itself. The residence of his 
grandson, A. W. Smith, standing at the head of Genesee street comes down 
from this decade. It was built for a store, has been twice occupied as a 
schoolhouse, and now remodeled into a dwelling is an ornament to the village. 
Business, especially that of trade, etc., has kept its location at or near the 
corners, in a compact location. 

Cuba was especially fortunate in very early having an element of cul- 
ture which was not given to many of the new villages. In the forties several 
notable families were resident here whose influence has ever been felt for 
good in the village. Among them was the family of Rev. Jelferson Wynkoop 
who, a talented and educated clergyman, was an early pastor of the Presby- 
terian Church. His house was the center of the literary circles of that day, 
and his daughters married some of Cuba's leading citizens. Mrs. Russell 



828 History of Allegany County. N. Y. 



Smith is now living here. Mrs. Charles Sherrill, widow of a prominent state 
official, whose home is in the national capital passes her summers here. The 
Champlain, Angel and Chamberlain families are other noteworthy examples 
of the people to whose active labors much of the grace, dignity and refine- 
ment of the ladies of Cuba may be justly traced. 

Of the public spirited merchants, business men and others of this and 
earlier and later periods who have left their impress upon the village and 
town are Calvin T. Chamberlain, John Griffin, William Orton, Dr. Gilbert B. 
Champlain and his son Marshall B. Champlain, Stephen and Russell Smith, 
Joseph Palmer, Rufus Colwell, Simeon C. Moore, Edward H. Johnson, 
Henry and William P. Stevens, all of whom Cuba delights to honor. 

The Village Corporation. — At the Railroad Hotel Nov. 9, 1850, was 
held an election to obtain the expression of the people concerning incorpor- 
ation. The petition for incorporation was dated Sept. 28, 1850, and signed 
by M. B. Champlain, L. A. Butts, J. A. Willard and E. W. Park. The popu- 
lation of the territory proposed for the village, exclusive of Irish laborers on 
the railroad, was 896; and the number of Irish resident in the same limits 
was 275. At this election 66 votes were cast in favor, and 4 against the pro- 
posed corporation. Accordingly William G. Angel then county judge, certi- 
fied that "I am satisfied all the proceedings in respect to notifying and hold- 
ing such meeting, canvassing the votes given thereat, and making such cer- 
tificate of canvass, are legal, and that Cuba village is therefore duly incor- 
porated." 

The territory thus incorporated measured 769.68 acres. December 11, 
1850, was held the first corporation election, which resulted in the election 
of these officers: Trustees. Lewis Nash, L. A. Butts, Alfred Griffin, A. 
Stewart, Robert Smith; assessors, Leonard Anson, Henry Stevens, Henry 
R. Allen; corporation clerk, James A. Story; treasurer, Bogardus Merritt; 
collector, Salmon Willard; fire wardens, Erastus Richardson, Dorrana C. 
Rann, Charles P. Robinson, and Albert W. Kimball; pound master, Bordus 
W. Simmons. 

Bylaws were adopted. Among. the provisions was this: "Every occu- 
pant of any building in which there is a firekept, shall furnish himself with 
one leathern fire bucket, and a ladder of sufficient length to reach the house- 
top, " and a fine of one dollar, and the cost of collection' was imposed for the 
violation of the ordinance. At a regular meeting of the trustees, held at W. 
Otis Osborne's store, Dec. 31, 1870, it was resolved to re-incorporate the vil- 
lage under the state law passed April 20, 1870. At Palmer's Hall, Feb. 4, 
1871, at a special meeting for incorporation 47 votes were cast in favor, and 3 
against this measure, and the village was re-incorporated with its present 
boundaries (the same as fixed in 1850), which are: 

Beginning at the northeast corner of lot number 45 in the town of Cuba, running thence 
south 95 chains west 98 chains, and 43 links, north 31 chains and 70 links, to the south bank of 
Oil creek, thence up said creek to the north line of said lot number 45, thence east 42 chains 
and 75 links to the place of beginning. 



Cuba. 829 

The affairs of the village continue to be administered under the rules and 
regulations of the corporation. The present village officers are: H. C. 
Morgan, president; W. A. Bates, J. A. Lanning, Oscar P. Eaton, trustees; 
F. O. Olive, secretary; C. A. DeKay, collector; W. B. Ackerly, treasurer. 

Cuba Union School and Academy. — Next to the churches and homes 
of a town stands the school, which in its influence upon a community rivals 
them both. Ten years passed after the first settlement before the first 
school was instituted, the one kept by David Row in 1822. This was owing 
to the settlements being small and widely scattered. Since that time the 
schools of Cuba have kept pace with the progress of the town, in importance 
and material improvement, and population. The district schoolhouses are 
neat and tidy, generally well located and kept in good repair, answering well 
the purpose. We give the apportionment of the public school moneys for 
each district of the town for 1896: No. 1, $1,099.52; No. 2, $115.81; No. 3, 
1128.08; No. 4, $105.75; No. 5, $110.88; No. 6, $107.90; No. 7, $110.06; No. 8, 
$117.12; No. 9, $106,82; total $2,001.94. 

Down to 1869 beside the district school there were in the village of Cuba 
at ditferent times select schools of more or less ability and merit. The older 
people will readily recall the names of Mr. H. H. Lee, Misses Emily Elliott 
and E. Culver, Mr. Vosburgh, Mr. Mclntyre, Hon. J. N. Davidson, Hon. H. 
M. TeUer, Hon. O. T. Stacy and others who have taught the village school. 

In 1869 the people of Cuba decided upon a change from what was called 
the old school law to the union school law, leading citizens became interested, 
and set about the improvement, the new district was described, and a board 
of education elected with E. D. Loveridge president, and H. A. Mead secre- 
tary. This was the most ioiportant step ever taken in school administration 
and the benefits derived have been very apparent. A large and conveniently 
arranged school building was soon erected, a regular course adopted, and 
classes have been graduated nearly every year since. Many who have 
begun their education here have won success in college and university and 
achieved distinction in the different professions and in trade. 

The real and substantial growth of the school dates from the change in 
1869, since which time its progress and growth has been so great as at two 
dift'erent times to make necessary enlargements of the building to accommo- 
date the increasing attendance. Since 1869 the principals have been: Profs. 
Lewis, Blakeslee, Rogers, Clark, Wells, W. W. Bean, Kinney and Dewey. 
The present board of education is Dr. G. Whipple, president; E. A. Bartlett, 
Frank B. Sibley, George H. Swift, and A. A. Lawrence, secretary. Tlte 
present corps of instructors is: Prof. J. E. Dewey, principal; Miss Eugenia 
Eaton, precexjtress; Miss Mary Shepard, assistant; Jno. D. Jones, gram- 
mar; Miss Mariette Presho, advanced intermediate; Miss Elizabeth Stowell, 
B. intermediate; Miss Jessie Record, advanced primary; Miss Evaline 
Richey, B. primary. Number of registered pupils 400. The school ranks 
as a High School in the classification of the "Regents" University of the 
state of New York, to which it was admitted in 1881. 



830 History of Allegany County, N. Y 

Fire Department. — Cuba has suffered greatly from fires. A list of 
about 30 fires, with dates and particulars, appeared in the county history 
published in 1879. One thing is noticeable, however, that in every instance 
the burned buildings were replaced with better structures, which often 
were permanent and substantial brick buildings. Since 1879 several bad 
fires have occurred, notably the burning of the tannery building of W. P. 
Stevens about 1891. It was then used as a butter package factory. This 
was the third building burned on that site which is now occupied by the cold 
storage warehouse of Ackerly, Sill & Co. The mills of Ackerly, Sill & Co. 
were burned in 1888, but immediately rebuilt. 

The pioneer fire company of Cuba was the "Hook and Ladder " of which 
Reuben Hills was captain, in 1866. Before that the village had only the 
"leathern bucket brigade." In 1867 a fire department v/as organized, E. D. 
Loveridge was president; Russell Smith, "chief"; E. B. Hunt, foreman; J. 
H. Hallock, assistant foreman; Horace Eaton, foreman of hose; Jasper Pal- 
mer, assistant; R. H. Moses, treasurer; and Joseph Palmer, secretary. The 
company was called Rescue Fire Company, and the "Red Jacket," a second- 
hand engine was purchased in Elmira, and a supply of hose secured. In 
1873, the village purchased a lot and erected a substantial brick building on 
Genesee street; the lower story for an engine house, and the upper one for 
a town hall. In 1874 a tower was erected and a bell placed in it at a cost of 
$286. In 1877 the engine and hose companies were incorporated, and E. R. 
Nash and Edward Adams elected delegates to the State Firemen's Associa- 
tion. The first fire to which the Cuba firemen were called was Jan. 13, 1868, 
when Russell Smith's barn was burned. They have since been called out 
many times, have been quick to respond and brave and daring in perform- 
ance of their duty. Since the introduction of the water works, no need 
exists for engines, hose and hook and ladder being all that is required. Of 
the Cuba Fire Department, Walter Amsden is president, A. E. Drew, secre- 
tary, and A. A. Arnold treasurer. Three hose companies and a hook and 
ladder company are the present efficient equipment for service. Rescue 
Hose Co. No. 1. — R. H. Grady foreman, L. L. Burns assistant, Ralph Fay 
secretary. D. B. Whipple Hose Co. — Clarence Thompson foreman, Ches- 
ter Olin assistant, William Merritt secretary. Glenn Hose Co. — John 
Hammond foreman, W. H. Smith assistant, Harry Kelly secretary. E. D. 
Loveridge Hook and Ladder Co. — George Kinney foreman, F. A. Hicks 
assistant, A. E. Underwood secretary, C. S. Davis treasurer. 

Cuba Water Works. — Down to 1889 the people of the village depended 
upon wells, springs and cisterns for their water supply. The most import- 
ant event of 1889 was the construction of the superior gravity system of 
water works. These works cost $33,000, raised by bonding the village at 
the rate of 3i per cent interest. This enterprise met with bitter opposition, 
was accomplished only after muchhard fighting, and has proven one of Cuba's 
choicest blessings. The reservoir is located on the Enos Keller farm on 
Prospect street, and the elevation is 198 feet above the corners in the busi- 



Cuba. 831 

ness part of the village. The water, obtained from several springs at an 
average distance of three miles, is unexcelled for purity, and the pipes are 
so arranged that the water supplied to the houses comes direct from the 
source of supply, while that for extinguishing fires is taken from the reser- 
voir. The rentals in 1893 exceeded $2,000, and there is no doubt that the 
system will pay for itself without cost to the village, and when paid for that 
the revenue will pay most of the village taxes. 

Cuba Fair Association. — To the late Russell Smith belongs the honor 
of being the originator of the Valley Point Agricultural and Mechanical So- 
ciety. He conceived the idea in 1866, and to carry out the project began 
work on what has so long been known as Smith's Driving Park, which has a 
track a mile long and is noted as being one of the finest in the state. In 
1867 the track and the buildings suitable for holding a fair were completed, 
and the use generously tendered to the people free of charge. Aug. 6, 1868, 
the society was organized. Hon. E. D. Loveridge was made president, Geo. 
H. Eldridge secretary and James A. Story treasurer, Samuel H. Conant 1st 
vice president. The first fair was held Oct. 13, 14 and 15, 1868. There 
were 530 entries at this fair; ten years later the entries numbered 3,000. 
The receipts the first year were $1,707.50, before 1879 the annual receipts 
were $5,213.77. Mr. Loveridge was president for five years and declining 
to serve longer was succeeded by Hon. Marshall B. Champlain who died in 
the sixth year of his presidency. He was succeeded by Hon. Harlan J. 
Swift. So it is seen that the leading men have taken great interest in its 
success. Present officers, George Amsden president, Frank B. Lyon sec- 
retary, H. C. Morgan treasurer; Wm. Ormiston, W. M. Bennett, C. M. Mc- 
Dougal, L. T. Hendryx, A. A. Arnold, directors. 

Cuba Cemetery. — In 1841 a cemetery association was organized, and 
two acres on a gentle elevation in the east part of the village bought of Lewis 
Nash, at a price of $300. The trustees of the association were Warner Hast- 
ings. C. H. Matthews and Elisha Webb, for the terms of one, two and three 
years in the order named. The grounds were soon partly laid out in lots, 
and trustee Warner Hastings was the first one buried in the cemetery. Dr. 
Stephen Maxson was chosen trustee. In 1850 although many interments 
had been made, the grounds still remained unpaid for. A new board was 
elected, consisting of W. P. Stevens, Lewis Nash and N. Hatch. Of this 
board Lewis Nash discharged the duties of clerk, treasurer and salesman 
from that time till 1879 and later. Funds were soon collected and the land 
paid for and improvements begun. An addition to the grounds at an ex- 
pense of $130 was made in 1854, and then ensued a period of laxity in the 
administration of its affairs. The association was again re-organized in 1869, 
with these trustees: Reuben Moses, Selah B. Bostwick, Lewis Nash, E. D. 
Loveridge, E. S. Bruce and JohnC. Adams, and more additions to the grounds 
were made so that in all there was about five acres. Immediately on the 
east is the consecrated ground of the Catholic society. This cemetery 
was started before much had been done in laying out burial grounds with a 



832 History of Ali^egany County, N. Y, 

view to making them attractive by gracefully curving walks and drives, and 
so was laid out after the old style, regular and precise, and yet the lots, many 
of them, have been much improved, and greatly beautified by planting trees 
and shrubbery. Many tine monuments and stately columns are found in 
these grounds. The present officers are, E. D. Loveridge president, Walter 
D. Ormiston secretary, W. O. Phelps treasurer, who are also trustees, and 
N. H. Briggs and Arthur Kinney other trustees. 

Physicians. — See page 230. 

Dentist. — V. W. Alexander. 

Attorneys. — See "Courts and Lawyers." 

Newspapers. — Patriot, Republican, W. J. Glenn, proprietor. Post, 
Independent Republican, J. F. Coad, proprietor. 

Cuba National Bank. — M. J. Green & Co. were the first to establish 
a regular banking business ih Cuba. This was in the early fifties. In 1855 
Mr. Green with other leading men took measures to organize a state bank, 
$100,000 of stock was subscribed, and June 1, 1855, " The Cuba Bank " was 
organized with these directors: Hon. Benjamin Chamberlain, George W. 
Robinson, Robert Norton, Smith Parish, Silas S. Seely, J. B. Sj)aulding, 
Marvin J. Green, Joseph Palmer, C. P. Bissell, Samuel W. Merrill, Robert 
Smith, Edwin W. Park and Edward H. Johnson. The officers were: presi- 
dent, Hon. Benjamin Chamberlain; vice president, Smith Parish, who de- 
clined and C. P. Bissell was elected; cashier, M. J. Green. Mr. Bissell re- 
signed Oct. 3, 1855, and Robert Smith was elected and held office until his 
death in 1857. Jan. 4, 1858, Edward H. Johnson was elected vice president. 
Henry R. Kendall was made book-keeper June 4, 1860. About the same 
date Mr. Green resigned and Joel W. Rowley was elected cashier and 
Major A. C. Bishop book-keeper. The latter was succeeded by C. G. Har- 
mon on June 15, 1863. General C. T. Chamberlain was elected president 
June 20, 1864, in the place of Benjamin Chamberlain, resigned. April 13, 
1865, the board of directors decided to come under the U, S. banking sys- 
tem and the Cuba National Bank was soon created. Jan. 9, 1866, Gabriel 
Bishop was made book-keeper and Dec. 26, 1867, was elected cashier. He 
died Feb. 12, 1882. Jan. 22, 1868, Gen. C. T. Chamberlain resigned as presi- 
dent and his brother. Hon. Benj. Chamberlain was re-elected, but he died 
in February and Hon. E. D. Loveridge, then vice president, acted as 
president until Jan. 12, 1869, when he was elected president and S. 
W. Cole, vice president. C. M. Colwell was made book-keeper June 27, 1869. 
January 8, 1878, Charles S. Davis was elected to the position. In 1882 Mr. 
Davis was elected cashier, which position he still holds. August 27, 1873, 
the capital stock was increased to |150,000, but Aug. 30, 1876, it was reduced 
to $100,000. On the whole this bank has been eminently successful, often 
giving large dividends to its stockholders, one year paying them 18 per cent. 
It has always been sound and strong, and under the long and efficient ad- 
ministration of President Loveridge it has inspired unlimited confidence in 
the business community. The directors are E. D. Loveridge, president; O. 



Cuba. 833 

J. Elmer, vice president; C. S. Davis, cashier; C. A. Ackerly, assistant cash- 
ier; C. S. Whitney, P. B. Reid, Gardner Whipple, C. A. Wheeler, J. C. Leg- 
gett. The condition of the bank is: Resources. — Loans and discounts, $267.- 
111.64; U.S. bonds, 4 per cent, $107,000; banking house, $8,000; cash on hand, 
with banks and U. S. treasurer, $33,752.22; total, $415,863.86. LiabUities.— 
Capital stock paid in, $100,000; surplus fund, $50,000,- undivided profits, 
$10,535.38; deposits, $165,328.48; circulation, $90,000; total, $415,863.86. 

The First National Bank of Cuba had its inception in the organ- 
ization of the Cuba Banking Company in September, 1866, with A. W. 
Miner president, L. F. Lawton cashier, and capital stock of $25,000, increased 
in January, 1870, to $50,000, when S. H. Morgan was made assistant cashier, 
and in September, 1871, he succeeded Mr. Lawton as cashier. In January, 
1876, the Cuba State Bank was organized from the above company with 
$50,000 capital and these officers: A. W. Miner, president; M. B. Champlain, 
vice-president; S. H. Morgan, cashier. The State Bank was succeeded in 
January, 1880, by the First National Bank, with these officers: Elmer M. 
Bond, president; William P. Stevens, vice-president; Mortimer W. 
Potter, cashier; Henry C. Morgan, assistant cashier; Timothy J. Car- 
mody, bookkeeper. Mr. Bond resigned July 5, 1886. and William P. 
Stevens was elected to the position. He was succeeded as president 
by George H. Eldridge. Dr. Seneca Allen was made vice-president. 
He was succeeded by A. Miner Wellman. Mr. Potter resigned as cashier 
in January, 1881, and Henry C. Morgan, the present incumbent, was 
elected. A. Emmet Thompson is bookkeeper. The stockholders have 
always declared a semi-annual dividend of 5 per cent, and an accumulated 
surplus of $50,000, which makes the capital stock equivalent to $100,000. 
Mr. Morgan has held the position of bank cashier the longest of any man in 
Allegany county. The First National Bank has always been considered one 
of the soundest financial institutions in the state. The present officers are: 
George H. Eldridge, president; A. Miner Wellman, vice-president; H. C. 
Morgan, cashier. The condition of the bank is: I{esoiorces,—Loa,i'is and dis- 
counts, $171,347.57; overdrafts, secured and unsecured, $1,707.71; U. S. 
bonds to secure circulation, $12,500; stocks, securities, etc., $4,445.07; 
banking-house furniture and fixtures, $7,500; due from national banks 
(not reserve agents), $658.69; due from state banks and bankers, $792.76; 
due from approved reserve agents, $7,981.98; checks and other cash items, 
$1,454.94; fractional paper currency, nickels and cents, $104.48; specie, 
$6,175; legal- tender notes, $3,256; redemption fund with U. S. treasurer (5 
per cent of circulation), $562.50; total, $218,486.70. Liabilities,- — capital stock 
paid in, $50,000; surplus fund, $50,000; undivided profits, less expenses 
and taxes paid, $6,627.55; national bank notes outstanding, $11,250; due 
to state bank and bankers $4.75; individual deposits subjects to check, 
$100,604.40; total, $218,486.70. 

Board of Trade. — Some years ago the merchants and business men of 
Cuba organized a board of trade, with these officers: D. B. Sill, president; 



834 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

George D. Whipple, secretary; Charles A. Ackerly, treasurer; J. H. Setchel, 
vice president; W. P. Stevens, E. D. Loveridge, D. B. Whipple, George H. 
Eldridge, F. M. Todd, C. M. McDougal, J. S. Webster, executive committee. 
It is the province of this board to look after the material interests of the 
town, endeavor to establish manufactures and industrial enterprises, and 
stimulate village improvements. Its effect has been felt in reduced trans- 
portation, an excellent system of water works, an abundant supply of natural 
gas for light and fuel, good churches, a first class school, cheap rents and 
building sites. The present officers are D. B. Sill, president; Frank H. Sib- 
ley, secretary; Charles A. Ackerly, treasurer. 

Hotels.- — No town of its size has two such houses of entertainment as 
Cuba can boast of. Hotel Kinney, Arthur Kinney, proprietor and the St. 
James, J. S. Patterson, proprietor. 

Merchants Protective Association. ^This association was organized 
in November, 1895, for mutual protection against persons willfully negligent 
in the payment of their accounts. About 30 business men belong to the or- 
ganization. Officers: C. A. Wheeler, president; T. S. Thomas, treasurer; 
Oscar Underwood, secretary. 

Cuba Gas Company. — This was organized early in 1884 with capital 
stock of 150,000. This company furnishes natural gas for fuel and lighting 
purposes from wells in Clarksville and Wirt. This village is largely warmed 
and lighted by gas obtained from this company. J. B. Bradley of Bolivar is 
its president, and Harry Bradley of Wellsville, secretary. ■ The office in 
Cuba is in charge of A. C. Fisher. 

The Cuba Marble and Granite Works were established in 1857 by William 
H. and Alonzo C. Bartholomew, brothers. Ten years later the partnership 
was dissolved, A. C. Bartholomew moving to Titusville, Pa., where he died 
in March, 1877. William H then conducted the works alone, was burned 
out twice, the last time in 1881. All kinds of monumental and cemetery 
work are designed, of both marble and granite. The late proprietor was 
identified with the business over 45 years until his death in September, 
1892. Edward O'Malley then became the proprietor and carries on the 
business at the same location. 

Ackerly, Sill & Co. In 1871 Daniel B. Sill, Hosea B. Ackerly and An- 
drew J. Ackerly came from Rushford to Cuba and began buying cheese. 
Later they took up the lumber business, forming the company with O. T. 
Higgins, under firm name of Ackerly, Sill & Co., which has always been re- 
tained although Mr. Higgins sold out in 1885. In 1886 they consolidated the 
cheese and lumber business, doing all under one name. The lumber trade 
has included operations in various parts of this state as well as in Pennsyl- 
vania and Michigan. In 1886 they bought the old Smith mill which was 
burned in 1888, but was soon rebuilt larger, and with better machinery. 
Now it is equipped with all kinds of wood-working machinery and is one of 
the best plants of the kind in this part of the state. They rank among the 
largest cheese buyers in the state and annually save thousands of dollars to 



Cuba 835 

the farmers of Western New York by their direct purchase from the fac- 
tories. They have opened new markets for New York cheese, especially 
throug'hout the South. Their trade with individual customers, small hand- 
lers and jobbers as well, ranges from live to 5,000 boxes a week. To their 
cheese and lumber trade they have added salt and coal, handling the finest 
grades of dairy salt, and the standard coals. Their cold storage building 
is described on another page. They have wire connections, and a switch of 
the W. N. Y. & P., in their yard. 

J. M. Barnes & Co. began manufacturing cutters, sleighs, buggies 
wagons, etc., in 1881. This has grown to be one of Cuba's large industries, 
which has employed from 25 to 30 men steadily and has i^roduced from 1,200 
to 2,500 cutters and sleighs in a year and from 200 to 300 wagons. The 
buildings are located near the bridge on West Main street. The main build- 
ing contains 21,400 feet of flooring and is three stories high standing 160x40 
feet. There is another building known as No. 2, which is 40x80 feet and is 
two stories high, containing 6,400 feet of flooring. There is also a black- 
smith shop which occupies 2,000 feet of flooring. 

Phelps d- Sihlei/s Mercliant Flouring & Feed Mills. — The firm of Phelps & 
Sibley began business May 1, 1884, the members being Warren O. Phelps 
and Prank B. Sibley. Mr. Phelps had, at the time, nearly completed a brick 
flouring mill closely adjacent to the station of the W. N. Y. & P. railroad and 
the new firm at once began milling operations here. Since 1884 additions 
have been made and the plant now consists of a three storied building, 40 by 
60 feet in size, with a brick addition containing an 80 H. P. engine and boiler 
which supplies the motive power of the mill. This mill has a grinding 
capacity of 150 bbls. of flour and 70 tons of meal every 24 hours. Connected 
with the mill is a frame elevator with storage room for 25,000 bu. of grain. 
The lower part of this elevator was formerly the frame of the canal ware- 
house which stood on the south side of the canal, opposite the railroad station. 
On the site of this mill once stood another mill, owned and operated by 
Russell Smith, which was burned. In 1891 Phelps & Sibley purchased the 
site of the old Chamberlain & Kirkpatrick mill on Mill St. near the Erie rail- 
road, which was erected in 1844 and burned in 1878. Here they built a 
second mill, of wood, with a grinding capacity of 48 tons of meal and feed in 
24 hours, and a storage capacity equal to 75 carloads of grain. This is a 
water and steam power mill, deriving its water power from the original 
head-race of the burned mill. The record of the business of these mills 
shows a gradual increase each year, principally in the wholesale trade. 
Using the first year 103 cars of western grain, the past year required 800 
cars, and 20 employees to handle the product. This increase has required 
additional grinding and storage capacity, which they have met by building 
in a solid and substantial manner as the extending trade demanded, until 
now they have the largest storage capacity of any like concern in Western 
New York. The brick flouring mill has two switches on the W. N. Y. & P. 
railroad leading to its doors. The water and steam power mill, on the Erie 



836 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

railroad, has switches running directly into the third floor, with room for 
iive cars under cover at the same time, to facilitate loading and unloading. 
In erecting these mills it has been the aim and study of the proprietors to 
build them so that they can handle their product with the greatest economy. 
"With this end in view they have utilized both water and steam for power and 
adopted various labor saving devices for handling grain, feed and flour, 
believing that whoever could supply the trade with promptness and with 
the least expense, would command the best patronage. 

The business of the W. A. Bates M'f'g Co. was established in 1886 by 
W. A. Bates to manufacture tin-lined butter tubs, etc. He commenced work 
with 3 men. From 1889 to 1893 the firm was Bates & Hoyt. Since then 
Mr. Bates has been sole proprietor. The factory located on Water street 
gives employment to 30 hands, used 300,000 feet of hard wood in 1894 and 
made over 140,000 oil cans and butter pails. This is the largest manufactory 
of these goods in the United States, the buildings of the plant covering an 
acre of ground. Mr. Bates is the inventor and patentee of the goods made, 
and also of the machinery used to produce them. 

Peck's Marble Works, located on Bristol street, were established by Allen 
Peck in 1894. G. W. Peck manager. 

The City Steam Laundry was established in 1890 by B. A. Hammond. 
In March, 1893, the present proprietor, Frank A. Hicks, purchased the 
business. 

The Cuba foundry, machine shop and cider mill is owned and conducted 
by A. H. Graves. 

Goodrich & Conderman's steam granite works were established in 1894. 

Cheese Buyers: Ackerly, Sill & Co., George H. Harris & Co. and 
Demcey & Sibley are large operators and dealers in cheese. 

Merchants. Dnj Goods, etc. — George H. Eldridge has been in mer- 
chandising since 1865, first as a grocer, then as a dealer in clothing and as 
drygoods merchants since 1867. In 1876 he erected his present store, a 
two-story brick building, and carries a full stock of drygoods, cloaks, car- 
pets, boots, shoes, etc. Hehasonthenorthsideof East Main street one of the 
most complete department stores in all this section. Orris Merrill has been in 
business since 1858. He was in trade when a $10 license was necessary to do 
business. December 12, 1891, the firm of Orris Merrill & Co., was established. 
In 1884 C. A. Wheeler engaged in the grocery business on Main and South Sts. 
In 1889 he established his drygoods store at No. 5 Palmer block, West Main St. 
Clothing. — A. Unger, M. A. Cofran (succeeding Boston Clothing Co.) in the 
store lately occupied by A. M. Young & Co. Grocers. — A. D. Hatch com- 
menced trade in 1884, in 1894 with N. T. Guilford formed the present firm of 
Hatch & Guilford. O. D. and A. E. Underwood, as Underwood Bros., suc- 
ceeded A. A. Arnold in 1893. G. H. Brooks has been in trade here since 
since 1885. E. A. Enos Parlor grocery, Wasson Block. Jewelry and Clothing. — 
W. F. Robie, proprietor of The Odd, No. 5, East Main St., commenced trade in 



Cuba. 837 

November, 1890, in the Story block, soon removing to his present location 
in the Stevens Block. Jewelry and Crockery. — T. P. Rude, corner South and 
Main, in trade since 1869. Farm Implements, etc. — Grant Ingalls. Millinery. 
— Mrs. A. A. Colwell, Mrs. M. R. Rice, Mrs. M. L. Quinn. News and Gro- 
ceries. — C. A.DeKay. 

Hardware, Stoves, etc. — Sisso7i (f; Acla-rlys. (B. G. Sisson, C. A. and W. 
B. Ackerly) succeeded Mr. Sisson in the hardware trade in January, 1891. 
The present stand was started by H. A. Mead, and the successive owners 
have been Mr. Wilcox, Perry & Pettit, Pettit Brothers, Crippen & Ackerlys, 
Hermance & Sisson, Gideon Sisson, Jr., B. G. Sisson and Sisson & Acker- 
lys, which also succeeded the Pettit Hardware Co. They deal in general 
hardware and agricultural implements. They have two stores, on West 
Main street and on Genesee street. J. G. Olive has a hardware store on 
West Main street. 

Fnrnitiire. — The Cook Furniture Company was organized in June, 1892, 
from G. W. Cook & Co. The business was started in Cuba in 1881. F. L. 
Cook is manager. C. S. Hicks, East Main street. Druggists. — Allen & 
Thomas, A. A. Lawrence. Boots and Shoes. — Webster & Horan, Wasson 
Block, East Main street, A. J. Phillips (in 1894 succeeded Wm. F. Sharp, 
who was in trade since the war). Undertaking. — Arnout & Sons, A. A. 
Oail. Pianos, Organs, etc.— A. J. Van Fleet in his own brick block corner 
East Main and Orchard. There are two photographers and various other 
industries. Six telephones are in use, and the two railroads have abund- 
ant facilities for freight and passenger traffic. 

Societies: Ciiba Lodge, No. 426, F. & A. M. — The charter for this lodge 
bears date Jan. 8, 1825, and was granted by the grand lodge of the state 
of New York which had been regularly established according to old 
constitutions and under the auspices of Prince Edwin of the city of York, 
England, in the year of masonry, 4726), to Brother Calvin T. Chamberlain, 
W. M.; Brother Stephen Cady, S. W.; Brother Henry Stephens, J. W.; 
Martin Smith, Laurin Woodruff, Jonathan Moore, Levi Robinson, Earl Gould, 
Jacob Baldwin, Erastus Kinney, William Hicks, Kendall Wilder, Richard 
Bronson, Ira Tracy, Henry Stevens and Simon C. Moore. From Jan. 17, 
1832, to June 11, 1853, the lodge was discontinued, and at the latter date a 
new charter was granted, and the lodge re-organized with the new number 
306, and Henry Stevens as W. M., I. B. Sharp as S. W., Warner Hastings as 
J. W. and C. T. Chamberlain as secretary and treasurer. The other charter 
members were, Martin Smith, Talcott Howard, Simon C. Moore, Joseph 
Palmer, S. G. Newell, Stephen Hardy, John Powers, Erastus Kinney, Jacob 
Baldwin, Samuel M. Russell, S. W. Merrill and C. H. Bradley. Regular com- 
munications are held on the second and fourth Saturdays in each month. 
The membership is large, and the lodge is in a flourishing condition. The 
present officers are, J. E. Dewey, W. M.; F. N. Malhson, S. W.; John E. 
Dudley, J. W.; Edwin A. Bartle, treasurer, Frank B. Sibley, secretary. 



838 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Valley Point Chapter, No. 232, R. A. M. — The charter of this chapter bears 
date February 3, 1869. The first officers installed under this charter were: 
Simon P. Swift, H. P.; Henry Friendly, K.; Gabriel Bishop, S.; L. F. Law- 
ton, treasurer; H. J. Swift, secretary; William H Bartholomew, C. H.; R. 
H. Moses, P. S.; William H. Holmes', R. A. C; A. D. Crosby, M. 3d V.; S. 
B. Bostwick. M. 2d V.; I. R. Harbeck, M. 1st V.; George W. Durfee, tiler. 
Every second and fourth Thursday in each month occur the regular convo- 
cations. The present officers are: E. D. Loveridge, H. P.; A. A. Arnold, K. ; 
Monroe Clayson, S.; J. E. Dewey, Treas.; E. H. Keller, Sec; Don McClure, 
P. S.; S. H. Morgan, C. H.; J. E. Dewey, R. H. C; S. B. Bostwick, M. 3d 
V. ; J. R. Harbeck, M. 2d V. ; Lawson Paul, M. 1st V. 

Valleij Point Lodge, No. 2U, I. 0. 0. F., was organized July 8, 1870, 
with W. R. Bronson. F. G. Stebbins, H. Shewman, W. W. Cole and W. P. 
Stevens as charter members. The first N. G. was W. R. Bronson, and suc- 
cessive ones down to 1879 were, W. W. Cole, F. G. Stebbins, A. F. DeKay, 

E. R. Nash, R. H. Grady, H. Shewman, W. C. Hall, D. B.Whipple, J. A. 
Grove, E. R. Nash, J. Byram, J. H. Graham, H. C. Hendricks, J. McMonagle, 
G. M. Gillette, G. V. DeKay, and D. Reid. In 1879 it was said to be flourish- 
ing and financially prosperous, with a membership of 30, but interest waned 
and it was discontinued, to be revived and reorganized with a new number. 
It is now exceptionally prosperous. 

Cuba Lodge, No. 691, L. 0. 0. F., was organized January 31, 1894, the 
present officers are: T. M. Shafer, N. G.; L. L. Brown, P. G.; H. K. Marsh, 
V G.; J. E. Dewey, Sec; D. C. Smith, Per. Sec; A. Unger, Treas.; B. H. 
Shearer, Warden; Burt Scott, Con.; W. A. Bates, R. S. N. G.; W. H. Clapp, 
L. S. N. G.; C. J. Moses, R. S. V. G.; J. F. Olive, L. S. V. G.; W. J. Beech- 
er, R. S. S.; F. A. Loveridge, L.; R. R. Lockwood, I. G.; J. T. Moses, O. G.; 

F. W. Westford, Chap. Membership about 100. 

Orient Encamjmient, No. 58, I. 0. 0. F., was removed from Wellsville in 
July, 1895. The officers are: George Lutzie, C. P.; D. C. Smith, H. P.; L. 
L. Brown, S. W.; J. E. Dewey, Scribe; O. D. Hammond, Treas.; T. M. Sha- 
fer, J. W.; B. H. Shearer, 1st W.; W. H. Clapp, 2d W.; E. L. Hicks, 3d W.; 
F. A. Loveridge, 4th W.; J. M. Sullivan, 1st G. of T.; G. W. Cook, 2d G. of 
T.; F. W. Westford, L S.; Charles Little, O. S. 

Cuba Lodge, No. 78, A. 0. U. T4^.— This lodge of the Ancient Order of 
United Workmen was organized March 7, 1877, with 20 charter members. 
It has been a fairly successful lodge, and the present officers are: J. M. 
Sullivan, master; F. B. Sibley, foreman; E. A. Bartlett, recorder; A. A. 
Gail, financier; C. H. Enos, receiver. 

Stephen T. Bartle Post, No. 183, G. A. P., was organized Oct. 25, 1880, with 
14 members. The commanders have been: W. H. Withey, 1880; H. J. Swift, 
1881, '82, '83; C. H. Miner, 1884, '85; A. S. Thompson, 1886; R. H. Grady, 
1887; E. O'Malley, 1888; C. Miner, 1889, '90, '91; F. J. Ehman, 1892; S. K. 
Ford, 1893; F. B. Brown, 1894; A. S. Thompson, 1895. Present member- 
ship 82. A strong Ladies' Relief Corps is a loyal aid to the Post. 



Cuba. 839 

Cuba Grange, P. of H., No. 799, holds regular meetings semi-monthly in 
G. A. R. Hall. 

A Tent of K. O. T. M. was organized in 1885, with 15 charter members. 
Present membershii) 140. A "Hive " of L. O. T. M. was organized in June, 
1893. There is a lodge No. 553 of Knights of Honor. Cuba Union, No. 47, E. 
A. U. Thel.O. G. T. have had seasons of prosperity and adversity. Of 
other organizations some have surrendered their charters, while others 
have been successful. 

The Cuba Circulating Library. — This library was established in 1873 
through the efforts of Rev. L. P. Blackford and Mr. J. C. Seely, as a stock 
company, many of the leading citizens of the village and town becoming stock- 
holders. In 1879 the number of volumes was about 700. The number at 
present is 1,600, and the books are well chosen and standard works. The 
trustees are E. D. Loveridge, Geo. H. Eldridge, S. C. Swift, F. L. Charles, 
Mrs. L. W. Sheldon, A. A. Lawrence and C. A. Ackerly. The present offi- 
cers are: Geo. H. Eldridge, president; H. C. Morgan, treasurer; P. B. Sib- 
ley, secretary; and Mrs. R. S. Armstrong, librarian. 

Sliahespeare Amateurs and Shakesjieare Club. — The pioneer ladies' club of 
Cuba is the " Shakespeare Amateurs," organized in September, 1887, with 
these officers: Mary Helen Watrous, president; Lena Todd, secretary; 
Maude Whipple, treasurer; Mrs. Christina H. Charles, critic; Adele Rafter, 
1st teller; Florence Thompson, 2d teller. The present officers are, Lena 
Todd, president; Lurale Bartlett, vice-president; Mae Smith, treasurer; 
Mrs. Christina H. Charles, critic. From its organization, this club has al- 
ways, from September till July, every Wednesday evening at 7 o'clock, met 
with Mrs. Christiana H. Charles (the mother of the club and its patroness). 
Membership 20. In October, 1887, the " Shakespeare Club " was organized. 
Mrs. Christina Howell Charles and Mrs. Harriet W. Armstrong were the 
chief promoters. Its objects are "the pursuit of Shakespearian study, as a 
means of intellectual improvement and literary culture, and to stimulate 
intellectual development." The active membership is 20. The first officers 
were: president, Mrs. Christina Howell Charles; secretary, Mrs. Harriet 
W. Armstrong; treasurer, Mrs. Elizabeth W. Sheldon. The present officers 
are, Mrs. Christina H. Charles, president; Mrs. Albert Arnold, vice-presi- 
dent; Mrs. Albert Lawrence, recording secretary; Mrs. Rufus Eldridge, 
corresponding secretary; Mrs. Newton Sheldon, treasurer; Mrs. Harriet 
W. Armstrong, critic. 

The advantages of Cuba are very neatly summed up as follows by Edit- 
or Coad in the Cuba Post : 

Six churches. Population, 3,000. Two newspapers. Three first-class hotels. An excel- 
lent steam laundry. Natural gas for fuel and lights. Enterprising, live business men. Hand- 
some, shady and well kept streets. Local and long distance telephone service. Opera house 
with seating capacity for 700. Excellent railway service and shipping facilities. One of the 
finest gravity water systems in the state. Two first-class banks — First National and Cuba Na- 
tional. One of the best Union Schools in the stale, with a corps of eight teachers. One of the 



840 History op Allegany County, N. Y. 

best Fair Grounds in Western New York, with an A No. i mile track. A volunteer fire depart- 
ment equal to the best ; three active companies, and first-class apparatus. Steam roller flour 
mills, large gristmill, butter package factory, cutter and wagon factory, large sawmills, three plan- 
ing mills, new cold storage building, foundry and machine shop, bicycle works, three livery sta- 
bles, two creameries. The Cuba Temperance Assembly — the assembly grounds being located at 
the south side of the village — draws, from all over this section, thousands of visitors annually. 
The assembly is held for one week, during the month of August, at which those who attend 
are privileged to listen to some of the best platform speakers in the United States, and the 
musical program is fully equal to the oratory. The grounds are delightful, and the large cov- 
ered auditorium seats over 2,000 people. Cuba is one of the prettiest villages in Western New 
York. Located on the lines of the Erie and W. N. Y. & P. railroads, every facility for trans- 
portation is offered. Adjacent to that beautiful sheet of water — Lake Cuba, — blessed with a 
healthy and invigorating atmosphere, and possessed of one of the most famous and health- 
giving sulphur springs, Cuba is a favorite place of summer resort for an ever-increasing num- 
ber of visitors. As seen from the Erie railway, which encircles three-fourths of the village, 
Cuba is one of the prettiest little towns between New York and Dunkirk. 



Of Cuba's Citizens. — Albert A. Arnold, son of Gilbert and Meletiah (Webber) Arnold 
was born at Peoria, 111., April 16, 1846, and, after his father's death (October, 1847), he came 
with his mother in 1848 to Rushford. About 1850 they settled near the reservoir in Cuba. Mrs. 
Arnold died in 1879. Albert A. Arnold, once a poor boy with a widowed mother dependent on 
him, is truly a self-made man, and has accumulated a competence. Educated at Rushford Acade- 
my, he came, in April, 1870, to Cuba and began clerking. He purchased the" Old Corner Gro- 
cery " lot and building, July i, 1874, but could not get possession to go into business until Feb. 
I, 1881, when he bought out L. N. Stevens. Oct. 8, 1883, Mr. Arnold was burned out, losing 
over $1,200. In 1885 he erected the fine Arnold block in which he conducted grocery trade 
until recently. In this b ock are located the postoffice, W. U. telegraph office, several stores 
and offices. At his own expense ($1,500) Mr. Arnold put in the handsome Yale & Towne 
postoffice outfit in Cuba. He has been village trustee six years and assessor as long. He was 
one of the prime movers (when trustee) to secure for the village the present village water sys- 
tem. He is an Odd Fellow and a Freemason, and is a member of St. Johns Commandery, 
Olean. Mr. Arnold married, Nov. 2. 1875, Pamelia, youngest daughter of William and Eme- 
line (Wasson) Bennett, who was born at Hinsdale, educated at Friendship Academy, and taught 
school several terms. They have one child, Florence R. 

George Amsden was born in Belfast Jan. 2, 1837. His father, Isaac, born in Madison Co. 
in 1806, died in May, 1890. He came to Belfast in 1835, to Cuba in 1837, and settled on the 
Wm. Jackson farm on Jackson Hill. He married, first, Cynthia Webster of Madison Co., who 
died in 1839. Their children were Oscar H., Arvilla, Mahala (Mrs. C. H. Morgan) and George. 
Mr. Amsden married, second, Mary J. Mcintosh of Belfast. Their children were Cynthia, 
Mary J. and Charfes. The third wife of Mr. Amsden was Louisa Bishop of Rushford. Chil- 
dren : Frank and Ira. In 1889 he married, fourth, Victoria Renwick. George Amsden, when 
two years old, on his mother's death, went to live with Henry Kinney of North Cuba. Mr. 
Kinney was born Oct. 14, 1808, married Philinda Webster Sept. 17, 1839. and died April 7, 
1878. Mrs. Kinney, born July 21, 181 3, died May 27, 1882. George Amsden married, Jan. 2, 
i860, Martha, daughter of Washington and Matilda (Torrey) Johnson of New Hudson, and 
soon located on his present farm. He had before this operated various cheese factories in 
Cuba. Mrs. Amsden was born at Attica, N. Y., Oct. 5, 1839. Their children are Ophelia, Alva 
and Roy. Mr. Amsden was one of the organizers of the North Cuba Oil Co. in 1891. A well 
was drilled on his farm for 1,500 feet but no oil found. A vein of gas was struck at 912 feet, 
which was piped to his residence which it supplied with heat, etc. 

Verne W. Alexander, D. D. S., son of Nelson Alexander, was born in New Hudson April 
11,1872. He was graduated from the dental department of Vanderbilt University of Nash- 
ville, Tenn., in 1891. After a short stay in Franklinville, Pa., and Belfast, he located in Cuba 



Cuba. 841 

in 1894. He is a member of Allegany County Dental Association, of Cuba Lodge, I. O. O. F. 
No. 691, F. & A. M. No. 306. and K. O. T. M. Tent No. 12. 

Milo Fannin Baldwin, son of Jacob and Elizabeth (York) Baldwin, was born May 19, 1816, 
at Henrietta, Monroe Co. Jacob Baldwin came to Cuba (then Friendship) in 1818 and his 
family in 1820. He, with Stephen Cady, built a sawmill in 1818 and a gristmill in 1820 or '2X 
at North Cuba. These they operated 5 or 6 years, when Mr. Baldwin took the sawmill and Mr. 
Cady the gristmill. No trace of either of these mills now remain but the millstones. Mr. 
Baldwin always kept tavern until within a few years of his death, which occurred in April, 1857. 
One of his taverns was widely known as " The Buck Horn," from a huge pair of buck's horns 
hung in front of the hostelry. Mrs. Jacob Baldwin died in 1875. The children of Jacob and 
Elizabeth (York) Baldwin were Milo F., Jeremiah, Ezra S., Fanny M., Amanda M., Lucretia, 
Converse and Julia L. Milo F. Baldwin early became engaged in lumbering, running rafts 
down the Allegany and Ohio rivers, continuing this business more or less all his life. He was 
always a farmer, and as a real-estate dealer handled many farms in the town. He was justice 
of the peace two terms, constable, poormaster, and collector. December 30, 1874, he married 
Emily Willey of Cuba. Mr. Baldwin was a Democrat in politics and liberal in religious belief. 
He was a Freemason and an Odd Fellow. He resided in the hamlet of North Cuba, and died 
March i, 1895. 

George Wilson Baldwin, son of Lonson and Sally (Conant) Baldwin, was born Feb. 8, 
1839, on his farm at North Cuba, where his great-grandfather, Phineas Baldwin, was one of 
the earliest settlers. His grandfather, Anslem, a farmer, came to Cuba from Henrietta, N. Y,, 
in 1829. His children were Lonson, Celestia, Rebecca, James L. and Ansel (enlisted during 
the civil war in the 85th N. Y., Co. F, died and was buried at Plymouth, N. C.) Lonson Bald- 
win and Sally Conant were married Jan. 9, 1838, and celebrated their " golden wedding " in 
1888. Their children are George W., Orson A., Louise (Mrs. C. H. Morgan), Stella and 
Irene Sophia (adopted). George W. Baldwin enlisted in 1862 in Co. A, 136th N. Y. Vols., was 
in 15 engagements, was wounded at Averysboro, N. C, March 16. 1865, was discharged for 
disability after three years service, and is now a pensioner. The ball he received at Averysboro 
still remains in his left ankle, the surgeons having failed to extract it. Since the war he has 
been a farmer on 200 of the 800 acres purchased by his grandfather of the Holland Land Co. 

William A. Bates, son of Abner, was born in Olean in 1856 and in 1861 accompanied his 
father to Chicago where he was educated in the public schools. In 1869 the family came to 
Cuba when Abner engaged in carriage manufacturing. William learned the tinsmith trade 
and in 1886 established the manufacturing industry which under his management has grown to 
large proportions (see industries). Mr. Bates is the inventor and patentee not only of the vari- 
ous goods manufactured, but also of the different kinds of machinery used to manufacture the 
goods. Since 1891 Mr. Bates has been chief of the Cuba Fire Department and a member 
since 1873, has been foreman of Rescue fire company for eight years and is captain of the 
Whipple Hose Company's running team. In 1891 Mr. Bates married Miss Lillie Cole. 

William Currier, son of Joseph and Mary Currier, was born in Corinth, Vt., Oct. 30, 181 2. 
His parents settled in Holland, Erie county, in 1816, and, as William was the oldest child, and 
as his folks were poor, he had to work at anything he could find to do to support the family and 
had in all only about 3 months' schooling. He however chopped over 100 acres of heavy tim- 
ber and cleared up 50 acres of it, besides his work for others. Nov. 18, 1833, he married Julia 
Ann Babcock in China, N. Y., settled on Townsend Hill in Concord, Erie Co., and learned 
blacksmithing. March 9, 1841, he moved to Cuba and worked at his trade till 1849, when ill 
health prevented steady continuance at it, and in 1851 he opened a grocery store which he con- 
ducted 9 years. In January, 1861, he moved to Clarksville and was a farmer until Aug. 27, 
1873, when, moving again to Cuba, he rebuilt his house and barn that had been burned, and 
engaged in manufacturing and selling picture frames for 1 5 years, and later went into the bak- 
ery business. He has been a Freemason for 40 years, being the first person initiated in Cuba 
Lodge, No. 306, F. & A. M., after its re-organization. His first wife died April 19, 1856, and 
Oct. 26, 1856, he married Mrs. A. Searle. His six children by his first wife are dead. Mr. and 
Mrs. Currier are members of the Universalist church. 

Justin E. Dewey was born at Honeoye, June 7, 1853. He was graduated from the Gene- 
seo Normal School in 1876, and afterwards took a course at Chautauqua College. He has 
since been engaged in teaching. He taught 2 years at Belfast, 9 years at Limestone, and has 
been principal of Cuba High School since 1888. In 1878 he married Grace Flinn of Belfast. 
Mr. Dewey is a member of Cuba Lodge, No. 306, F. Sc A. M., (serving as master for the 3d 
year,) Valley Point Chapter and St. John's Commandery of Olean. He is a member of the I. 
O. O. F., No. 691, is a noble grand of this order, state Lieut, Com. of K. O. T. M., a member 
of Cuba Tent, No. 12, supreme representative of E. A. U., scribe of Orient Encampment, No. 
53, and treasurer of Y. M. C. A. 



842 History of Allegany County, N. Y 



Franklin Jeremiah Burdick, son of Jeremiah and Rachel (Fletcher) Burdick, was born in 
Cortland Co., May 7, 1819. Jeremiah Burdick came to Bolivar in 1830 and lived there until 
his death in 1873. He owned and operated a gristmill. His children were Franklin J., Susan, 
Henry, Melvin, Oramel, Otis, Dwight, Emily, Rachel and Billings. Franklin J. Burdick re- 
moved to Angelica about 1856, thence to Amity, and in 1888 came to Cuba and settled on his 
present farm north of the village. In 1840 he married Mary, daughter of William and Phebe 
(Scofield) Wilson, of Angelica, and their children are Helen Josephine and Alba Elton. Mrs. 
Burdick died in Amity. Mr. Burdick is a blacksmith by trade. 

William Campbell, son of Rufus R. and Hannah (Post) Campbell, was born on his pres- 
ent farm in North Cuba, June 10, 1833. Robert, father of Rufus R., came from Pompey, N.' 
Y., to Cuba in 1821. Two of his sons, James M. and Dillon, came in 1822. Rufus R. Camp- 
bell was a justice of the peace and a surveyor many years. He died in 1847. Robert Camp- 
bell died about 1839 ; his wife died in Onondaga Co. The family is of Scotch-Irish extraction. 
Rufus R. Campbell and Hannah Post were married Oct. 19, 1829. Children : Lucien, born 
May 29, 1831 ; William; Lydia A., born May 29, 1835 ; Erastus C, born Jan. 9, 1838; Darius 
E., born Feb. 18, 1841 ; Edwin O., born June 15, 1844. Lucien, William and Lydia are living. 
William Campbell attended Alfred Academy, taught school i year in Kentucky and 3 winters 
in Cuba. He has been poormaster i year, road commissioner 2 years and assessor 10 years. 
He married, first, Oct. 6, 1857, Emeline A., daughter of Ammi and Mary (Pratt; Carrier, of 
Cuba. They had one child, Ammi Rufus. His second wife, Helen P., daughter of Erastus 
and Eleanor (Campbell) Webster, he married June 2, 1878. Mr. Campbell is a strong Repub- 
lican, and with his family attends the Presbyterian church. 

John F. Coad was born at Woodstock, Canada, in 1863. He was educated at Upper 
Canada College at Toronto. In 1884 he came to Cuba and was local editor of the Cuba Pa- 
triot for 8 years, and for 2 years was local editor of the Ifhaca Democrat. Jan. i, 1895, he 
became editor and manager of the Genesee Valley Post, published at Cuba, and March 20, 
1896, became sole proprietor of the /"^.y/. He married, Feb. i, 1894, Caroline G. Park, His 
father, James Coad, came to Cuba in 1881 and engaged in the furniture business. 

Sandford Stoddard Cole, only child of John B. and Sophia (Stoddard) Cole, was born 
March 2, 1846, in Ledyard, Conn. John B. Cole came to Cuba from Rhode Island in 1833 and 
settled on a farm in the east part of the town. His brother Joseph came at this time, and his 
brother Stephen W., who came previously, was a civil engineer, and assisted in surveying the 
route for the Erie Railroad through Cuba. (See Friendship.) Mrs. John B. Cole died in 1856, 
and Mr. Cole married, second, Abby C. Wheeler. He died January i, 1882. Sandford S. Cole 
attended Friendship Academy. He has always been a farmer, and has bought and sold cheese. 
June 27, 1872, he married Kate J., daughter of Truman Ives, of Salisbury, Herkimer Co. She 
died in May, 1873, and Mr. Cole married September 14, 1874, Clara S., daughter of Ahira and 
Susan Eldridge. Children : Kate, John B., Stephen W., Hattie, George S., Mary and Emma. 
John B. Cole, Sr., was for some time a stockholder in the Cuba State (now National) Bank, 
which interest is now held by Sandford S. 

George H. Eldridge, son of Ahira A. and Susan (Hatch) Eldridge, was born in Greenville, 
Bond Co., Ill,, July 26, 1838. After a residence of 3 years in Jackson county. Ark., he removed 
to Friendship in December, 1852, where he made his residence until September, 1868, when he 
moved to Cuba. He enlisted in Co. K, 136th N. Y. Inf., as first lieutenant and was promoted 
through the various positions to that of major, being honorably discharged June 25, 1865. Mr. 
Eldridge married, May 19, 1868, Frances Colwell of Cuba. Their children are Rufus C, George 
C, Alice C. (Mrs. Lawrence) and Frances Colwell Eldridge. Mr. Eldridge has been in mer- 
chandizing since 1865, first as a grocer then as a dealer in clothing and as a drygoods merchant 
since 1867. In 1876 he erected his present store, a two-story brick building, and carries a full 
stock of drygoods, cloaks, carpets, boots, shoes, etc. He has one of the most complete de- 
partment stores in all this section. Mr. Eldridge was postmaster 10 years under Andrew John- 
son and Gen. Grant's administration. He has held no elective offices, but has served his town 
as trustee in different interests. He was secretary of Cuba Fair and Cuba Temperance Assem- 
bly, president of the Library Association, is director and president of the First National Bank 
of Cuba. He has been in touch with all advance movements, in business, in moral and in 
Christian circles. He is prominently connected with the Cuba Temperance Camp Meeting, has 
been one of the chief anti-liquor men of Cuba, and an owner of the Prohibition newspaper. 
He is a " live " business man, and his store is one df the model ones of the county, 

Isaac Failing, born in Oppenheim, N. Y., Sept. 16, 1824, is a son of Peter J. and Phebe 
(Starks) Failing. He came to Hume in 1840, and worked at farming and later at blacksmith- 
ing, and owned a shop on the bank of the creek opposite the gristmill in Hume, About 4 years 
later he conducted the L. H. Sweet farm and then engaged in lumbering. In 1852 he pur- 
chased the northeast farm in Rushford, removed to it, and in 1856 sold it and bought a farm of 



Cuba. 843 

250 acres in New Hudson. In 1870 he came to Cuba village and his present home, and has 
dealt in farm implements, carts, carriages, etc. He has been overseer of the poor for several 
years in Cuba. Mr. Failing married, March 8, 1851, Charlotte M. Couch. They had one child, 
who died young. He married, second, Dec. 24, 1891, Allena M., daughter of William Snyder 
of Bradford, Pa. Mr. Failing has retired from active business, and, with his wife, enjoys his 
pleasant home on Main street. 

Giles Frederick Gallup, son of Joseph and Abby A. (Dennison) Gallup, was born in Cuba 
April 21, 1843, on the farm now owned by Jefferson G. Halsted, where Joseph Gallup settled 
when he came to Cuba about 1839. He died in May, 1887. His wife is still living. Their 
children were Oscar, Ellen, Frances, Gurdon, Charlotte, Elizabeth, Giles F., Emma and Charles. 
Oscar, Gurdon and Charles Gallup enlisted and served as soldiers in the civil war. Charles was 
wounded and died in the hospital at Philadelphia. Giles F. Gallup moved to his present farm 
in 1859. He married, Oct. 3, 1865, Mary Eliza, daughter of Jabez Green of Cuba. Their 
children are Charles, Grace, Nellie, Carrie and Abby. The family is much respected. 

John Bruce Giles, son of George O. and Jane Hayford Giles, was born in Farmersville May 
10,1856. He is a graduate of the Ten Broeck Academy. In 1877 Mr. Giles went to Lime- 
stone and clerked for Bell Bros. 3 years, and for 2 years had charge of their store in Coleville. 
He then became a partner in the firm of Bell Bros. & Giles at Carrollton, where they did a 
business of $61,000 the first year. After 3 years he sold his interest, and January 13,1885, 
opened a general store at Clarksville, and January 15, 1887, his store was burned, and 4 days 
after his insurance money was paid, and he was doing business in another store. In 1888 he 
went to McComb, Ohio, kept a general store and dealt in live stock, hay, grain, etc. In 1891 he 
came to Cuba and was in company with E.Adams in a general store. In 1892 Mr. Adams 
sold out and the firm of Giles & Swift continued till 1896. Mr. Giles was postmaster and town 
clerk in Clarksville, is a member of Cuba Lodge No. 306, F. & A. M., since 1892 has been 
finance keeper of Star Tent, No. 12, K. O. T. M., is receiver for E. K. O. R. lodge of Cuba. 
October 10, 1884, he married Helen M., daughter of G. D. Swift, and has 2 children, DeAlton 
and Loraine. George DeAlton Swift, son of Truman, was born in Rushford about 1830. He 
married Mary Lewis. Their children were Helen (Mrs. J. B. Giles) and Arlomine (Mrs. Benja- 
min Lee of McComb, Ohio). In 1858 Mr. Swift settled in Cuba and was in merchandising 
several years. He died July 6, 1870. His widow resides in Cuba. 

William J. Glenn, son of Jefferson C, was born in Dansville, Livingston Co., July 2, 1862, 
and educated at Wellsville academy. In September, 1879, he went into the office of the Alle- 
gany County Reporter, and remained there three years. About this time he married Miss Jes- 
sie A., daughter of Dwight and Mary (Dunham) Goodrich. They have two children. Jan. i, 
1883, he, with W. J. Beecher, purchased the Cuba Patriot of W. J. Stebbins. In 1887 Mr. 
Beecher withdrew, Mr. Glenn "taking as partner S. C. Swift. The paper was continued under 
the name of W. J. Glenn & Co. Mr. Glenn was also partner with S. C. Swift in the Genesee 
Valley nurseries. He was appointed postmaster at Cuba, April 15, 1889, by President Harri- 
son, and retained the position until March, 1894. In 1886 he was elected secretary and treas- 
urer of the Republican counry committee and held that office four years. In 1890 he was 
elected a member of the Republican state committee and has since held that office. Mr. Glenn 
has taken active part in Allegany county politics, and been recognized as a leader of his party 
for years. Under his leadership the party has grown stronger, and it might be said that for 
eight years he has named every officer that has been elected. He put a stop to the old practice 
of candidates having to buy their nominations. At the Republican state convention held at 
Saratoga Springs, Sept. 16, 1895, this resolution was adopted : " Resolved, That we unanimous- 
ly indorse the candidacy of our fellow member, William J. Glenn, for doorkeeper of the house 
of representatives of the fifty-fourth congress, and, for his long and faithful service to the party, 
we are gratified to know that he is the unanimous choice of the Republican representatives of 
this state." At the opening of Congress in December, 1895, Mr. Glenn was elected as door- 
keeper of the National House of Representatives, a position which carries much influence. Mr. 
Glenn is also proprietor of the Cuba Patriot. 

Royal H. Grady, son of William Grady, a carpenter and builder, who came to Cuba from 
Albany in 1834 and died in 1878, was born in Cuba Aug. 6, 1841. He learned the trade of 
carpenter of his father, and has since been a contractor and builder. He married Augusta J. 
Smith and had 6 children, 4 of whom are living. Mr. Grady enlisted in the 28th N. Y. as musi- 
cian and served 15 months. He is a member of S. T. Bartle Post, No. 183, G. A. R., and 
holds the office of adjutant ; also secretary in Allegany County G. A. R. Association. He 
has been president of the fire department several years, and is foreman of Rescue Hose Co. No. 
I, also life member of the State Firemen's Association of New York. 

Rev. James Griffin, son of Patrick and Jane (Holleran) Griffin, was born in West Almond, 
Feb. 2, 1856. His education was acquired at the public schools and St. Bonaventure College 



844 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

and Seminary, where he was graduated in 1882. He commenced ministrations at once at Rex- 
ville, and after 7 months, in 1883 was stationed at Horseheads, and did excellent service there 
until 1889 when he came to Cuba as pastor of the church of Our Lady of Angels, and had 
charge also of the congregations at Bolivar and Friendship. June 21. 1895. he was called to 
Bath to take charge of the important Catholic church at that place. His residence at Cuba was a 
highly profitable one for the church. " As a pastor Father Griffin has been loved by his church 
and as a citizen he has won respect." He was succeeded as pastor at Cuba by Rev. John J. 
Rogers. 

Charles Guilford, son of Samuel A. and Irene (Harrison) Guilford, was born in Friendship, 
July 28, 1833, and his parents came to Cuba in the fall of 1833. His grandfather, Samuel Guil- 
ford, came to Belfa.=t with an ox and a horse team about 1820 from Ontario Co. with a large 
family of children. Samuel A. Guilford for many years operated what was known as Smith's 
gristmill. He is now living with his son Charles. His wife died in May, 1869. Their children 
were Charles, Roxa (Mrs. S. P. Swift), Anna M. (Mrs. O. S. Vreeland) and Rolla F. (dec). 
Charles Guilford attended Alfred Academy and taught school two winters. He early began 
life as a farmer and continued it as his vocation for many years. He was highway commis- 
sioner in 1870, and supervisor in 1871, '72, '79, '80, '81 and '82. For five years he was president of 
the Cuba Agricultural Society and for 16 years one of its directors. September 11, 1855, he 
married Emma J., adopted daughter of A. M. Scott of Cuba, and their children are Roy (dec), 
Lizzie L (dec), Hattie M., C. Ross, Jennie (dec), Harry, Simon and Olive. Mr. Guilford is lib- 
eral in religious belief, and has always been a Republican. 

Jefferson German Halsted, son of Theodore and Hannah (Hart) Halsted, was born June 
13, 1826, in Cuba. His father removed there in 1824 or '25, and settled in the southeast part of 
the town. Theodore Halsted was always a farmer and for awhile was engaged in lumbering, 
and died here in 1867. He was prominent in town affairs. Jefferson G. Halsted resided on the 
homestead farm until 1858, when he moved to his present farm. In August, 1851, he married 
Frances A., daughter of Joseph and Abby Ann Gallup, of Cuba. (Mrs. Halsted was born in 
Pennsylvania, Oct. 24, 1833.) Their children were Sibyl, George H., Elizabeth A. (dec), Charles 
J., Fred M.. Thomas J., J. Albert, Adella (dec), Roxa (dec), Stella, Emma Ann (dec), and 
Cora P. Mr. Halsted has been road commissioner and justice of the peace, and in 1892 was 
excise commissioner. He is a firm Prohibitionist. 

Francis Eugene Hammond, son of Horatio N. (born June 24, 181 2), and Sophia L. (Ben- 
nett) Hammond, was born in Rushford, June 9, 1841, on the farm where his mother was born 
in 1815. Horatio N. came with his parents to Rushford from Cayuga county in 1814. His 
father, John, born in Saratoga county was a surveyor and a Grand Master of the Masonic fra- 
ternity of this state, and himself officiated in the marriage ceremony at Horatio's wedding. 
The Bennetts were New Englanders, Francis E. Hammond was graduated from Rushford 
Academy in June, 1863, taught school from the age of 16 to 23. He has been an oil operator 
since 1865, and for 15 years was an oil operator while living near Oil City, Pa. In 1880 he 
made his home on his present farm in North Cuba. In 1892 he sold his oil interests in Pennsyl- 
vania, retaining his Allegany county holdings. Mr. Hammond was supervisor in 1885, '86, '87 
and '88. He was the first nominee made by the People's party for Congress in the 34th dis- 
trict of New York, receiving over 2,000 votes. He married in September, 1867, Emma L., 
daughter of David and Lodensy (Butterfield) Scott of Cuba. Their children are Victor Hugo, 
Virgil Scott (dec), Eugene Lynn, Cleo Nelson, Haidee Florizel, Halley Waldo and Evangeline. 

Lemuel Tryon Hendryx was born in Cuba. May 14, 1851. His grandfather, Nathan, born 
in Georgetown, Madison county, in 1772, came to Cuba in 1835. He was a carpenter, and died 
Feb. 21, 1858. He married Aminda Webber, born in 1791, died Feb. 19, 1872. His son, 
James, born Aug. 28, 1820, at Woodstock, Madison county, came to Cuba with his parents. He 
was a farmer and a staunch Democrat. He married, first, February, 1843, Cynthia, daughter 
of Isaac Sibley of Cuba. They had one son, Albert Van Buren, born March 18, 1847. Mrs. 
Cynthia Hendryx was born March 18, 1823, and died June 8, 1847. James Hendryx married, 
second, June 18, 1850, Eunice, daughter of Lemuel and Lydia (Forbes) Tryon, born Jan. 21, 
1825. She died Feb. i, 1887. Their children were Lemuel T., Fred H., born Dec. 18, 1856, 
died Sept. 11, 1879; Alberty, born Aug. 26, 1859, died Jan. 9, 1861; Winthrop C, born July 20. 
1861; Daton Ellsworth, born Sept. 15, 1863, and Jay Gardner, born Nov. 10, 1865. James 
Hendryx died at Cuba Oct. 25, 1875. Lemuel T. Hendryx was reared a farmer, and about 
1870 began buying and shipping cattle, which business he has since followed. He has been 
excise commissioner several years, and m politics is a Democrat. Dec. 20. 1870, he married 
Anna E., daughter of Franklin and Martha (Hampton) Buckman. They have had no children. 
Daton E. Hendryx married Rose Rock of Belfast, Oct. 27, 1885. He resides in Cuba, Jay G. 
Hendryx married Ella Hill of Cuba, March 10, 1887. Children, Daton Frank, born Sept. 27, 
1888, and George, born Feb. 13, 1890. 



Cuba. 845 

Sylvester John Ingalls, son of John W. and Elizabeth (Marshall) Ingalis, was born in Cuba 
Jan. 15, 1835, on his present farm. John W. Ingalls (born Dec. 31, 1806) and Elizabeth Mar- 
shall (born June 8, 1804, died Feb. 8, 1887), were married Sept. i, 1828, and came to Cuba in 
the winter and settled on the farm now owned by S. J. Ingalls. Their children were Hibbard 
(dec), Clementina, Amanda, Elizibeth M., Sylvester J., Frederick M., Orpha Jane (dec), Charles 
H. (dec), Samuel H. (dec), Oscar H. and Emma (dec). Sylvester J. Ingalls married Oct. 24, 1859, 
Diana C, daughter of Daniel and Mary V. (Buell) Vaughan of New Hudson. She was born 
June 28, 1829. Daniel Vaughan died in 1884, his wife Sept. 6, 1842. The children of S. J. In- 
galls are Leon C. (married Nov. 26, 1889, Jessie Pugh and has children Earl C. and Edith E.), 
Leason F. (married Nov. 4, 18S6, Flora A. Sill,) Grant (married Oct. 27, 1892, Lottie Wakefield. 
Child, Harry Floyd,) and Edith E. (married Oct. 17, 1886, George W. St. John of Illinois, who 
has children Tracy G. and Leota E.). Mr. Ingalls is a prosperous farmer at North Cuba. 

Samuel Ingalls and wife, Margaret Delmo, came from Canada to Cuba among the very 
first settlers. Aaron Ingalls came about 1827 and settled on a farm adjoining Charles Guil- 
ford's. He died in February, 1886, and his wife in July, 1857. Their children were Philetus 
D., Benjamin, Margaret M., Sally M. (dec), Frank, Emma Jane and Ann Duain (dec), twins, 
Amelia O. and Mary (dec). 

Andrew and Christopher Keller, brothers, came from Georgetown, Pa., to Cuba about 
1822, took up lots of wild land on what is now known as Keller Hiil. Andrew Keller had ir 
children, only one survives, Calvin of Portville. James Keller, son of Andrew, married Nancy 
Wirt and settled on the old homestead farm and at the time of his death resided with his son 
Edson H. His children are Frances (Mrs. Clark Lines of Spring Brook), Flora (Mrs. George 
Weltz of Auburn), Melton B. of Olean, Hattie (Mrs. A. T. Eaton of Olean), Marriette (Mrs. 
John Barton of Olean), Helen (Mrs. Wallace Groves of Friendship) and Edson H., who enlisted 
in Co. B, 23d Regt. N. Y. V. in April, 1861, and had served 2 years when he re-enlisted in Co, 
H, 2d Regt. N. Y. Mounted Rifles in 1863 as commissary sergeant and was discharged in Sep- 
tember, 1865. He married Mary Crosby, and settled in Cuba. He has been in the tinsmith 
business, and was in the hardware trade for 7 years. His wife died leaving 2 children, Sarah 
(Mrs. H. S. Wagoner of East Aurora) and Arthur. His second wife was Anna Hall. They 
have 2 children, William H. and Harry E. Mr. Keller is a member of S. T. Bartle Post, 183, 
a member of Cuba Lodge 306, F. & A. M., Valley Point Chapter, No, 232, R. A. M., St. Johns 
Commandery, No. 24, K. T. of Olean. 

Fred Adell Keller, son of Enos and Mandana (Wesler) Keller, was born on Keller Hill in 
Hinsdale, Cattaraugus county, Jan. 17, 1859. Christopher Keller, his grandfather moved to Kel- 
lerHill, 3 miles from Cuba village, was the first settler there and the hill received its name from him, 
Enos Keller removed to a farm in Cuba in the fall of 1882, where he now lives, but still owns 
his farm in Cattaraugus county. Fred A. Keller came to Cuba in 1884, and to his present farm 
at North Cuba in 1887. March 12, 1884, he married Ophelia, daughter of George and Martha 
(Johnson) Amsden of Jackson Hill, Cuba. Their son George G. was born Jan. i, 1886. Mr. 
Keller is a Republican in politics. 

Ora D. Kinney was born June 3, 1828, in Madison county, N. Y. In 1851 he married 
Miss Margaret Jordan, a daughter of James and Catharine Jordan of Cuba. They had 5 chil- 
dren : Arthur J., Eva Florence (dec), Carrie E., Ida May (dec), and Florence. Mrs. Kinney 
died August 30, 1879. January 3, 1 881, he married, second, Mrs. Margaret McDougal of Cuba. 
Mr. Kinney kept a hotel in Clarksville for 3 years, and the Kinney House at Belfast 2>^ years. 
He came to Cuba May i, 1885, and was proprietor of the Kinney House until his death, Nov. 
4, 1886. Since then the house has been kept by his widow and his son Arthur, who was born 
Oct. 28, 1 85 1. This house (Hotel Kinney) is one of the finest in Allegany county. The rooms 
are exceptionally neat and spacious, 25 of which are used for transients. At the time of Mr. 
Kinney's death the house was unfinished but has since been completed by Mrs. Kinney and his 
son Arthur, who has had the management and assumed its entire supervision, and who during 
the past year has expended in improvements over $3,000. 

David Kirkpatnck. The name Kirkpatrick is old in Scottish history. The family possessed 
estates in Nithsdale in the 9th century, the first on record being Ivone Kirkpatrick, a witness to 
the charter of Robert Bruce. A descendant, Thomas, was created Baronet of Nova Scotia in 
1686. The coat of arms bears a dagger \n pale distilling drops of blood, with motto : " I make 
sure." Alexander, who came to America in 1736 and settled in New Jersey was the first 
American emigrant of this branch. Among his descendants was Alexander, grandfather of 
David and brother of Chief Justice Andrew and Captain David. Third among his 13 children 
was John, who married Mary, daughter of David Ayers, and died Dec. 11, 1855. Children: 
William A., Elizabeth, Hannah A., Ira, Sarah C, Samuel A., and David, who came to Friend- 
ship with their parents in 1822, and Walter and Mary Jane born here. Mrs. John Kirkpatrick 
died in Cuba, whither she came with her husband in 1844, Dec. 19, 1862. John Kirkpatrick, a 



846 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

miller, for several years operated gristmills in Friendship, Cuba, Angelica, Richburg, and 
Franklinville. He held several town offices. Walter Kirkpatrick in 1846 went to Wisconsin, 
where he now resides. William Kirkpatrick was born in New Jersey in 1809, came to Cuba in 
1835, and died in 1890. With Gen. C. T. Chamberlain he built in 1844 a gristmill on the site of 
the Phelps & Sibley mill. This was burned in 1878. He was a railroad and canal contractor 
and for many years was superintendent of the Genesee Valley canal. David Kirkpatrick, born 
in Romulus, Seneca Co., Dec. 29, 1820, from childhood worked in his father's mills and from 
May, 1850, for 9 years was foreman on the Erie railroad. He then was for 23 years track 
supervisor on the Western and Buffalo divisions. July 12, 1881, he became superintendent of 
the building of the T. V. & C. railroad from Cuba to Attica. From 1867 until 1881 he resided 
in Attica. Since 1882 he has lived an unostentatious life in Cuba village. Possessed of a 
remarkably retentive memory Mr. Kirkpatrick is a mine of wealth to the historian and his quaint 
anecdotes spice the dry details of statistics with humor. Sept. 20, 1849, he married Joanna, 
daughter of Philip T. and Arrabella (Rafter) Armstrong of Cuba. Their only child, Arrabella 
E., born Jan. 3, 1854, married Henry O. Wait, of Salamanca, president of the First National 
Bank and treasurer of Cattaraugus county. A Democrat in politics Mr. Kirkpatrick has been 
a public spirited citizen encouraging every local improvement, and village trustee several years. 

Frederic Dillon Lyman, son of Dillon T. and Margaret (Weber) Lyman, was born in 
Warren, Herkimer Co., June 5, 1839. Dillon T. came to Cuba April 5, 1865, moved to Friend- 
ship in 1876, from there to Angelica in May, 1891. His children are Julia E. (Mrs. Sanford 
Getman), F. D., Emily W. (Mrs. J. A. Miller), Jennie A. (Mrs. Frank Dean) and Maria E. (Mrs. 
Johnson Dey). Frederick D. Lyman settled on a farm on Jackson Hill in Cuba March 24, 1865, 
and in February, 1866, located on his present farm. April 24, 1861, he enlisted at Utica in Co. 
E, 14th N. Y. Vol. Infantry for 2 years, and was mustered out with the Reg't at Utica, May 24, 
1863. He was in 7 engagements and became corporal. He married, Feb. 22, 1865, Clara E., 
daughter of Jedediah and Mary J. (Kinne) Tillinghast, who was born in Frankfort, Herkimer 
Co., Oct. 20, 1843. 

George Spencer Marsh, son of George Stillman and Charlotte Cecelia (Fields) Marsh, was 
born Sept. 23, 1847, in Rushford. Otis Marsh, his grandfather, came from Vermont to New 
Hudson early and died there. George Stillman Marsh came with him and with his wife is still 
living where his father first settled. Their children are George S., Elizabeth, Henry, Otis and 
Mary. George S. Marsh was 2 years in Oil City, Pa., and upon returning to Rushford engaged 
in cheesemaking. In 1880 he came to Cuba and built a factory, from which he produced 
annually from 150,000 to 175,000 lbs. of cheese, this being the product of about 500 cows. His 
cheese is acknowledged to be one of the best makes m the county. January i, 1872, Mr. Marsh 
married Laura Elizabeth, daughter of Asa B. and Elizabeth (Rose) Smith of Rushford. Mr. 
Marsh enlisted Oct. 4, 1864, in Co. F, 189th N. Y., and served until the close of the war. He 
is a member and for 3 years was secretary of Cuba Lodge, No. 306, F. & A. M., and a member 
of Cuba Chapter, No. 232, R. A. M. 

Darius D. Miner was born in Berkshire Co., Mass. He married Catharine Perkins and had 
3 sons, Darius P., who lives in Iowa, William P., who resides at Portville and Clinton H. of 
Cuba. After a residence in Prattsburg, N. Y., and Elk Co., Pa., in 1849, D. D. Miner came 
to Clarksville and was engaged in farming. Clinton H. Miner was born Dec. 17, 1843, ^^ 
Pennsylvania. In 1862, August i, he enlisted in Co. A, 136th regiment, N. Y. V. where he 
held the office of corporal, and was severely wounded at the battle of Gettysburg and for i year 
was unable to perform military duty. He was honorably discharged in June, 1865, He is a 
member of Stephen D. Bartle Post, G. A. R., No. 183, and has been 5 times commander. In 
1868 he married Mary H. Jordan, they had one child, Archie, who died when 10 years old. 
After the close of the war Mr. Mmer resided in Clarksville and was engaged in agriculture until 
1890 when he moved to Cuba. He was elected justice of the peace in 1891, and held the office 
one term in Clarksville. He is a member of the K. O. T M. Tent, No. 12. He has been 
superintendent of the Presbyterian Sabbath school since Jan. i, 1893, and was ordained as an 
elder of that church in April, 1895. 

Merritt Millett, son of Ephraim and Rachel (Graham) Millett, was born in Cuba, Oct. 31, 
1845. His grandfather Alexander Millett came to Belfast in 1837. He was a farmer and died 
in 1864, his wife about 1849. Ephraim Millett was born near Rochester Nov. 27, 1819. He 
was a farmer, and a cooper by trade and always pursued that occupation. He married in 1842 
and removed to Cuba that year. His children were Eliza, Merritt and Ellen. Merritt Millett 
early in life was engaged with his father in making cheese boxes, then for 16 years worked for 
the Smith estate in Cuba. In January, 1887, he went into the livery business in Cuba. Like 
his father he was a Republican. Mr. Millett married Dell Middaugh in 1894. He died at his 
home in Cuba Aug. i, 1895, after a short illness. 



Cuba. 847 



Col. Samuel H. Morgan, an early settler of the county, was a member of that Vermont fami- 
ly which is noted as the breeders and originators of the celebrated Morgan horses. He was 
born in Vermont in 1786, married, in Rutland, Lucy Culver, and with his young wife came to 
Rushford in 18 10, aad to the northwest corner of Cuba township, at the head of the reservoir, 
a year or so subsequently, and here made their permanent home. Colonel Morgan died in 1843, 
his widow in 1861. He was one well fitted for pioneer life, acquired his title from commission 
in the militia, and was a keen and successful business man. His children were Samuel (dec), 
Charles, in Wisconsin, Conley M., Harriet (Mrs. J. Medbury), Lucia (Mrs. Freeman Sibley), 
Henry (dec), Carter H. and Sybil, died young. He has many descendants. Mrs. Samuel Mor- 
gan lives on part of the old homestead. Conley M. lives one mile north of Cuba village ; Mrs. 
Medbury and Mrs. Sibley live on farms adjacent to him in the neighborhood of North Cuba. 
Samuel, born in 181 2, died in 1886, married Catharine Scott. Four of their 7 children are liv- 
ing. Hon. Samuel H. Morgan, the onlv one living here, resides in Cuba village. He was born 
in 1845, educated at Alfred University, when 24 left the farm for clerkships, first in North Cuba 
store, next, in 1869, in Cuba Banking Co., was here one year clerk, one year assistant cashier, 
then cashier till his resignation in 1880. During this time he served on the board of education 
6 years. In 1879 he was elected to the state assembly from Allegany county, and re-elected in 
1880. He was on several important committees, the most prominent one being that special one 
on "Corporation Taxes." Since 1880 he has built railroads and water works on contract, and 
owns franchises in Cayuga and Broome counties. Henry C. Morgan, son of Conley M., suc- 
ceeded Samuel H. Morgan as cashier in the bank. 

Edward O'Malley, son of Thomas O'Malley, was born Aug. 15, 1847, near Hamilton, Can- 
ada. In 1 85 1 his father moved to Castleton, Vt., where he resided for a few years, then came 
to Warsaw, N. Y. September 20, 1862, Edward enlisted in Co. E, 136th N. Y., and served 
until June, 1865, when he was honorably discharged. He participated in 23 battles. He is a 
member of S. T. Bartle Post, No. 183, G. A. R., and has been its commander i year. After 
the war he returned to Warsaw, learned the marble cutter's trade, and in 1868 went to Spring- 
field, 111., and cut stone for the state capitol. In 1870 he located in Cuba and was foreman in 
W. H. Bartholomew's marble shop for 11 years. In 1882 he went into business for himself 
and is now the largest marble dealer in the county. He is a member of Cuba Lodge, No. 306, 
F. & A. M. In 1895 he was appointed loan commissioner of Allegany county. Mr. O'Malley 
married, in 1873, Henrietta Piatt, and has three children, Harry, Ross and Margaret. 

John Ormiston came from Scotland to St. Lawrence Co. in July, 1856, and in November, 
1857, removed to Cuba to the farm now owned by Ormiston Brothers, his sons, known as the 
Valley Point Stock Farm. He married Mary Davidson ih Scotland where their children were 
born. Jannett (dec.) and Walter (twins), John, George, James, William and Elizabeth. Walter 
came to St. Lawrence Co. in 1852 and resides there. Mrs. Ormiston died January 11, 1886, and 
in July, 1892, Mr. Ormiston was in his 94th year. James Ormiston, born June. 7, 1840, 
and William, born Nov. 11, 1844, under firm name of Ormiston Brothers began breeding thor- 
oughbred Ayrshire cattle about 1874, starting with a purchase of 6 head. "Their herd in 1892 
numbered 57, and all were registered. Their cow " May Morn " was a prize winner in Scotland. 
Canada and the United States. At St. Louis in 1882 and '83 they received most of the single 
prizes on Ayrshire stock, and also the sweepstakes for the best Ayrshire of any age or sex. 
The secretary of the St. Louis Exposition in 1883 was deputized by the officers to say to the 
Ormiston Brothers that they had shown the best herd of Ayrshires ever exhibited in St. Louis or 
the state of Missouri. Among their bulls were " Emperor " and " Mars First," the latter of 
whom probably took more prizes than any bull before or since. In two years the firm received 
over 160 prizes at state fairs. 

B. Frank Osborne, son of Roderick, was born in Farmersville in 1841, November 24, i86r, 
he enlisted in Co. D, 64th N. Y., and was orderly sergeant of the company. He was wounded 
at the battle of Chancellorsville, was engaged in 13 battles and was honorably discharged in 
November 1864. He is a member of Stephen T. Bartle Post, No. 183 G. A. R of Cuba. After 
the war he returned to his native town, and was engaged in cheese manufacturing for 20 years. 
He married Jennie, daughter of Clark Giles, and has one daughter, Lena. 

William J. Penny. John Penny was born in Cooperstown, N. Y., Nov. 13, 1802. He mar- 
ried Delaney Gavelock of Mohawk, N. Y., whose grandfather was killed by the Indians. Her 
father was a Revolutionary soldier and was also, with three sons, in the War of 181 2. Mr. 
Penny made his home in Ithaca where he owned and conducted a cotton factory. In 1836 he 
moved to Alfred, purchased a farm and was a prominent and respected citizen. Politically he 
was Democrat and held the office of coroner and supervisor in 1847, '48, '49, '50. They had 
six children, Charles W., Mary C, William J., Hannah A., Huldah M. and John A. He subse- 
quently moved to Ward where his wife died in 186 1. In 1863 he married Fanny Atwater of 
Ludlowville, N. Y. They had two children, Delaney and Alice. He died in Belmont in 1867, 



848 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

They were members of the M. E. Church. William J. Penny, son of John Penny, was born in 
Ithaca, 1834, his childhood days were passed in Alfred and he was educated at Alfred University, 
He was a clerk for some years in a store, and in 1858 engaged in the mercantile business in 
Belmont, was interested with C. S. Whitney and also J. H. Browning. He sold out in 1867, 
and in 1868 went to Cuba and was in partnership with John Thomson until 1873 when he pur- 
chased his interest and conducted the business until 1883. In 1878 he commenced oil produc- 
ing in company with C. M. Colwell, and later under the firm name of Coleman, Penny & Bayne 
of Bradford, Pa., and has also been quite extensively interested in opening up the Andover oil 
and gas field. Mr. Penny married in 1875 Mina A. Wilson. They have one daughter, Flor- 
ence Adaline. The family are members of the Episcopal church. 

Warren Oramel Phelps, son of Oliver and Emily (Follett) Phelps, was born at Hector, N. 
Y., Sept. I, 1845. He enlisted in 1864, and, after his discharge in 1865, came to Cuba and en- 
gaged in tanning until 1883 when he began the erection of the flouringmillnear the W. N. Y. & 
P. R. R. In 1884 a partnership was formed with F. B. Sibley as Phelps & Sibley, which as- 
sumed the ownership of the flouringmill property. Mr. Phelps married July 12, 1869, Louisa A., 
daughter of Morris and Amanda Brown, of Hinsdale, N. Y. Their children are Helen L. and 
Florence E. Mr. Phelps has been trustee of Cuba village eight years. 

John Mortimer Powers was born in Nelson, Madison county, March 21, 1823, son of John 
and Mercy (Webster) Powers, who came to North Cuba with their children in 1828, purchasing 
a farm of Stephen Smith. William Powers, father of John, came to North Cuba about 1835 
and lived with his son until his death in 1836. John Powers was justice of the peace four years 
and served as county superintendent of the poor. He was married in 1818 and died 
Feb. 3, 1857. Both as a Whig and a Republican he was prominent in town affairs. His chil- 
dren were Helen J., John M. and Amelia, none now living but John M. Mrs. Mercy Powers' 
parents came to Cuba May 17, 1831. Her father died Nov. 13, 1838, her mother Sept. 16, 
1843. John M. Powers attended Alfred Academy and Albany State Normal School and taught 
school four terms and then became a farmer. He was town superintendent of schools one 
term. He married Aug. 31, 1847, Adelia Maria, daughter of Ammi and Mary (Pratt) Carrier. 
Their only child, Ivan, was a graduate of Rochester University in 1872, and admitted to practice 
as a lawyer June 11, 1875, ^"^ was city attorney of Rochester in 1886-7. He married Ella L, 
Dayton Aug. 28, 1884 at Cuba. She died Aug. 7, 1887 at Rochester. They had one child. 
Ernestine Adelia Powers, born July 29, 1886 at Rochester. 

William Farnsworth Robie, son of Levi and Annie (Perkins) Robie, was born in Bath, 
Steuben county, June 11, 1862. and was educated at the Haverling Union School. His father 
was a drygoods merchant at Bath. W. F. Robie learned the jeweler's trade at Bath and went 
to Prospect, Ohio, in 1866, and engaged in the jewelry business. To this he later added the 
sale of clothing, conducting trade there until October, 1891. In November, 1890, he came to 
Cuba and opened a jewelry, clothing and " gent's furnishing " store which he now conducts at 
" The Odd," No. 5 East Main street. He does watchmaking and repairing, and carries a fine 
line of hats, trunks, satchels, etc. Mr. Robie married Jan. 28, 1886, Julia E., daughter of A. 
M. and Mary B. Withington of Springwater, Livingston county. 

Joseph Shearer, a native of Herkimer county, came to Scio in 1853 and settled on Knight's 
Creek. He married Patience Curtis. They had 8 children. Mr. Shearer died in 1893. His wife 
died Feb. 2, 1896. Benson H., son of Joseph, was born Nov. 10, 1852. He married Elizabeth 
Geer and had 2 children, Arthur (who, when 10 years old, died under the influence of chloroform 
admistered after his foot was crushed by the cars), and Bertha. Mr. Shearer has been a farmer 
and since 1881 a contractor and builder, and employs several men. He is a member of the I. 
O. O. F., No. 691 of Cuba, and Star Tent, No. 12, K. O. T. M. 

Frank Burbank Sibley, son of Freeman L. and Lucia (Morgan) Sibley, was born in Cuba, 
Feb. 24, 1845. The Morgan family are among the early ones of America and emigrated from 
Wales and arrived in Boston in April, 1636. James Morgan was made a freeman in Roxbury, 
Mass., in 1643. Members of the family have stood high in state and national councils, having 
fillled the offices of governor and United States senator, and have been among the successful 
financiers of the country. The Sibleys were also here early. John Sibley of Hertfordshire, 
England, settled in Salem in 161 9 and was a member of the general court of Massachusetts. 
Isaac Sibley of Massachusetts, grandfather of F. B. Sibley, was a descendant in the fifth gener- 
ation from John, the emigrant. Frank B. Sibley was educated at the public schools and Alfred 
University. He married, Dec. 21, 1 881, Margaret Gillies of Angelica. Their children are Jessie 
Gillies Sibley born March 31, 1883, and Walter Frank Sibley born Jan. 12, 1887. Mr. Sibley 
has been associated with W. O. Phelps in the m.illing business since May, 1884. He is con- 
versant in town affairs, and a leader in the commercial, social and reform activities of the town 
and village. 



Cuba. 849 

Russell Smith, only child attaining maturity of Stephen Smith, born July lo, 1830, succeeded 
to the mercantile, manufacturing and other businesses of his father. The buildings connected 
with these industries were scattered along for some distance on the northeast corner of Main 
and Genesee streets, back of East Mam street as now indicated. The ashery occupied the site 
of the present Smith Block on Genesee street. He inherited many of his father's characteristics, 
built the mansion now occupied by Mrs. Smith, and the inception and building of the Cuba 
Fair Grounds were due to him, and this was his last work. He died, a victim to his devotion 
to business, Oct. 31, 1869. He married June 17, 1851, Julia Anna, daughter of Rev. Jefferson 
Wynkoop. Their sons were Addison W. and Charles S. 

Henry Stevens, from Steuben county, came to Cuba not far from 1824, was a charter mem- 
ber and first junior warden of the masonic lodge organized in 1825 and a charter member and 
the first master of the same lodge under its reorganization in 1853, and was connected with 
much business of importance in the little community. William Philander Stevens, son of Henry 
and Laura Farwell (I3aird) Stevens, was born at Painted Post, Aug. 10, 1820. Coming as a 
child to Cuba he has never known any other home. In the little district school he acquired the 
requisites for a successful business life, and in the home circle those qualities of moral strength 
and considerate justice that have marked his long life of usefulness. He has been one of Cuba's 
best business men, and his time, his money and his activity has been given to the building up 
of her industries and useful organizations. In 1844 he engaged in tanning and conducted this 
business for about 35 years. He was appointed " nre warden " at the first corporation meeting 
of the village in 1850 and was " chief" of the first fire department of Cuba organized in 1867. 
He was also in 1850 one of the trustees of the Cuba cemetery, and in 1870 a charter member of 
Valley Point Lodge of Odd Fellows. He was long a director of the Cuba National Bank, its 
vice president 6 years and its president for 7>^ years. He has been a generous supporter of 
the Episcopal church, a vestryman of Christ church, and one of the committee in charge of the 
erection of its beautiful edifice. He is passing the twilight of life in one of the historic man- 
sions of the village, surrounded by many friends and cared for by a son and daughter. " His 
daughter was asked if she would give any one brief item regarding her father. She replied at 
once : ' He is the best father the Lord ever made,' which answer we think is sufficient in itself, 
and nothing need be added to such a tribute." 

John Straight, son of Matthew, was born in Chenango county in 1829. When he was 4 
years old his father came to New Hudson and purchased a farm where he resided until his 
death. John married Harriet Higbie and settled in Lyndon, where he purchased a farm and 
was engaged in agriculture. He was once elected constable, and i term overseer of the poor and 
justice of the peace 4 terms in Lyndon and twice justice of sessions. In 1885 he moved to 
Cuba and has been elected justice of the peace 2 terms. 

George Harrison Swift, son of Calvin, was born in New Hudson, Aug. 5, 1840. In 1867 
he engaged in the grocery business with his brother Simon P. as Swift Brothers. The firm was 
dissolved in a year and G. H. Swift continued in trade alone for some years. He was under 
sheriff for 3 years, was appointed postmaster in 1885, held the office nearly 4 years. After some 
changes in location, in 1892, he with his partner, M. V. Lyman, as Swift & Lyman, removed to 
Cuba and carried on a wholesale trade in confectionery, fruit, cigars, etc. Mr. Swift was elected 
sheriff of the county in 1894, and is now in office. Mr. Swift was a member of the Cuba Board 
of Education 12 years, village trustee 9 years, secretary of the Valley Point Agricultural Society 
17 years and vice president one year, W. M. of Cuba Lodge, No. 306, F. & A. M., 6 years, D. 
D. G. M. of the 23d Masonic district two terms, captain of host and member of council of Valley 
Point, Chapter No. 232, and has been H. P. and a member and officer of St. John's Command- 
ery. No. 24 of Olean. 

Harlan Josiah Swift, son of Calvin and Sevilla (Ault) Swift was born in New Hudson. Oct. 
2, 1843. His father was son of Wyatt, grandson of Jeriah and Waitabell (Lyon) Swift. Jeriah 
was wounded at the battle of Bunker Hill and died. The Swifts descended from Wm, Swift, 
who landed in Boston, from England, in 1663 or 1664, and in 1667 bought a farm in Massachu- 
setts which is now in the family. When Harlan J. was 4 years old, the family removed to Cuba. 
He attended the common school, Rushford Academy, the State Normal school at Albany, and 
Alfred University, and taught school. In May, 1863, he enlisted and was detailed as a clerk, 
and later mustered in as commissary sergeant of Co. H, 2d N. Y. Mounted Rifles. He soon 
was made 2d lieutenant, was acting adjutant during the campaigns of 1864 and 1865, also com- 
manded his company and parts of Co.s B. and M. Promotions were repeatedly offered him, 
which would take him from the men he went in with, but he refused to accept choosing rather 
to keep his word to his comrades. His regiment was in the battles of the Wilderness, Spott- 
sylvania, North Anna, Pamunky, Tolopotomy, the other historic actions of the Peninsular, and 
the siege of Petersburg. June 18, 1864, his regiment by a charge obtained possession of the 
" Knoll," thus enabling the union forces to dig the famous mine which was exploded July 3, 



850 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



1864. He was in the midst of the fight, on both days, and also in every action in which his reg- 
iment engaged. His company never went into a fight except under his lead. In September, 

1865, he was mustered out, and returning to Cuba, studied law with N. P. and E. D Loveridge, 
was admitted to the bar in November, 1866, and soon after formed a partnership with E. D. 
Loveridge, as Loveridge & Swift, which continued till he was appointed county judge, taking 
the oath of office Oct. 12, 1882. Soon after he located as an attorney in Buffalo, his present res- 
idence. In 1869 he married Martha A. Higgins of Rushford, who died Sept. 7, 1891. Parton, 
his only surviving child, is at Cornell University. Mr. Swift has been connected with many im- 
portant cases, notably the Hendryx murder trial in our county, is a powerful advocate, and a 
thoroughly equipped and successful lawyer. 

John Thompson came from the south of Scotland in 1833 and settled on a farm three miles 
south of Cuba village. He had married in Scotland Margaret, daughter of George Murray. 
Their children were John, Jane (died 1853), James, Robert, Margaret (died 1889) and David. 
He was active in educational matters and was school trustee. He died Jan. 27, 1874, his wife 
July 5, 1865. John Thompson born in Cuba Feb. 4, 1833, when 17 went to the village 
to learn the carpenter and joiner's trade with S. K. Cutter, with whom he remained eight 
years, then after 3 years passed on a farm he has ever made his home in the village. 
Soon after learning his trade he went to Meadville, Pa., to work on the A. & G. W. R. R. and 
from there to Canada to work on the Ft. Erie & Niagara R. R. Returning to Cuba he again 
worked 8 years with Mr. Cutter, and for 2 years was state carpenter on the Genesee Valley 
canal, and later, for 3 years was master carpenter of the Mt. Morris & Essex (N. J.) R. R. He 
then formed a partnership with Mr. Cutter in Cuba as Cutter & Thompson. Among the build- 
ings put up by him are the Universalist church, the Cuba National Bank block, some of the 
finer residences, the engine house and the St. James Hotel (rebuilt). After this firm was dis- 
solved Mr. Thompson was for i year carpenter on the Erie railway, and in 1881 was made 
foreman carpenter, and in 1889 master carpenter of the Western Division. He married Nov. 
17, 1859, Amelia, daughter of Jabez and Lola (Benedict) Ashley of Cuba. Their children are, 
Ella J. (married L. T. Howard), EUena (married A. Warner of Toledo, Ohio), Frederick G„ a 
teacher of penmanship, Lola M., a music teacher, Clarence R., Nina, born Sept. 23, 1871, died 
Jan. 9, 1874, Harry and Arthur. Mr. Thompson is a Republican. 

JDavid Thompson, youngest child of John the emigrant, was born June 4, 1845, and at- 
tained maturity on the farm. In 1872 he went into the meat business at Cuba. In 1877 he 
took charge of the state scow on the Genesee Valley canal, and in 1882 became a carpenter on 
the Erie railway. In 1886 he opened a wholesale and retail meat-market in the village which 
he still conducts. Mr. Thompson is a Democrat, an Odd Fellow, and was excise commissioner 
2 years. He married Jan. 17, 1871, Ammadelle, daughter of William and Lois German of 
Clarksville. Children, Lilian, George and Florence. David German, father of William, came 
early with his family to Cuba, and about 1845, William removed to Clarksville, his present home. 
He married Lois Ann Hickox Nov. 12, 1843. 

Hon. Addison Smith Thompson, son of James R. and Sally Ann (Fargo) Thompson, was 
born March 6, 1843, in New Hudson, whither his father came in 1838 from Lexington, Greene 
county. James R. was a farmer and for some time was town supervisor of Lyndon, Cattarau- 
gus county. His children by his first marriage were Addison S., John E. (died in the army in 
1862), David and Frank (dec). His second wife was Mrs. Mary Ann (Higby) Frary; their 
children were, Estella, Frank, Charles, Adella and Adellia (dec). Addison S. Thompson en- 
listed in August, 1861, in Co. E, 5th N. Y. Cav., and served until July 19, 1865, re-enlisting 
in the meantime as a veteran. He was taken prisoner twice and rose from the ranks to second 
lieutenant. Returning to New Hudson Mr. Thompson engaged in cheese making, building two 
factories in that town, selling one in 1880 and the other in 1889. He also lived in Cattaraugus 
county 3 years. He came to Cuba in December, 1890, and began making cheese in present 
factory. In 1889 he was elected to the assembly and re-elected in 1890, serving his constitu- 
ents loyally and faithfully. Mr. Thompson served on the committee on agriculture, on military 
affairs, and on trades and manufactures, and was chairman of the committee on charitable and 
religious societies. In 1885-6 he was town supervisor of New Hudson. June 21, 1863, Mr. 
Thompson married Eunice, daughter of Alexander and Lucenia (Markham) McKaigue of Lyn- 
don, Cattaraugus county, and their children are Robert I., A. Emmett, John B. and Mary F. 
(died in April, 1891). Mr. Thompson is a member and now past commander of Stephen T. 
Bartle Post, No. 183, G. A. R. of Cuba. His great uncle, James Thompson, served in the War 
of 181 2 as did also his mother's father, David Fargo. 

Orlando Jordon Warren, son of John Griswold and Amelia (Powers) Warren, was born 
July 20, 1854, on Jackson Hill in Cuba. John G. Warren, son of Dura, removed from Cuba to 
Indiana in 1875. His children by his first wife were Leslie, John, Orlando J. and Amelia. His 
second wife's children were George, Fred, Floddie and Frank. Orlando J. Warren attended 



Cuba 851 

Cuba Union School and was a farmer until 1869, when, until 1875, he was engaged on the 
Canada Southern railroad. He then returned to Cuba and with George Amsden and William 
Campbell commenced cheese manufacturing. Later he purchased their interest and has since 
conducted the business alone. His product is about 200,000 pounds annually, and he uses the 
milk of 500 cows. His factory system is on the co-operative principle. Mr. Warren married 
Frances E., daughter of Roger and Celestia Crandall of Little Genesee, Sept. 25, 1876. Their 
children are William and Helen. 

Dallas Benjamin Whipple, D.D. S., son of Benjamin and Pamelia [Marsh] Whipple, was 
born m New Hudson Oct. 1 1, 1844, where Benjamin Whipple settled in 1830 and died Aug. 3, 
1889. His children were Harriet (Mrs. Hiram Gleason of Belfast), Dr. Prescott of Chicago, 
Mary L. (died in Flint, Mich., in 1847, leaving 2 sons), Dr. Otis of Olean, Dallas B., Royal (a 
farmer on the New Hudson homestead) and Dr. Gardner of Cuba. D. B. Whipple practiced 
dentistry in Cuba and Olean, and in 1877 became an oil operator on Kendall Creek. Pa., and 
founded Dallas City. In 1881 he operated in Richburg and later in Clarksville. In 1882 he 
purchased a farm in the village which he shocked with that famous herd of Holstein-Friesian 
cattle, known as " The family of Pietertje 2d," (see another page). Mr. Whipple then began 
breeding American trotting horses and was the first man in the county to own a Hambletoman 
stallion. In 1891 he sold the stallion, " Egthorne," whose record was 2.12 ><, and now owns 
some of his progeny. (This is the fastest stallion record in the state.) Mr. Whipple possesses 
the true instincts of a breeder. He has filled all the " chairs " in his Odd Fellows lodge and is 
a Freemason. He has been village trustee, president of Valley Point Agricultural and Mechan- 
ical Society for two years, vice president of the Western New York Agricultural Society and 
vice president of the Elmira Exposition. He was the organizer of the " D. B. Whipple Protec- 
tives " fire company of Cuba. Mr. Whipple married Oct. 24, 1865, Eliza J., daughter of Abra- 
ham L. and Olive (Randolph) Flinn. Children, George D., born March 10, 1868, and Maud E., 
born Sept. 30, 1874. Through her mother Mrs. Whipple is a lineal descendant of John Ran- 
dolph of Virginia. 

Abram M. Young, son of William and Ruth (Knapp) Young, was born in New York City 
April 6, 1827, and when 23 years old went to Buffalo where until 1873 he was a merchant 
tailor. He then removed to Hume and was in the same business with Hammond, Marvin & 
Minard. In 1883 Mr. Young opened a branch shop in Cuba, 2 years later disposed of the busi- 
ness in Hume and settled in Cuba village. Besides his merchant tailoring he carried a complete 
line of men's furnishings. In February, 1891, he formed a partnership with Lawson Paul as A. 
M. Young & Co. In May, 1848, he married Cornelia, daughter of Charles M. Wright of Peeks- 
kill, N. Y. Children : Sarah E., Frances E., Otis F. (dec), Charles H., Alice R. (Mrs. George 
Clark of Cuba), Ida E., and William F. of Peora, 111. (an adopted son.) William Young came 
to Hume with his son, Abram M., and died m July, 1880, in Caneadea at the home of his 
daughter, Mrs. Catharine P. Ogden. Mr. Young is an Odd Fellow and a strong Republican. 

Hon, Calvm T. Chamberlain was born in Maine Dec. 5, 1793, l^he son of Benjamin Charn- 
berlain, a distinguished soldier of the continental army of the Revolution. In 1800 Benjamin 
with his six sons came to the Genesee country and later made their home in Belfast. In 1816 
Calvin settled in the wilderness at Cuba village, where but a handful of people had homes, and 
from that time to his death, June 27, 1878, was perhaps more prominently identified with its 
growth and prosperity than any other man. He built the first store in the village and had part 
in most of the many enterprises established in the town. Farming, lumbering, manufacturing 
of various kinds, banking, milling, building and promoting public works, all largely engaged his 
attention. He was a giant in force and in intellect and carried all of his numerous undertak- 
ings to success by the power of his invincible energy and rare business sagacity. A stalwart 
Democrat, he represented his county and district in the legislature by flattering votes of the 
people. He was a member of the constitutional convention of 1846, and for some years brig- 
adier general of militia. He ranked high in Masonry, belonged to the order 62 years, and was, 
at his death, the oldest Freemason in Western New York. He was long a communicant and a 
benefactor of the Episcopal church of Cuba whose church edifice was largely built by his gene- 
rosity, and its senior warden from the establishment of the parish. He married first Betsey 
Moore, second Sarah (Russell) Waters. By the second wife he had six children. 



852 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

WILLIAM HENRY BARTHOLOMEW. 

William Henry BartJwlomew, son of Joel and Huldah (Lyman) Bartholo- 
mew of Connecticut, was born at Pompey, Onondaga county, Feb. 13, 1832, 
and died suddenly at Little Valley, Sept. 1, 1892. When 16 years old he 
commenced working at marble cutting in Payetteville and continued for 
some years. In 1857, with his brother, Alonzo C, he came to Cuba and es- 
tablished the Cuba Marble and Granite Works. This partnership continued 
for ten years, when A. C. Bartholomew removed to Titusville where he died 
in 1877. W. H. Bartholomew remained in the business in Cuba and was well 
and extensively known over a wide area for the excellence of his work and 
his probity. Several times fire destroyed his property, but always those 
with whom he had dealings promptly came to his assistance proving their 
confidence in his honesty and integrity. He was a prominent Free-mason, 
was master of Cuba Lodge and High Priest of Valley Poiht Chapter. We here 
quote from the memorial prepared by the brethren on the occasion of his 
death. "He served faithfully and well in the position of High Priest of Valley 
Point Chapter, No. 232, R. A. M. from Jan. 1, 1871, to Jan. 1, 1874, andfrom Jan. 
1, 1876, to Jan. 1, 1879, and filled almost every office in the chapter with zeal and 
fidelity. We miss his presence and his ever willing labors in behalf of the order, 
and his companionship as a friend and fellow citizen. His integrity and up- 
rightness were adornments to the order and his associates." The Ancient 
Order of United Workmen also recognized in his death " the loss of a worthy 
member and the community a good citizen." The Rushford Cemetery Asso- 
ciation thus expresses itself: "Whereas, Mr. Bartholomew had at divers 
times and in a substantial manner expressed his interest in and apprecia- 
tion of this association in beautifying their cemetery grounds, especially in 
his gift to the association of the beautiful arch now erected over the en- 
trance walk of said grounds, this meeting desires to place on record its ap- 
preciation of his worth and kindly assistance and its expression of its sor- 
row for his loss." Mr. Bartholomew was active in all pertaining to the 
progress and welfare of the community, and his townsmen honored him 
with offtces of trust and responsibihty, among them those of village trustee 
and assessor. He was warmhearted and generous and his help was freely 
given to those in need, and his memory wih live long in the hearts of the 
many who knew and loved him. His generosity and warm feeling for those 
who needed assistance are well known and he has in the hearts of many a 
monument more durable and more beautiful than even those which his own 
talent and industry have placed in the many cemeteries of this region. He 
has left behind a clean record, and a tender memory with all who knew him. 
He married Oct. 29, 1872, Eloise O., daughter of Philo and Ruth Roberts, of 
Cuba who survives him. She was an estimable helpmeet and fully devoted 
to her husband and in accord with his numerous acts of charity. 









rya 




i^^^^^^^^^y^ 



Wirt. 853 



W l-RT. 



BY S. L. STANTON. 



CHAPTER LXVI. 

WIRT WAS FORMED from Bolivar and Friendship April 12, 1838, and 
named by Peleg Sherman for the writer, William Wirt. It is an 
interior town, lying- southwest of the center of the county and contains 
22,860 acres. The surface is an upland broken into three distinct ridges 
extending north and south. The streams are headwaters of Van Campen's, 
Little Genesee and Dodge's creeks. It is a fact worthy of mention that the 
farms of Caleb Wilcox and Uriah Pierce lie upon the water- shed between 
Van Campen's and Little Genesee creeks, and the water which flows from 
the roof of the house on each farm from one side finds its way into the 
Atlantic Ocean by the Allegany, Ohio and Mississippi rivers, while that from 
the opposite side reaches the same ocean through the Genesee river. Lake 
Ontario and St. Lawrence river. The soil is a clayey loam, well adapted to 
raising hay and fruits, of which large quantities are annually shipped. It 
is also well adapted to grazing. The rearing of sheep is an important indus- 
try. The town has in 1895 an equalized value of real estate of $477,265, an 
equalized value of personal property of -$21,900. There is |77,616 assessed 
to corporations. The equalized value per acre is $20.89, and the total amount 
of taxes spread on valuation is $4,879.23. 

The first settlement was made in the nortli part of the town, on the 
farms now owned by Mott Whitwood and D. S. Willard, in 1812 by Benjamin 
Crabtree and Levi Abbott from Amsterdam, Montgomery county. Chaun- 
cey Axtell and Ho]-ace Ketchum came in 1814, Azel Buckley and Daniel 
Willard in 1815, Luther Austin in 1818, Alvan Richardson and Nathan Gilbert 
in 1819, James Smith in 1820, Simon Wightman, Reuben Whitney, Philip 
Applebee, Josiah Wheeler and Joseph Allen in 1821, Jonah French in 1822, 
Gilbert Thomas, Levi Applebee, Calvin Wheeler, Isaiah Jordan, Elisha 
Dakin and Robert Almy in 1823, Pliny Evans and Aaron Smith in 1824, 
Sheldon P. Stanton in 1825. John Scott, in 1828, brought 3 sons with him 
from Genesee county and made quite a clearing where he sowed millet and 
oats among the stumps, and made one of the primitive log cabins as his 
future home. This accomplished they returned to the home in Genesee 
county and harvested their crops there and then returned to secure their 
grain in Wirt. Before this was fully accomplished snow was from 4 to 6 
inches deep. He did not move his family to Wirt until the spring of 1829. 
Clark E. Newton came early from Madison county, and bought land west of 
the South Branch creek. With his brother, H. B. Newton, he began chop- 
ping on lot 39. They cleared 10 acres their first season and sowed it with 



854 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

winter wheat, without having a team or help except that obtained by- 
exchanging work with a few of their not very numerous neighbors, some of 
whom owned oxen. They built a log house to describe which will give a 
picture of every one in the town. It was hewn inside, plastered inside and 
out, and had in one end a fireplace with a stone back and a chimney of split 
sticks. This primitive dwelling was supplied with a floor and had one door 
and two windows. (Some of the earliest houses of the county had no floor, 
and only the "openings" for the windows.) Mr. Newton was a stone- 
mason, and one of his early jobs was the laying of a brick parching-oven for 
Capt. Ebenezer Steward near Nile, which was the first one constructed in 
this part of the county. He also helped plaster the first courthouse at 
Angelica. 

Stephen Withey, son of Lemuel, was born in Connecticut, and came in 
1823 to Wirt and settled on the farm which Henry Pierce now owns. Of his 
8 children only 2 survive, Mrs. Hiram Taylor and Mrs. Mark Goodwin. 
Hiram Taylor, son of Ebenezer, came from Spafford, Onondaga county, to 
Wirt about 1828, and located on the place where he resided until his death in 
1869. (Mrs. Silas C. Burdick of Alfred is his daughter.) Joseph Allen, 
Calvin Wheeler and Ruth Stanton, wife of Sheldon P. Stanton, are the only 
ones now living who settled prior to 1830. Ira Gilbert, who came with his 
father in 1819, lived on the same farm 75 years, during which time he was a 
resident of 3 different towns. Philip Applebee constructed the first grist- 
mill, on lot 12, which consisted of an oak stump hollowed out for a mortar 
and a stone hung to a spring-pole for a pestle. Many grists of corn were 
thus ground for the neighbors. 

The first birth was that of Benjamin Crabtree, son of Benjamin, in 1813. 
The first marriage, that of Hyra Axtell and Lucy Crabtree, occurred in 1814. 
The first school was taught in the north part by Sophia Hitchcock in 1820. 
Alvan Richardson kept the first inn in 1824. He also built the first sawmill 
in that year and the first gristmill, in 1825, on Little Genesee creek near 
Richburg. Francis L. Leroy kept the first store in 1824 at Richburg. 

The early lumber interests of the town were mainly in the northeast 
part where 6 sawmills were built on the headwaters of Van Campen's creek 
within a distance of 2 miles, which cut a large quantity of pine and oak, 
found here in rare perfection. Samuel Sherman built a sawmill on lot 14 in 
1826, afterward adding thereto a linseed oil mill, an ashery for manufactur- 
ing potash, a cabinet factory, a blacksmith shop and a gi'ocery. Many 
farmers gathered the ashes where log-heaps had been burned and in a small 
way manufactured black salts, trading them with Sherman for groceries. 

Population.— 1840, 1,207; 1850, 1,544; 1860, 1,390; 1870, 1,204; 1875, 
1,204; 1880, 1,225; 1890, 1,219; 1892, 1,157. It will^be noted that the increase 
in the number of people resident in town during the oil excitement was so 
ephemeral in its nature as not to affect in any degree the figures of the 
national census. 

Richburg, in the southwest part, perpetuates the name of its founder 



Wirt. 855 

Alvin Richardson, contains 2 churches, 1 steam gristmill, 1 cheese factory, 
5 general stores, 1 drug and 1 clothing store, the postoffice and about 300 
inhabitants. During the development of the oil territory in the south part 
of the town Richburg was incorporated and contained about 3,000 inhabitants. 
An Oil Town. — Soon after the completion of the wells on the Sawyer 
farm in Bolivar in 1880, the Richburg Oil Co., which leased several hundred 
acres, was formed by Riley Allen, O. P. Taylor, Crandall Lester, A. B. Cot- 
trell and several " silent " partners. The first well drilled was located on 
the Reading farm, lot 33, Wirt. The well was finished April 28, 1881, and 
started off at 80 barrels a day. At a depth of 1,280 feet, 20 feet of sand was 
found. The well was drilled into the sand at midnight and at daybreak the 
next morning Riley Allen bought the Reading farm outright at 1^100 an acre 
This well was the key to the situation-and opened to the world a rich oil field. 
In a few weeks Taylor was a rich man. One deal alone netted him $46,000. 
J. P. Herrick thus vividly describes the " Rise and fall of Richburg " in the 
Buffalo Sunday Express: " On April 27, 1881, Richburg was a quiet little vil- 
lage of perhaps 150 people, and was connected with the outside world by a 
stage line. Within a few months it was one of the liveliest oil towns in the 
country, and boasted of a population of nearly 3,000, recruited from the four 
points of the compass. Stores, hotels, machine shops, saloons, bagnios, 
dance-houses and gambling dens sprung up as if by magic. For several 
weeks after the tide set in, sleeping apartments indoors could not be secured 
at any price, and many a night several hundred of Richburg's floating pop- 
ulation slept on benches under the maple trees in village park, and in many 
cases on the bare ground. One old oil man remembers paying a dollar for 
the privilege of sleeping on a billiard table over night, and another paid half 
as much for the privilege of sleeping in a bar-room chair. At this time Rich- 
burg boasted of two banks, and a morning and evening newspaper. The Oil 
Echo, a morning paper edited by P. C. Boyle, now of the Oil City Derrick, 
was printed on a three-revolution Hoe press and possessed a valuable new^s 
franchise. The first month's freight receipts when the Allegany Central 
Railroad was completed as far as Richburg, amounted to $12,000, and a box- 
car served as a depot for some time. The Bradford, Eldred & Cuba Rail- 
road built a spur from Bolivar up the valley to Richburg and ran trains both 
ways every half hour. For a long time the spur averaged 700 passengers 
daily. Rent for building lots quickly jumped up and $500 a year rent for a 
20-foot front lot on Main street was not regarded as extortionate. In fact, 
the lot owner could name his own price. Everybody was " oil crazy." Oil 
wells were drilled in village gardens and in door-yards. Even the church 
people became afflicted with the popular craze. One of the leading ministers 
speculated in oil on week days and preached powerful sermons on Sunday, 
and no one chided him. A well was finally drilled on a parsonage lot, and 
oil was struck, but the venture was not a profitable one and the trustees de- 
cided that it was not best to invest church funds in that kind of a gamble. 
Richburg had a fine system of water works, an electric fire-alarm system, 



856 History op Allrgany County, N. Y. 

an elegant brick church, a fine opera house, and at one time a street-car hne 
was strongly talked of. Liquor was sold at 100 different places, and prosti- 
tutes occupied over 40 buildings. In one instance the village gristmill was 
purchased and converted into a bagnio. The finest attractions were nightly- 
seen at the opera house and money flowed like water. But the boom was not 
to last forever. In May, 1882, the news of the big gusher at Cherry Grove 
carried the floating population away with a rush and few of them ever re- 
turned. This was the beginning of the end of Richburg's greatness. Boli- 
var, a little hamlet a mile further down the valley, began to boom in earnest 
early in 1882, and gradually superseded Richburg as the metropolis of the 
Allegany field. Fires swept away some of Richburg's noted buildings, and 
many others were torn down and moved to adjacent villages. Fine build- 
ings that cost thousands of dollars went for a mere song. To-day Richburg 
is desolate and almost deserted, and in a few years it will appear very much 
as it did before the oil boom came. The population at present is less than 
400. An elegant church and a fine academy building are the only noted relics 
of its former greatness. The opera house in which operatic stars once shone 
so brightly is now used as a cheese factory, and the railroads have given 
way to a stage line." 

A certain steady production of oil is still had in the oil producing section 
that is so large as to be worthily called one of the industries of the town. 

The Soldier Dead, who lost their lives in the Rebellion: Henry Steb- 
bins enlisted 1869; died Andersonville Sept., 1864. Lewis Tibbs enlisted 
Sept., 1861; died New York City 1862. Charles Witter enhsted 1861; died 
Andersonville Sept., 1862. John Monahan enlisted Sept., 1861, in the 85th 
N. Y.; died Andersonville 1864. Delos Philhps enlisted 1862 in 16th N. Y.; 
died July 5, 1863, in Louisiana. Charles Duflfin enlisted Sept., 1861, in 85th 
N. Y.; killed Fair Oaks May 31, 1862. Jackson Vosburg enhsted Sept., 1861 
died Washington 1862. Willard Tibbs enhsted Sept., 1862, in 160th N. Y. 
died Louisana Sept., 1863, Charles Dut enlisted Sept., 1861, 85th N. Y. 
died Andersonville Aug., 1864. Elmer Dodson enlisted Sept., 1861, in 85th 
N. Y.; died Andersonvihe July, 1864. 

Other Soldiers. — William Champlin, son of Henry, was born in the 
county in 1828. He married Hannah, a daughter of Joel Kenyon, and settled 
in Wirt. In 1862 he enlisted in Co. E, 85th N. Y., was taken prisoner at 
Plymouth, N. C, in April, 1864, and died in Andersonville prison of starva- 
tion. His children were Lavinia E., William H., L. Adelbert, and M. Louisa 
(Mrs. J. O. Price of Friendship). Rufus H. Harwood served in the Civil War 
in Co. L, 14th Regt. H. A. Capt. John W. Jordan, son of John, was assessor 
23 years, justice many years. He enlisted in Co. I, 85th N. Y., in the late 
war and was captain of the Co. 

Wirt Centre and Utopia are postoffices near the center. Inavale in 
the north-east part contains a postoflice, grocery, cheese factory and public 
hall. 



Wirt. 857 

Richburg Cheese Factory was built as an opera house in 1882 by Anson 
Brown, and after the decline and fall of Richburg's municipal importance 
was converted into a cheese factory. In 1894 Frank J. Brown purchased it 
and is the proprietor. The capacity is about 80,000 lbs. annually, and it 
uses the milk of 250 cows. 

There are in all 3 cheese factories in town manufacturing the milk of 
from 700 to 800 cows. 

There are 11 district schools in Wirt. It receives |1, 528.95 of school 
money in 1896 apportioned thus: Dist. 1, 1423.83; 2, $110.86; 3, $108.24; 4, 
$109.65; 5, $113.47; 6, $109.70; 7, $103.56; 8, $107.67; 9, $124.10; 10, $108.07; 
11, $110.09. From 1850 to 1860 Richburg Academy, incorporated April 12, 
1850, was the leading educational institution of quite a section. It had 3 
teachers and nearly 90 students in 1859, of whom over 50 were classical stu- 
dents. With the multiplicity of normal and other advanced schools it shared 
the fate of so many of the old academies and before 1870 was merged into 
the common school system of the town and conducted as a graded school. 

Religious. — The first religious services were held by the Baptists, 
under the leadership of Rev. Jonathan Post in 1816. 

The Seventli Bay Baptist Church of Richburg was organized Dec. 30, 
1827, with these members, Ephriam Rogers, Elijah Fuller, Ransom Fuller, 
Zina Gilbert; Nathan R. Blivin, Clark Rogers, Lemuel D. Rogers, Calvin Mes- 
senger, Pliny L. Evans, Cloe Rogers, Abigail Fuller, Prudence Gilbert, 
Lucinda Blivin, Lucinda Wheelock, Martha Messenger, Achsa Messenger, 
Polly Evans and Roxy Messenger. Of these Roxy Messenger is the only 
one now living. She has passed her eighty-third year. The first pastor 
was Elder John Green. He was followed by J. L. Scott, Rouse Babcock, 
Zurial Campbell, Clark T. Champlain, T. E. Babcock, Leman Andrus, Geo. 
J. Crandall, James Summerbell, J. E. N. Backus, B. E. Fisk, M. G. Stillman 
and A. Lawrence, the present pastor. It has 94 members. The first officers 
were Zina Gilbert, Ephriam Rogers deacons, Pliny L. Evans clerk, Nathan 
R. Bliven treasurer. The church property is valued at $5,000. The pres- 
ent church secretary is Fred L. Coats. There are 69 pupils and 5 teachers 
in the Sabbath school. 

The BajJtist Church of Richburg was organized Feb. 27, 1828. Its 
constituent members were Dea. Azel Buckley, Dea. Sylvester Perry, Betsy 
Perry, Dea. Isaiah Jordan, Polly Jordan, Simon Wightman, Catherine 
Wightman, Roomy Wightman, Rhoda Wightman, Edward Wightman, Jona- 
than Hitchcock, Sally Hitchcock, Norman Buckley and Ruth Buckley. Dea. 
Isaiah Jordan the last survivor of these constituent members died Aug. 18, 
1885. aged 87 years. The first pastor was Elder Joseph Wilcox. Among 
the early deacons were S. S. Carter, Samuel King, J. D. Acker man, Azel 
Buckley, Isaiah Jordan and Alvan Richardson. The clerks have been Ed- 
ward H. Wightman, Isaiah Jordan, Alvin Richardson, A. Chapin, S. G. S. 
Rowley, William Richardson and Dorr E. Brokaw. The present officers are 
F. C. Carrier, Michael Jordan, R. D.Thompson and Dorr E. Brokaw, deacons; 



858 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Dorr E. Brokaw, clerk; A. A. Woods, M. J. Jordan and Geo. Ballard, trus- 
tees. The present pastor is Rev. C. A. Stone. The membership is 131. The 
Sunday school has enrolled 180 members and 7 teachers. The present 
superintendent is A. A. Wood; secretary. Miss Irene Millis; treasurer. Miss 
Lulu Thompson. In the early days the church had a severe struggle to 
maintain its existence, but it is now in a very flourishing condition. In 1881 
the old church building was replaced by a substantial brick structure, which, 
with the parsonage, is valued at |10,000. 

About 1839 a Methodist class was formed in the northeast part of the 
town, which held services in the Cooley schoolhouse under the leadership of 
Samuel Hurd. The early members were Mr. and Mrs, Samuel Hurd, Mr. 
and Mrs. James Palmer, Mr. and Mrs. Jonathan Phinney, Mrs. D. W. 
Cooley, Mrs. Curtin Smith, Mrs. Samuel Sherman and others. Preachers 
from Friendship have preached to the class since that date. There is an- 
other class of later origin which holds meetings at Inavale hall and Dimick 
schoolhouse, supplied with preachers from Allentown. 

Cassius Maxson Post, No. 249, G. A. E., was organized at Richburg Jan. 
5, 1882. The membership now numbers 20. The officers for 1895, were Com., 
F. C. Carrier; S. V. C, Harvey Hurlbert; J. V. C, Ethel P. Rogers; Chap., 
Rev. E. A. Stone; Sur., S. W. Green; O. D., M. D. Crandall; Q. M., John T. 
King; Adjt., Geo. P. Beaumont; G., Levi Smith. The Post owns a good lodge 
room and is in a flourishing condition. 

Woman's Belief Corps, No. 68, was organized Feb. 4, 1886, as an auxiliary 
to Cassius Maxson Post. Present oflicers, Pres., Mrs. W. A. Riddall; S. V. 
P., Mrs. H. Saterley; J. V. P., Mrs. G. Harwood; Sec, Miss Lavina Champ- 
lain; Treas., Cora L.Smith; Con., Katie Lester; Asst. Con., Lena Eastman; 
Chap. Mrs. S. A. Carpenter; G., Mrs. Alice Carrier. 

D. G. Ackerman Hose Go. of Richburg was first organized in Dec, 1881, 
with 20 members. It is named from D. C. Ackerman, now of Wells ville, its 
organiser and constant friend. This was extensively known for its fine 
quality and enjoyed a great reputation as a runing team. They are equipped 
with an engine and a good supply of hose. Present officers are, Pres., Geo. 
Stohr; Sec, F. J. Brown; Treas., F. M. Stone. 

The other society organizations are: Wirt Alliance, No. 1. — Pres., M. C. 
Westcott; Sec, Will Scott. Knight's of Labor Assembly, No. 4615. — M. W., 
M. C. Westcott; Sec, Geo. Trask. K. T. M., No. 77.— Com., Geo. Stohr; 
R. K, M. L. Keller. L. 0. T. 31., No. 90.— Com., Kitty Lester; R. K., EsteUa 
Keller. W. G. T. U. — Pres., Frances Lester; Sec, Jannette Pierce. National 
Protective Legion, No. 90. — Pres., Fred Hasard; Sec, M. C. Westcott. 

Civil List. Supervisors. — 1839-40, Jonah French; 1841-43, Samuel 
Sherman; 1844, Stephen Collins; 1845-47, Sheldon P. Stanton; 1848-49, J. L. 
Russell; 1850-51, Hiram Dimick; 1852, Chelson W. Furnald; 1853, Alfred 
Scott; 1854-56, Edward H. Wightman; 1857, Samuel Sherman; 1858-59, Walter 
Evans; 1860, Hiram Dimick; 1861, Rufus Scott; 1862-63, Alfred Scott; 1864, 
AlansonKenyon; 1865, Edward H. Wightman; 1866-67, Wm. H. Withey; 1868- 



Wirt. 859 

71, Hiram Dimick; 1872-73, J. S. Rowley; 1874, Charles A. Withey; 1875, Wash- 
ington Steenrod; 1876, Hiram Dimick; 1877, Washington Steenrod; 1878, 
Charles A. Withey; 1879, Henry Spencer; 1880, J. W. Foster; 1881, Hiram 
Dimick; 1882-83, A. B. Cottrell; 1884, Wm. Richardson; 1885, Hiram Dimick, 
1886, Wm. Richardson; 1887-8, R. H. Maxson; 1889-90, A. A. Wood; 1891-93, 
Rufus Harwood; 1894-95, M. C. Westcott. 

Toivn Clerks.— 18d9, Azariah A. F. Randolph; 1840, Peter Lesure; 1841- 
43, Alanson Kenyon; 1844, Wm. B. Smith; 1845-7, Alanson Kenyon; 1848-49, 
Wm. B. Smith; 1850-52, David Brown; 1853, O. C. Lesure; 1854, Geo. Willett; 
1855, Joseph Ferris; 1856-57, David Brown; 1858-60, William B. Smith; 1861, 
John S. Rowley; 1862, William B. Smith; 1863, William H. Withey; 1864, E. 
S. Rockwell; 1865, Luther Pershall; 1866, David Brown: 1867, E. S. Rockwell; 
1868, Wm. Belcher; 1869-71, J. S. Rowley; 1872, Chas. A. Withey; 1873, 
Joseph Foster; 1874-77, E. S. Bhss; 1878-81, Crandah Lester; 1882, William 
J. Richardson; 1883, J. S. Rowley, 1884. John Nicholson; 1885, A. R. Marhn; 
1886, C. M. Voorhies; 1887, M. C. Westcott; 1888, A. A. Wood; 1889-90, W. G. 
Richardson; 1891-93, M. C. Westcott; 1894-95, Rufus Harw^ood. 

Town Officers of 1895. — Supervisor, M. C. Westcott; clerk, Rufus 
Harwood; justices of the peace, S. L. Stanton, Fred Hasard, John N. Jordan 
and W. G. Richardson; commissioner of highways, Milton A. Jordan; asses- 
sors, James McGibeny, A. S. Brainard and R. D. Thompson; collector, Le- 
man Messenger; constables, Leman Messenger, Benjamin Green, Sidney 
Barnes, Ward Lester and Wm. D. Brown. 



Something OF Some Citizens. — Enoch Ballard, son of Peleg, was a native of Putnam 
Co., and from thence came to Steuben Co. In 1835 he came to Wirt and took up 150 acres of 
uncleared land, which he prepared for cultivation. Mr. Ballard was a highly respected member 
of the First-day Baptist church. He died in 1867, his wife, Polly (Tichenor) Ballard, in 1889. 
Of their 9 children 5 survive, John T. (of Chardon, Geauga Co., O.), William (of Creston, Ogle 
Co., 111.), George, Warren W. (of Hampden, Geauga Co., O.), and Mary (Mrs. John Hatch of 
Richburg). George Ballard, son of Enoch, was born July 4, 1833. In 1864 he married Rosa 
Deming. They had 2 children, Walter A. and Ellie. Mr. Ballard resides on the homestead. 
William Ballard, a brother of Enoch, came about the same time. He lived where his grand- 
sons C. A. and William Ballard now own, and died in i860. He married Hannah Biggers. 
Four of their nine children are living. Charles Ballard, son of William, married Pamelia S, 
Rogers, and lived many years on the old homestead. He died in 1894. 

Porter Barnes, son of Hiram and Charlotte A. Barnes, was born Nov. 9, 1828, in Spafford, 
N. Y. After an attendance at common schools he learned the carpenter's trade in Auburn, and 
came to Wirt April 17, 1857. He has worked at his trade the most of his life, has superin- 
tended the moving of many buildings, receiving five dollars a day for this service, and has also 
been a farmer in this town. He held the responsible office of assessor for six years. He mar- 
ried, Aug. 16, 1849, Lydia, daughter of Thomas and Sally Babcock of Spafford. They have 
one child, Dennis, who married Nettie Howe and resides in Wirt. 

George W. Burdick, son of William and Avis L. (Thurston) Burdick, was born in Wirt 
Feb. 6, 1857. He learned the trade of a tinsmith. In 1S79 he married Lelia, daughter of 
Jesse and Almira Hamilton. She died in 1882, and in 1887 Mr. Burdick married, second, H. 
Emmogene, daughter of Jesse D. and Eliza (Clark) Rogers. Their children are Anna L., El- 
pha E. and William J. Mr. Burdick is a farmer and has served as justice of the peace. Jesse 



860 History of Allegany County, N. Y 



D. Rogers, son of John C. and Mary A. (Finch) Rogers, was born in Chenango Co. in 1833. 
In 1869 he moved to Friendship where he died in 1892. His wife died in 1874. He married, 
second, Ellen White. Two of Mr. Rogers' children are living, Mrs. G. W. Burdick and Made- 
lia (Mrs, Eugene Perkins). 

Rev. Benjamin H. Carryer was born in Lester [Leicester ?], England, in 1823, and at the 
age of 15 commenced preaching. About 1842 he emigrated to Canada and was subsequently 
ordained a minister of the Baptist church. In i860 or '61 he came to Richburg and was pas- 
tor of the First-day Baptist church for 4 years ; his next pastorate was at Friendship, later he 
was at Almond where he died in 1877. His first wife, Elizabeth Scott, died in 1855, ^"d he 
married, second, Harriet Smith. Frederick C. Carryer, son of Rev. B. H. and Elizabeth (Scott) 
Carryer, was born Sept. 7, 1847. February 22, 1864, he enlisted in Co. E, 48th N. Y., and re- 
ceived his discharge in September, 1865. July 7, 1868, he married Rachel, daughter of Uriah 
Pierce, and settled on the farm where he now resides. Mrs. Carryer died in 1877, and he mar- 
ried, second, Alice C. Mulkin, a daughter of Rufus and Amanda (Jordan) Mulkin. They have 
two children, Clair B. and Angela A. Mr. Carryer is commander of Cassius Maxson Post, No. 
249, and a deacon of the Baptist church. 

Ambrose Coats, Jr., son of Ambrose, was born in Connecticut. He removed to Alfred in 
1822, and, in 1830, came to Wirt and located on a lot of 99 acres where he made his farm and 
home. He married Mary Kenyon. Of their children 2 survive, Lavinia (Mrs. E. M. Stillman 
of Alfred) and Morris H. of Richburg. Morris H. Coats, son of Ambrose, Jr., was born June 
I, 1826, in Alfred, and came in 1830 with his father to Wirt. In 1852 he married Adaline, 
daughter of William Smith of Bolivar. Their children are Amos M., William M., Edwin D., 
Charles D. and Mary E. August 14, 1862, Mr. Coats enlisted in Co. A, 136th N. Y. V„ and 
was discharged Nov. 2, 1865, thus devoting three years to the service of his country. He has 
been a farmer and painter. Ambrose R. Coats, son of Ambrose, Jr., was born in Plainfield. 
When but 4 years old he came with his father to this county, and married Susan, daughter of 
Jeremiah Burdick. He settled on a lot of 95 acres adjoining his father. He died in 1891. Of 
his 6 children, Fred L., Nora (Mrs. M. A. Furnald of Bolivar) and Wallace W. survive. Wal- 
lace W. Coats was born Jan. 31, 1844. In 1869 he married Emma L., daughter of Alanson 
Kenyon of Wirt, and settled on the ancestral acres. He has 6 children. 

Albert Boardman Cottrell, son of John B. Cottrell, was born Nov. 20, 1842, in Wirt, at- 
tended Richburg Academy and Alfred University, and in i860 commenced teaching. Enlisting 
in September,. 1861, in Co. C, 85th N. Y., he was transferred to the regimental band and dis- 
charged in August, 1862, as Congress ordered the mustering out of all regimental bands. He 
re-enlisted in 1864 in the brigade band and was discharged in June, 1865. He then followed 
farming a few years and taught school four years in Kansas. Returning to Wirt he was elected 
school commissioner in 1875, and re-elected in 1878, holding that office six years. He was su- 
pervisor of Wirt two terms, and chairman of the board of supervisors one year, and member 
of assembly in 1888 and 1889. He was chairman of the committee of agriculture both years, 
also member of the committees of ways and means, appropriations, claims and education. He 
has been prominently connected with local oil developments, and was one of the company that 
drilled the first producing oil well in the Richburg field. Mr. Cottrell is a Grand Army man, 
and was a charter member of Cassius Maxson Post. No. 249. of Richburg. He married, in 
March, 1873, Isabel J., daughter of George Coon of Friendship. Children: Mary Lee, Ray- 
mond Sherman, Bernice Ruth and Max Boardman. 

Hiram Dimick, son of Austin, was born in Pownal, Vt. In 1840 he came to Wirt. In 
1845 he married Harriet, daughter of Jonah French, and settled on the farm which his daugh- 
ter Elosia now owns, Mr. Dimick was a man esteemed by his townsmen and held many offi- 
ces. He was supervisor in 1850, '51, '60, '68, '69, '70, '71, '76, '81, '85, was justice of the peace 
for many years, served as assessor, and superintendent of schools. In early life he taught 
school for a few years, but later was a farmer. Mr. Dimick died Feb. 3, 1893, his wife Oct. i, 
1880. Their children were Hiland (dec), Elosia, who resides on the homestead farm, and 
Marcus F., who resides in the town, and married Olivia A., daughter of Samuel and Katherine 
Karr of Almond. 

Arthur R. Doherty, son of William and Ann (McCloskey) Doherty, was born Dec. 10, 
1852, in Farmington, Pa. In 1875 he entered the employ of Tyler Brothers and worked in 
their oil field for several years. In 1881 he came to the Allegany oil field, and, with other busi- 
ness, has also been a contractor and superintendent of the Allegany Gas Company's lines. Mr. 
Doherty married Ruby Bubee, who died in 1888. His second wife was Bridget Cammon. His 
children are Ralph, Anna and Irene E. 

Pliny L. Evans, son of William, was born in Vermont, and when a child his father moved 
to Delaware county. In 18 19 Pliny married Polly Gilbert, and in 1824 he came to Wirt and 
settled at Richburg on the farm now owned by his daughter Harriet (Mrs, Chauncey Griffin). 



Wirt. 861 



Mr. Evans brought his land into a cultivated state, erected his humble home, and resided in the 
town some 50 years. He died Aug. 25, 1874. Mrs. Evans died May 15, 1843. Of their 10 
children 7 attained maturity. There are now living, Gilbert at Forest Hill, Col, William at 
Hamilton, Mo , and Harriet. Mr. Evans was one of the reliable men of the town, was justice 
of the peace for 40 years, served as supervisor and assessor, and was also a teacher. 

Elijah Fuller came from Onondaga to Wirt in 1822, and settled on the farm now owned 
by R. L. Cartwright, where he resided until his death in 1829. He married Abigail Gilbert who 
died in 1847. They had 7 children. Elijah S. Fuller was the last survivor. He was born Feb. 
27, 1S23, and died Aug. 11, 1894. In 1853 he married A. Jeannette, daughter of Moses and 
Martha (Prosser) Maxson. Mr. Fuller was ever a resident of Wirt, a farmer and also engaged 
in carpentering. He was an oil producer and had 24 wells. His children are Charles F., Ida B. 
(Mrs. Charles E. Hull of Scio), Ella M. (Mrs. Wm. L. Bardeen), and George E. 

Nathan Gilbert from Unadilla, Otsego Co., came to Wirt in 1819, built a log house on wild land 
he had taken up, and cleared a small piece which he sowed to wheat. He brought his wife, Betsy 
(Wilcox) Gilbert, and 1 1 children with his household effects on a sled drawn with a yoke of 
oxen, and reached his log cabin Feb. 20, 1820, having a cash capital of sLxpence. He made a 
comfortable home and farm by industry, and died in 1843, his wife in 1846. His son, Ira, born 
Feb. II, 1808, married Mary Lowell and inherited the farm of his father. He was a farmer 
and lumberman, was road commissioner and active in the Baptist church, of which he was an 
esteemed member, and a generous contributor to its needs. He had three children attaining 
maturity, and died April 13, 1894. Of his children, A. D. lives at Dorchester, Neb., where he 
is assistant cashier of the Dorchester State Bank ; Lovillo C. is cashier of the National Bank of 
Exeter, Neb., where he resides ; Rosalia E., died Oct. 13, 1875. 

John Gilbert was a native of Massachusetts. He married Sally Allen in 1843, and in 1844 
came to Wirt from DeRuyter, N. Y. He was a farmer and settled and made his home on the 
farm now owned by Simeon Wightman. Eight of his eleven children are living. Henry J. Gil- 
bert, son of John, was born in Truxton, Cortland Co., in 1836. In 1864 he enlisted in Co. B, 
189th Regt. N. Y. V. and was discharged in June, 1865, having shown his patriotic spirit by 
bravely serving his country. He married Elmira Brown in 1867. They have three children, 
Ernest E., Carrie E., and Hattie B. 

Ezekiel W. Johnson was a native of Westerly, R. I. He married Abby Wilbur, came to 
Wirt about 1830, and settled and made his home on the farm now owned by Mrs. Selina T. 
Johnson. He devoted himself to farming. He was a deacon of the Seventh-day Baptist Church 
of Nile, and was a man respected in the town. He died April 15, 1853, his wife died May 14, 
1878. Of their 10 children, Henry of Milton, Wis., is the only survivor. Dennis M. Johnson, 
son of Ezekiel and Abby (Wilbur) Johnson, was born Jan. 29, 1827. September 29, 1853, he 
married Selina T., daughter of Z. W. and Paulina (Fanton) .Stevens, and settled on the home- 
stead farm which his widow now owns. Mr. Johnson died April 19, 1892. Their adopted 
children are Emma and Arthur L. 

Deacon Isaiah Jordan, one of the pioneers of the town of Wirt, settled on Jordan Hill in 
March, 1824, on a tract of land purchased by him. He was born in Otsego Co., N. Y., July 22, 
1799, and was married to Polly Dakin a native of Dutchess Co., Oct. 22, 1821. Polly Dakin was 
born March i, 1804. Dea. Jordan came of sturdy Irish-American stock and for nearly 65 years 
occupied the old homestead, rearing 12 children. He was frugal, energetic, and honest and 
was ever held in respect and honor for his many virtues and strong religious character. He was 
a constituent member of the Richburg Baptist church, whose fine brick edifice stands to-day as 
a memorial of one of its most liberal benefactors. He died Aug. 18, 1885, his wife Polly died in 
1877. Both are buried in the cemetery at Richburg near the church they loved well. Andrew 
J., eldest son of Isaiah and Polly Jordan, was born Oct. 24, 1822, married Eleanor Stevens Nov. 
21, 1844, and was a man of sterling worth, one of whom it was often said, '* His word is as good 
as his bond." By his energy and business sagacity he accumulated a large property. He was 
a member of the Richburg Baptist church for many years and one of its most liberal supporters. 
His wife, a loyal little woman, assisted him in his labors and was an admirable mother to her six 
children. Of her we can say with the prophet, " Her children rise up and call her blessed ; her 
husband also, and he praiseth her." The eldest daughter, Helen A., is the wife of William J. 
Richardson of Belmont. Then follows, Celia, wife of Preston W. Gray, of Chicago, 111. ; Roena 
P., died Sept. 13, 1862 ; Elta E., wife of the late Judge A. B. Braley of Madison Wis. ; Milton A, 
who married Effie Burdick, Richburg ; Ada M., wife of W. G. Richardson of Richburg. Andrew 
J. Jordan died Jan. 12, 1881, his wife and son Milton occupy the homestead on Jordan Hill. 

Isaiah Jordan, son of John, born in Cherry Valley July 22, 1799, went when a boy to live 
with his brother Michael. He married Polly Dakin in 1821, and about 1824 moved to Wirt, 
took up an uncleared lot of 100 acres, and built a log house on what is known as Jordan Hill. 
He was a deacon of the First Day Baptist church of Richburg. He served as assessor for sev- 



862 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

eral years. He had 6 sons and 6 daughters, of whom 7 were living in 1894. Charity L. (Mrs. 
Win. M. Jordan of Dundee), John G., Fanny A. (Mrs. Rufus H. Mulkin), Michael J., Angelo A., 
William H., Mary A. (Mrs. Gilbert Rogers of Altai). Mr. Jordan was a man much respected. 
He died Aug. 18. 1885, his wife died Dec. 4, 1876. William H. Jordan, son of Isaiah, was 
born Nov. 9, 1840, married Libbie M., daughter of James B. and Anna (Murray) Thomson, and 
has one daughter, Fanny A. Mr. Jordan has held the office of assessor 5 years and has 
served 2 years as road commissioner. 

LeRoy E. Jordan, grandson of Isaiah Jordan one of the pioneers of the town, and son of 
Michael J. and Lucy A. (Smith) Jordan was born June 23, 1862. In 1884 he engaged in the 
oil business, drilling wells, etc. He is also a farmer. In 1886, he married Fanny Sortore, a 
daughter of Merritt Sortore, and has one child, Grace. 

Jonas Jordan, son of Andrew, was born in Cherry Valley, N. Y., and came with his father 
to Wirt. In i860 he married Phebe A., daughter of John Moore, and made his home in Wirt. 
He was a farmer, carpenter and miller, and was engaged in these different vocations. Mr. 
Jordan was also an oil producer. He served the town as road commissioner and assessor. 
His religious affiliations were with the Baptists and he was deacon of the church. He died Jan, 
17, 1893. His children were Hiram L. (dec), Claire J., and Maude M. John Moore, Mrs. 
Jordan's father, came here about 1842 and settled on the farm now owned by Henry Gilbert. 
His first wife was Mary Roberts. Their children were Archibald, John, Mary J. (Mrs. Henry 
Harris), Hiram, Phebe A. and Robert A. He died in 1886, his wife in 1856. 

Augustus Kenyon, a native of Rhode Island, came to Wirt about 1825, and settled on a 
farm near the center of the town. His wife's maiden name was Barber. They had 6 children. 
Mr. Kenyon died in 1854. His son Alanson, born in Brookfield, Madison Co., married Polly 
Ma.xson. Only one of their 3 children survives, Emma L. (Mrs. W.W. Coats). Mr. Alanson 
Kenyon died in 1875. He had been supervisor of the town, served as town clerk for several 
years and justice of the peace. 

Carlton R. Loomis, son of Ezra and Ann (Lamb) Loomis, was born Nov. 16, 1846, at 
Westfield, N. Y. When he was 5 years of age his parents removed to Forestville and here he 
was educated. In i860 he entered the employ of the Erie railroad continued until 1865, when 
he went to Jamestown and was engaged in the drugstore of Hall & Moore for about 5 years. 
He was then for a few years in New York City with the N. Y. Central railroad, and subse- 
quently was in the oil business with B. B. Campbell & Co., in Butler county, Pa. After remain- 
ing there 9 years, Mr. Loomis came to Richburg as superintendent of the oil field of the Mc- 
Calmont Oil Co. of Pittsburgh. In 1879 he married Rebecca, daughter of James and Jane 
Parks. Their children are A. Gertrude, Charles R. and Genevieve. 

George Ma.\son came to Wirt from Rhode Island about 1826 with his family, and located 
on the farm owned by Alvan Richardson. His wife, Eleanor Barber, died there in 1852, and 
he died in 1853. Their children were Eleanor, George, Matthew, Lavinia, Job, Nathan, John, 
Moses, Nancy, David, Joseph, Benjamin and Polly. All but two or three lived to be heads of 
families. Nathan Maxson, son of George, came when a young man, married Sylvia Palmer 
and lived where his daughter, Mrs. Sallie O. Phillips, now resides, until 1864 when he moved to 
Illinois. They had 5 children, besides Mrs. Phillips, George L., Susan A., Russell J., Lydia 
O. and Martin L. Moses Maxson, who came to Wirt with his father, George Maxson, was 
among the early settlers of the town. He was a tanner and a shoemaker, and carried on both 
trades. He established one of the first tanneries at Richburg. He was a deacon in the Sev- 
enth-day Baptist church, and was chorister for many years. He married Martha, daughter of 
John Prosser. Children, A. Jeannette (Mrs. E. S. Fuller) and M. Laverne (Mrs. C. S. Cleve- 
land, dec.) David w^as born in 1814, and in 1837 married Jane, daughter of Jared Coon of 
Alfred, and settled on the ancestral acres. He subsequently purchased the farm now owned by 
Owen R. Stillman, where he died April 27, 1877, his wife died June 6, 1886. Of their children 
were Melissa M. (Mrs. Martin Woodard, living near the old homestead), Harriet L. (Mrs. E. 
D. Gilbert) of Alfred, Garphelia A. (Mrs. E. B. Smith) of Pomona, Cal, Cassius M. (killed at 
Petersburg June 6, 1864, in honor of whom the Richburg Post, G. A. R., is named), Bvron D. 
of Fresno, Cal., Alice (died young), Dr. Willis H. of St. Helena, Cal„ and Albert M. of Florida. 

James F. McGibeny, son of David, was born in Washington county July 6, 1833, and when 
4 years old his father came to West Almond. In 1858 James married Martha, daughter of 
Luther Messenger, and located in Angelica, where he resided until 1888, when he moved to 
Wirt and occupied the Messenger homestead. Mr. McGibeny enlisted in 1862, in Co. E. 85th 
Regt., N. Y. v., was taken prisoner at Plymouth, N. C. April 20, 1864. He was wounded and 
taken to Andersonville prison where he remained until November 20th, when he was paroled 
and removed to Annapolis, Md. He was honorably discharged June 15, 1S65. He is a mem- 
ber of Cassius M. Maxson Post of Richburg. He was assessor of Wirt in 1894, and super- 
visor in 1896. His children are Bert L., Elva Q., Inez L., Henderson L., Vinna L., Claud L. 



Wirt. 863 

and Roy L. Luther Messenger came from Scott to Wirt in 1824 and settled on the place now 
owned by James F. McGibeny. He married Zilpha Morgan. Their children were Martha, Jo- 
seph of East Otto, and Mary E. (Mrs. E. Skinner of Hampden, O.) He died in 1889, his wife 
in 1878. 

LaFrone Merriman was born at Richburg in 1859. His father taught singing school and 
also taught music at Alfred University. His mother was a singer and played the organ in 
church. His own first musical study began at an early age, and was continued in Buffalo in 
1874 under J. Kuhn and Albert Poppenberg in violin playing, and L. G. Chaffin in organ and 
harmony. In 1876 he went to Boston, where he studied for some years under Julius Eichberg, 
Eugene Thayer, Bernhard Listemann, J. W. Tufts, Louis Maas and J. Harry Wheeler. While 
in Boston he was a member of the Philharmonic Orchestra under Listemann, playing violin. 
He also played in the Harvard Orchestra under Zerrahn and under Maas, Henschel and B. J. 
Lange. In 18S6 he accompanied a party of eighteen pupils and friends to Berlin for study. 
While there he studied counterpoint, fugue, musical form and composition under Phillipp Schar- 
wenka, and violin under Heinrich de Ahna, having access to the rehearsals of the Joachim 
Quartet at the Hochschule, and where one of h's vocal pupils was granted a free entrance and 
orchestra chair at the Imperial Opera as long as she remained in Berlin. His home has been 
in Hornellsville since he was three years of age. Several of his church and orchestral composi- 
tions have been given with success, and a number of his pupils are either abroad perfecting 
their musical studies, or are holding positions as music teachers in well-known institutions. Two 
of them are orchestra leaders (one but 15 years of age). Three fill positions in New York 
city. Five lill positions as organists, and a number are teaching in different parts of the coun- 
try, Peoria, 111., Brookhaven, Miss., etc. Mr. Merriman has been instrumental in giving the 
people of Hornellsville such works as Mendelssohn's " Athalie," Bruch's " Schon Ellen," Haydn's 
"Seasons," Beethoven's first symphony, Mozart's Twelfth Mass, Rossini's " Stabat Mater," and 
many smaller works ; also two comic operas, " The Sorcerer " and " Doctor of Alcantara," His 
conservatory of music at Hornellsville is so largely patronized as to require 10 assistant in- 
structors. 

Cortland B. Nelson, son of John and Priscilla (Bovee) Nelson, was born in Cambridge, La- 
moille Co., Vt., March 29, 1842. When Cortland was a child his father moved to Franklin- 
ville, Cattaraugus Co. In 1866, Cortland married Charlotte B., daughter of Lemuel and Char- 
lotte (Almy) Bessey, and settled in Wirt where he has since resided. He has served his town 
as assessoj-. His children are Charles L., Albert C, Porter S., Edgar D. and Mabel D. 

Frank Leroy Peckham, son of Cephas B. and Sarah E. Peckham, was born in Caneadea, 
Sept. 19, 1 86 1. His first education was received in the schoolhouse on West Hill. For several 
years he attended school at the Genesee Valley Seminary at Belfast, a short time at Pike Semi- 
nary, and completed his education in the Geneseo State Normal School, where he was 4 years, 
finishing in the classical course m June, 1890. He began the profession of teaching in his own 
district where he taught 2 terms. Being successful he next taught 2 terms in Granger. Sept. 
3, 1884, he married Myrta A. Seely of Belfast. In 1890 immediately after graduation Mr. Peck- 
ham was elected vice principal of the Genesee Valley Seminary at Belfast where he remained i 
year. He then became principal of the Custer City High School in McKean Co., Pa., at an 
advance salary, remaining there 2 years. In the spring of 1893 he was engaged as principal of the 
Richburg school where he has since remained. Mr. Peckham joined the Methodist church at 
Angelica in 1884 during the pastorate of Rev. Benjamin Copeland. In the spring of 1893 he 
became a K. O. T. M. and at present is a member of Park Tent, No. 17, Richburg. 

Wilson Phillips, son of John, was born in Vermont in 1806. In 1828, when he was first 
married, he came with his wife, Eliza Z. Cady, driving his horse and wagon into Wirt, with 25. 
cents in his pocket. He took up 100 acres of uncleared land, cleared and cultivated it and 
made it his home. Of his 5 children, none live in town. He died in 1888, his wife in 1889. 
Warren W. Phillips, son of Wilson and Eliza (Cady) Phillips, was born Jan. 13, 1839. In 1862, 
Sept. 13, he married Sallie O., daughter of Nathan and Sylvia Maxson. In 1862 he enlisted in 
Co. H, 1 60th Reg't, N. Y. V., and served his country until discharged Nov. i, 1865. On his 
return he lived on the old homestead. In 1882 he removed to the place where his widow now 
resides. He died Feb. 13, 1886. His surviving children are Windsor, Viona and Grace. 

The Pierce family is one of the noted ones of New England. Uriah Pierce was born in 
Bennington, Vt., in 1800. His wife, Millie Thayer, was born in the same town in 1798. They 
were married Oct. 14, i82i,and soon after moved to Spafford in this state. In 1835 they came 
to this county, took up a lot of wild land in Wirt. He built his log house and raised a family of 
II children : Harriet, Samuel, Jane, Mary, Uriah, Lyman N., Truman, Daniel, Henry, Sarahs 
Rachel, all of whom attained maturity. Only Lyman N., Truman W., Henry and Sarah (Mrs. 
Alonzo Shaw), all residents of this town, survive. Mr. Pierce died Aug. 28, 1881, his wife June 
14, 1885. Lyman N. Pierce, son of Uriah and Milly (Thayer) Pierce, was born in SpafTord 



864 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

March 3, 1831. He was formerly a carpenter but at present is a successful and practical farmer, 
owning lands in the town of Wirt among them the farm that his father Uriah Pierce cleared 
and cultivated and where he made his home for so many years. Lyman N. Pierce married 
Jenette, daughter of David and Antoinette (Cole) Brown. Mr. Brown was son of James Brown 
an early settler, who was born in Skaneateles, and came to Wirt and carried on wagon making. 
He died in April, 1872, his wife in October, 1872. Mr. Pierce had one child, Emma, who mar- 
ried Elmer R. Wilson and has 2 children, E. Pierce and A. Marl. Truman W. Pierce was born 
in Spafford in 1833. In 1863 he married Emily, daughter of Pomeroy Hannum, and settled on 
the farm where he now resides. Mr. Pierce has been road commissioner some years. His wife 
died in 1893. He has a daughter, Lottie M., who married Charles M. Crandall and has one 
child T. Lynn. Henry Pierce was born in Wirt in 1839. In 1S64 he was married to Mary 
Almy of Wirt. He is a practical and progressive farmer. He has 2 children, Sally and Floyd. 
Sally married Benjamin F. Lane and has two children, Beatrice and Bernice. Sarah Pierce, 
born 1843, married Alonzo Shaw in 1865 ; they had two children, Bennie and Henry. Bennie 
married Minnie Sanders of Friendship. Henry died in September, 1894. 

Walter G. Richardson, son of Alvan and Rebecca H. (Gray) Richardson, was born Sept. 
27, 1850, in Richburg, His education was obtained at the Richburg Union Free School and at 
Belfast Seminary. He was brought up on the farm, and from 1873 to 1876 was in the meat 
business, was deputy sheriff in 1881 and 1882, and in 1883 he established himself in the clothing 
business, which he now conducts. Mr. Richardson served as town clerk in 1882, 1889 and 
1890 and has been postmaster. He married Ada M., daughter of Andrew J. and Eleanor Jor- 
dan. Their children are Eleanor and Frederica. 

James K. Robinson, M. D., son of James and Louisa (Hobbs) Robinson, was born April 
13, 1844, at Lenoxville, Pa. He was educated at common schools, studied medicine with Dr. 
Woodward of Tunkhannock, Pa., in 1874 and '75. and for the next 3 years was engaged in the 
sale and manufacture of family medicines. He then practiced medicine in Deposit for a short 
time, when, in 1878, he settled in Clarksville where he remained until 1893 in the pursuit of 
medicine, then he located in Richburg, where he is continuing his business, and also manu- 
facturing. In 1863 Dr. Robinson married Phebe White. They had 3 children, Nellie, Mabel 
and Carrie. Mrs, Robinson died in 1872, and he married in 1882, Melissa C. Dunn. Their 
children are Mabel E. and Edna B. 

Isaac S. Smalley, son of Abner and Mary Smalley, was born in New Jersey in 1803, married 
Cornelia, daughter of Samuel Parrott, in 1823, came to Amity in 1824, and located in the north- 
west corner of Wirt in 1825, where he " took up " 100 acres of land and became a successful 
farmer. He also dealt largely in raising and buying cattle. He added to his farm until he had 
500 acres. He died in 1880, his wife in 1875. Their children were Phebe (Mrs. H. B. Newton 
of Cuba), Abner of Friendship, Fanny (dec), Andrew of Cuba, Squire (dec), Emeline (dec), 
Charles of Friendship, Mary A. (Mrs. Wm. Hicks of Wirt). Abner Smalley, son of Isaac S., 
was born July 17, 1825, married Martha E., daughter of James and Rachel (Armstrong) Mc- 
Monager of Maryland. He resided in Wirt 8 years, then located in Friendship on the farm he 
owns, and has been a farmer and cattle dealer, and for 12 years road commissioner. His sur- 
viving children are Frank C, Mary S. (Mrs. J. L. Latta of Friendship) and Fred C. Frank C. 
Smalley was born Oct. 21, 1852, in Wirt. He married Matilda Howe, who died in 1885. Her 
children, Roy D. and Ned A. Mr. Smalley married second, Alzona, daughter of Charles and 
Mary (Rutherford) Moot. Their children are Richard C, Lloyd F. and Ruth. Mr. Smalley 
is a farmer, cattle dealer, and dealer in farm implements, Osborne's " Mowers and Reapers " and 
road machines. 

Sheldon P. Stanton was born in Spafford, Onondaga Co., in 1806. In 1826 he came here, 
bought 80 acres of the forest, made a clearing and built a log house. He married Ruth Sher- 
man of Cambridge, Washington Co., born in 1803. Children, Benjamin F., Angenette (Mrs. 
William Townsend), Samuel S. Mr. Stanton died Feb. 11, 1888, and is survived by his widow. 
He was supervisor in 1845, 6, 7. Benjamin F. Stanton was born in Spafford in 1828, came to Wirt 
with his parents in 1829, married Joanna Smith, and became a farmer. Children, Sheldon L. 
and Lillian D. Sheldon L. Stanton was born Jan. i, 1853, in Wirt. He has always been a 
farmer. He attended Friendship Academy. Since 1887 he has been a justice of the peace. He 
has been prominently connected with the organization and conducting of the Farmer's Alliance, 
and, besides other ofifices in its gift, was the first president of the County Alliance, and is its 
present vice president. He married Aug. 27, 1878, Arline V. Tanner, and has two children, 
Dora B. and George F. There are now 4 generations of the family living on the same farm, 
the homestead in Wirt. Mr. Stanton is a graceful writer as is evidenced by the history of Wirt 
in this volume. 

Elisha Van Velzor came from Madison county, N. Y., to Wirt about 1828, and settled on 
the farm owned by H. J. Shaw. He took up a wild lot of 1 50 acres, where he resided for a 



Wirt. 865 

number of years. He married Betsey Barret, also born in Madison county. They had 7 chil- 
dren. Their oldest son, T. Jefferson, married Nancy M., daughter of J. L. Thurston, in 1837 
and lived on the farm on which he died in April, 1892, first settled by J. L. Thurston. His wife 
died in August, 1886. They had 8 children. Oscar B. Van Velzor, son of Thomas Jefferson 
and Nancy W. Van Velzor, was born in May, 1843, married in December, 1872, Mary E., 
daughter of Horace and Mary H. Butterfield. They have 4 children, Ruth Alice, Vivien and 
Blanche. Mr. Van Velzor is a farmer on the old homestead. John L. Thurston came to Wirt 
in 1S36 and settled on the farm now owned by O. B. Van Velzor. The latter part of his life he 
lived at Nile. He died in November, 1859. He had children, Polly (Mrs. Barzilla Burdick), 
Avis (Mrs. Wm. Burdick), and Nancy (Mrs. T. J. Van Velzor). 

Josiah Wheeler, son of Amos, was born in Vermont, and came from Brookfield, Madison 
county, to Wirt. In 1822 he took up a lot of 150 acres and later brought his family. He built 
a log house which is still standing. His wife was Eunice Crandall. They had 1 1 children. Mr. 
W'heeler died in 1833, his wife in 1868. Four of the children are living. Calvin Wheeler, son 
of Josiah and Eunice (Crandall) Wheeler, was born in 1812. In 1843 he married Phebe A., 
daughter of George and Phebe (Wells) Maxson, and settled on the farm, where he now lives, 
Their children are Belle (Mrs. Charles A. Chapin of Milwakee, Wis.), Amos D., George M. 
(dec), and Mary E. (Mrs. W. T. Eaton of Chicago, 111.). Mr. Wheeler is a farmer, and has 
been commissioner and postmaster. 

Simon Wightman came from Skaneateles, Onondaga Co., to this county about 1812, and 
took up a lot of 150 acres, whose timber he felled and hewed, made his house of logs, and raised 
a small crop for present sustenance. He married Catherine Allen. They had 10 children of 
whom 3 survive, William of Turtle Point, Pa., Morton and Simon. Morton was born Oct. 11, 
1824, married in 1850, Calista, daughter of Rev. I. Knapp of Wirt, and Sally Stanton his wife. 
His children living are Mark A. and Luther L. Simon Wightman, son of Simon and Catherine 
(Allen) Wightman, born March 6, 1827, married Melissa S. Gilbert, Sept. 25, 1853. Their chil- 
dren are Rosa E., Frank M. and Bennie A. Simon Wightman Sr. and his wife Catherine were 
among the constituent members of the Baptist church of Richburg, organized in 1828. 

Lathrop Wightman, son of Simon, was born in Marcellus, Onondaga county in 1820. His 
father moved to Wirt in 1821, and located in the southeast part of the town and was among 
the early settlers. Lathrop married Jane, daughter of Uriah Pierce, and settled on the farm now 
owned by his son, Elbert E. His daughter Harriet married T. H. Carryer. He died June 13, 
1889. Elbert E. Wightman, son of Lathrop, was born Dec. 12, 1857. In 1877 he married Ella 
I., daughter of Joseph and Mercie (Chapin) Davie. They have 3 children. Nelson E., Herbert 
L. and Leon G. 

William L. Wilcox, son of a sea captain, was born in Rhode Island Aug. 6, 1800, and died 
in 1882. When about 18 he came to Angelica, remained a few years, married Lovina Wood- 
ruff at Tyrone, then Steuben Co., and settled in Friendship where he made his home until 1841 
when he settled in Wirt, and cleared the farm (on which he erected a log house) afterwards 
owned by Wilson G. Wilcox, his son. He had 12 children, of whom now live, Lucy (Mrs. Charles 
Wescott of Rushford), Alvira (Mrs. John Van Home), James, Jane (Mrs. Delos West of Cuba), 
John of Andover, Mrs. Clarissa Dve of South Bolivar, and Wilson G. Wilcox who married 
Anna E. Wescott, and lives on the old farm. He enlisted Aug. 27, 1862, in Co, B, 23d N. Y. 
Vols., and served two years. He is a member of Cassius Maxson Post, G. A. R. Wilson G. 
Wilcox died Feb. 16, 1896. 

Daniel Willard came to Wirt in 181 5, and purchased a lot of 250 acres of wild land, and 
was one of the first settlers of the town. About 1839 he bought the Benjamin Crabtree farm, 
which his son Derrick S. now owns. Here Daniel Willard died in 1877. His wife, whose 
maiden name was Elizabeth Saunders, died in 1873. Their children were Daniel, Jr. (dec), 
David, Lucy (dec), Abigail (dec), Denis, Miraett, Dewitt C. and Derrick S. Willard, who was 
born Feb. 23, 1835, in 1880 married Mary E., daughter of Azel and Julia Francisco Clapp, 
They settled on the old homestead where he devotes himself to farming. His children are 
Julia G. and Arville. 

David B. Woodard was born April i, 1804, in Cambridge, Washington Co., N. Y. He was 
a son of John Woodard. and resided in Steuben county when he married Amanda Hall. She 
died in 1825, leaving one child, Warren P., who died in the army Jan. 16, 1863. In 1836 David 
Woodard moved to Wirt and took up a lot of 100 acres on East Hill. In 1828 he married 
Eliza Brown of Almond. Their children were Martin, Cordelia, Mary, Amanda, Prentice B., 
Lucinda W., Hezekiah D., John, Emily J., Elna E. Mrs. Woodard died April 20, 1871. He 
died Nov. 13, 1892. Martin Woodard, son of David B., was born Aug. 23, 1829, In 1856 he 
married Melissa M. Maxson. In 1862 he settled on the farm where he now lives. He is a 
farmer and carpenter. Children are Leman A. of Olean, Walter E. (dec), Grant B. of Bolivar, 
Roy L. and George L. 



866 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



Charles A. Woodard, son of Hiram and Orpha (Hendy) Woodard, was born July 6, 1847, 
in South Dansville, N. Y. In 1864 he enlisted in Co. D, 64th N. Y., and was discharged in 
July, 1865. In 1867 he came to this county, married Henrietta Horton, lived some years and 
moved to Millport, Pa. In 1871 Mr. Woodard enlisted in Co. K, 4th U. S. Artillery (regular 
army), served two years in North Carolina and then in the west, participating there in the fa- 
mous campaigns against the Modoc Indians. He married, in 1881, his second wife, De Francie, 
daughter of Warren and Eunice (Furnald) Woodard. Children, Frank L. and Gertrude L. 
Mr. Woodard belongs to Cassius Maxson Post, G. A. R. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

ALVAN RICHARDSON. 

All hail our early settlers ! though with storm 

Their sky of being was obscured with black, 

And Peril in his most appalling form, 

Opposed their rugged march and warned them back, 

They faltered not, nor fainted in the track 

That led to empire ; but with patience bore 

Cold, parching thirst, and fever's dread attack ; 

While ancient twilight, to return no more, 

From far Otsego fled to Allegany's shore. 



Alvan Richardson, the pioneer of the settlement of Richburg, in the 
town of Wirt, which was named in his honor, was born in Hartford, Vt., 
Oct. 13, 1781. The maiden name of his wife was Alethea Uran; she was also 
a native of Vermont and they were married in 1804. Her mother, Mrs. Abi- 
gail Uran, attained the great age of 105 years, 5 months and 5 days, dying 
in Richburg. Mr. and Mrs. Richardson had made their home in Unadilla, 
Otsego Co., for some ten years when Mr. Richardson in 1819 came to Wirt, 
built his log-house in the woods, and in 1820 he removed with his family of 
4 boys and 3 girls thither. He was imbued with the true spirit of the 
pioneer, and in addition to clearing his farm, in 1824 he built the first saw- 
mill in the town and also opened the first house for the entertainment of 
travelers. The next year he built the first gristmill erected on the Little 
Genesee creek, and probably no event in the early history of the town gave 
the settlers greater joy than the completion and operation of this mill which 
would give to them the staff of life. He owned 100 acres of land on the site 
of the village of Richburg, the postoffice there was named for him, and he 
was its first postmaster. The influence of Mr. Richardson upon the town 
was perceptible in its growth and prosperity as he aided all worthy enter- 
prises with his time and means, and Richburg was a place of importance 
even in the early history of the county. He died Nov. 29, 1857, his wife died 
Jan. 9, 1853. Their children were Erastus, Lucy, Harvey, Susan, Emeline, 
Alvan Jr.. Ezekiel S. Alvan Richardson, Jr., was born in Unadilla, Jan. 14, 
1815, and was but a smaU lad when he accompanied his father to these then 





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i 



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Wirt. 867 

primitive forests. However, as he was the third son, his advantages for 
education were improved, and his father's worldly prospects had materially- 
increased by the time Alvan had reached man's estate. He married May 
15, 1839, Rebecca H. Gray of Franklin Co., who died Jan. 17, 1891. Their 
children were Marion A. (Mrs. Stillman Davis of Friendship); Frances C. 
(Mrs. Crandall Lester of Richburg); J. Wallace Richardson of Andover; 
William J. Richardson of Belmont; Walter G. Richardson of Richburg. Mr. 
Richardson married second, Jan. 7, 1892, Mrs. Martha Farnham of Man- 
chester, N. H. The numerous official places which Mr. Richardson filled 
with credit show the various sides of his character. He was a prosperous 
farmer, was a genial landlord to the guests in his hotel which his unstinting 
and generous hospitality always made a home for every one, as commission- 
er saw that the schools of his town had the best possible advantages, served 
as overseer of the poor in a kindly humanitarian manner for several terms. 
He was also an assessor, and held such other local offices as his private af- 
fairs gave him time to attend to. His estate of 300 acres was made very 
valuable by the discovery of oil, as it was in the oil-bearing district, and sev- 
eral productive oil wells were developed there, making him wealthy from 
this one source of prosperity. In 1882 he made his home in Friendship. 
He died in Carlyon, Orleans Co., Nov. 23, 1894, from pneumonia contracted 
at the bedside of a dying sister. He early joined the Baptist church of 
Richburg and was long its deacon. He retained his membership here till 
death, although he took great interest in the Baptist church of Friendship, 
rarely absenting himself from the services. He was a man of unusually 
even temperament, generous yet modest and unobtrusive in character, ever 
exemplifying in walk and conversation his religious profession. As Chris- 
tian, as parent, and as citizen, he left a long record of unblemished conduct 
when he passed away. 



868 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



N EW HUDSO/S . 

BY HON. H. H. WAKELY. 

CHAPTER LXVII. 

The first settlers within the present bounds of New Hudson were John 
Spencer and Joseph Patterson. Both settled in the northwest part of the 
town in 1847. In 1820 Spencer Lyon, who had in 1819 made a small clearing 
and began a log house in the south part of the town, came with his family 
from Vermont by way of Syracuse, where he bought a barrel of salt. The 
last night before reaching the place of their new home they stayed at the 
Rawson tavern, on the county line road, where the barrel of salt was left to 
pay the bill, and at the end of his journey Mr. Lyon's cash capital was an 
old-fashioned sixpence. He prospered at his new home, raised a large fam- 
ily, lived to old age, and died comparatively wealthy. In 1821 James Dav- 
idson, John C. McKean and Jonas Eastwood settled in the south part near 
Spencer Lyon. The first birth in town was that of Mary McKean in 1821. 
In 1822 Stephen Clayson and Ehas Briggs and his father settled in the south 
part. The Briggs family came from Schenectady with an ox team and were 
17 days on the road. In June, 1822, Earl Gould and Catharine Eastwood 
were married, being the first marriage in town. In 1821 Mrs. Graham Mc- 
Kean taught a school in the Lyon neighborhood. 

In 1823 Jacob B. McElheny and his father, Thomas McElheny, settled 
at Black Creek in the south part of the town. They were originally from 
Easton, Pa., but had for a few years previous to coming to New Hudson 
lived in Dryden, N. Y. Thomas McElheny was justice of the peace for 
many years and died in 1843. Jacob B. McElheny, best known as Col. Mc- 
Elheny, from being colonel of militia, lived at Black Creek the remainder of 
his life and died in 1881 aged 83. George H. Swift with his father, Wyatt 
Swift, from Vermont, settled on Swift's Hill in 1824, and in 1825 Nehemiah 
Bosworth from Vermont located on lot 55, and the same year Peter Ault 
settled in the west part o"f the town. 

About 1824 and 1825 many settlers came among whom were Samuel 
Blodgett, Aid en Griffin, Orange Hart, James Swain, Elizur Beckwith,' Lu- 
cius Frost, Amos Rose, James Jamison, John C. Casterline, Brown Dimick 
and Elias Cheeseman. In 1826 Jared C . Hurd and father settled at Black 
Creek. Among the early settlers in the north part were Ebenezer and Silas 
Gere, and later Marshall Gere and father, Orlin Marsh and others from 
Vermont came in 1830. A barn, built by Elias Cheeseman in the southeast 
part of the town in the early days of the settlement, was covered with split 
shingles, or " shakes," fastened with wooden pegs instead of nails, the only 
nails then used being wrought nails hammered out on an anvil, and mostly 
made in England and Germany and costing 25 cents a pound. 



New Hudson. 869 



Reuben Bennett and family settled on Mt. Monroe in the west 
part of the town, and an incident relating to Oliver Bennett may be 
mentioned. At that time the old state militia law was in force, all able 
bodied men from 18 to 45 years of age were enrolled, and were obliged to at- 
tend company and regimental drill at stated times, failing in which they 
were subject to a fine. Oliver, after due notice, failed to attend. A war- 
rant for his arrest was procured and put into the hands of Thomas Carpen- 
ter, a fat constable of the town, w^ho found Oliver a half mile off in the woods 
logging a fallow. Young Bennett, w^ho was an athletic man, made no re- 
sistance, but was taken suddenly very sick and lay on the ground groaning 
in great pain. As there was no way to get any where near him with a wag- 
on, the constable had to look after help enough to carry Bennett through the 
woods to the road. 

Early in the settlement James Dinsmore moved in, bringing his family 
and goods from New Hampshire in a lumber wagon covered with sole 
leather. He was more than a month on the way. The sole leather proved a 
blessing to the settlement as no article was then more scarce. 

Many of the first settlers brought into the wilderness a few •' head " of 
cattle, and a serious trouble was to get them through the first winter; set- 
tlements had been made earlier on the Genesee River, and usually a small 
amount of forage could be got from there, but the main dependence was 
" brow^sing. " Trees were felled through the day, the limbs lopped off and 
scattered around for the cattle to eat off the buds and small branches. To- 
ward night the brush was snugly piled to be burned the next spring, when 
the land could be cleared for corn, oats or potatoes, but there must be no 
neglect, snow or blow, it must regularly be gone through. One man relates 
that he wintered nine cattle in this way by dividing one small bundle of oats 
among them each day. 

The oldest person born in New Hudson and now living in the town is 
Lucius B. Lyon of Black Creek. 

New Hudson was set off from Rushford April 10, 1825. The town was 
first named Haight, after General Haight of Cuba, who in consideration 
agreed to donate to the towm 100 acres of land lying near the center of the 
town, but afterward proposed to give a contract only for the land so long as 
it should retain his name. The people became disgusted with his evasions 
and in 1837 changed the name to New Hudson. 

The first town meeting was held at the house of Orange Hart, May 3, 
1825, when were elected James Swain, supervisor; John C. McKean, clerk; 
James Jamison, Elizur Beckworth, Silas Gere, assessors; Samuel Bell, 
Jacob B. McElheny, Samuel Blodgett, commissioners of highways; Lucius 
Frost, Amos Rose, James Davidson, overseers of the poor; Ephraim Briggs. 
John C. Casterline, school commissioners; Alden Griffith, collector; Brown 
Dimick, Alden Griffith, constables; Elias Cheeseman, John C. McKean and 
Samuel Blodgett, school inspectors. 



870 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

The Supervisors since have been: 1826, '28, '30, Alden Griffith; 1827, 
John C. McKean; 1831, '32, '42, '43, '49, Jacob B. McElheny; 1833, '35, Silas 
R Littlejohn; 1834, James Swain; 1836, '37, '41, A. R. Allen; 1838, '39, '56, 
Calvin Allen; 1840, Eleazer Carr; 1844, R. H. Loomis; 1845, '46, Calvin Swift; 
1847, '48, Leonard Nichols; 1850, '52, Isaac Spaiilding; 1853, '54, C. F. Trues- 
dell; 1855, C. H. Sayres; 1857, '60, '64, '73, N. D. Bell; 1861, '63, '67, '69, S. 
L. Davidson; 1865, '66, J. Q. Vaughn; 1870, '71, '76, '84, H. H. Wakely; 1872, 
George Clark; 1874, '75, '82, '83, H. P. Ricker; 1878, B. F. Johnson; 1879, 
'80, Squire Vaughn; 1881, L. B. Lyon; 1885, '86, A. S. Thompson; 1887, '88, 
J. B. Sayres; 1889, '90, '91, Elbert Bennett; 1892, '93, '95, Clarence Ricker; 
1894, Freeborn Gee. 

John C. McKean, first town clerk in 1825 and 1826, has been succeeded 
by: 1827, Fred Westfall; 1828, Truman Phelps; 1829, '30, 36, Isaac L. 
Andrews; 1831, Silas F. Littlejohn; 1832, '35, A. R. Allen; 1833, '34, '37, '42, 
'46, '47, '53, '54, '56, 62, Reuben H. Loomis; 1843, '49, '52, Leonard Nichols; 
1844, '45, M. T. Atwood; 1848, E. F. Bard; 1855, George E. Allen; 1863, '64, 
J. E. Caldwell; 1865, '67, '70, '73, '74, Gilbert E. Loomis; 1866, Seneca Allen; 
1871, Nelson Alexander; 1872, George Clark; 1875, '76, L. B. Lyon; 1877, B. 
F. Johnson; 1879, A. M. Waterbury; 1881, Frank Case; 1882, Melvin Crabb; 
1883, '84, '85, Frank Lyon; 1886, '87, C. S. Westfall; 1888, '89, '90, '91, Clar- 
ence Ricker; 1892, A. B. Larabee; 1893, '94, '95, M. J. Dunn. 

Population, 1830, 655; 1835, 1,065; 1840, 1,520; 1845, 1,296; 1850, 1,433; 
1855, 1,451; 1860, 1,316; 1865, 1,219; 1870, 1,142; 1875, 1,147; 1880, 1,034; 
1890, 978; 1892, 1,028. There are 22,200 acres in the town. The equalized 
value of real estate in 1895 is $347,958 of personal property $42,795. The 
total amount of taxes spread on valuation $4,387.89. Value per acre $15.67. 

Work on the Genesee Valley canal was the cause of the population being 
greatest in 1840. The houses of the first settlers of New Hudson were like 
most first settlers in a wilderness, made of logs chinked up and plastered 
with mud. A chimney made of stone or sticks and mud with a large open 
fireplace served to warm the house and cook by. A few feet above the fire, 
across the chimney was placed a pole, called a " lug pole," on which a long 
iron hook was hung, called a "trammel," the lower end having holes in 
which a smaller hook could be raised or lowered to hang a kettle on. Some 
(few) had a crane fastened in the jamb of the fireplace, which could be 
swung out from over the fire, and would also serve for more than one kettle. 

A large part of the town when first settled was covered with a growth 
of excellent pine timber and much pine was burned to clear the land for 
crops. For some time after the first sawmills were built in the town the 
only market for lumber was to deliver it on the bank of Oil Creek at Cuba to 
be rafted and run to Pittsburgh or Cincinnati and the price was $6 per M. 
for clear pine. 

In 1826 William Andrews opened a tavern at Black Creek which was 
kept up for more than 20 years, and had the reputation of furnishing excel- 
lent fare for that date. Soon after a store was opened at the same place by 



New Hudson. 



Nelson McCall, furnished with a small assortment of every class of goods 
likely to be then in demand. 

The first sawmill was built near the north line of the town by Ebenezer 
and Silas Gere in 1827 or 1828. The next year James Davidson built a saw- 
mill in the south part of the town and others were built soon after in differ- 
ent parts. 

The first doctor in town was Calvin Allen from Vermont who, for a time 
after coming, boarded at the Andrews tavern, was married soon after and 
spent most of his life at Black Creek. 

From the opening of the Erie canal Buffalo was for many years the base 
of supplies for New Hudson, although the people often went to Hammonds- 
port for salt. After the Genesee Valley canal was finished to Mt. Morris, 
most of the lumber and shingles were taken to that market, and most kinds 
of goods brought in from there. 

There was originally a fine tract of pine timber lying along the north 
border of the town which was bought up by John McGraw of Dryden, who, 
in the early fifties, built a sawmill near the north line of the town and for 
SDme years did an extensive lu-mber business at that point, shipping the 
lumber at Caneadea on the canal. A considerable village sprang up about 
the mill and was called McGrawville. After manufacturing the best of the 
timber the tract was sold to Albright & Kelly of New Jersey, and a store 
was kept in connection with the lumber business by John Thompson. 

After the lumbering was finished the tract was sold to William Simp- 
son of New York City, who cleared up the land and devoted it to stock rais- 
ing, and for many years the farm was famous for the fine Jerseys bred there, 
which were sold and shipped to all parts of the United States. The farm is 
now owned and managed by William Simpson, Jr. A few thorough- 
bred cattle are still kept at the farm, but for a few years past the farm has 
been almost entirely used for raising and training horses. He has about 
175 horses and. colts, all from trotting breeds. The farm consists of 1,300 
acres and is amply furnished with convenient barns, and has for exercise a 
half-mile circular track, while for winter use there is a covered track one- 
fourth mile long and 24 ft. wide, shingled, sided up, nicely painted and well 
lighted on both sides. The horses are all kept at the farm during winter, 
but in summer a part are taken to other points for training. The farm is 
at present under the care of James Hurley and E. F. Ives. Mr. Simpson is 
at the farm but a small part of his time, but always has in charge obliging, 
intelligent men who are especially attentive to visitors. About 20 men are 
employed in care of the farm. 

New Hudson belonged to the Holland Purchase, and the first contracts 
for land in town were made by William Pinkerton, Jonathan Dodge, Daniel 
Dodge and Ebenezer Horton. This was. in 1806, ten or twelve years before 
any permanent settlement; and it seems none of the parties ever made any 
improvement, and it is probable that the land reverted to the company for 
ack of payment. It is generally conceded that the Holland Company was 



872 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

very lenient about exacting" payment of the first settlers for their land. 
Their practice was to "article," or contract the land to purchasers, stipulat- 
ing certain payments, but the settlers had few means of obtaining money, but 
soon began raising cattle and every fall the company would send around an 
agent to buy the cattle and credit the amount on their contract. The com- 
pany would collect the cattle in a drove and drive them to some eastern 
market. 

From about 1830 to 1850 a considerable business was done in manufac- 
turing deer skin gloves and mittens by residents formerly from Glovers- 
ville and Johnstown. The skins were partly picked up in Pennsylvania and 
some were brought from the south; among the persons engaged in the busi- 
ness were Spaulding & Carpenter, Rorabeck & McElheny and Sloan & Jami- 
son. The skins were dressed, then cut up and given out to women to be 
made up by hand. 

In 1856 the Genesee Valley canal was finished through to Olean, and for 
the next 20 years New Hudson had a convenient market for its lumber, 
shingles, wood and bark. There are at present three postofiices in the towp, 
one at Black Creek, one in the north part of the town called New Hudson and 
one in Marsh Settlement, called Marshall. There has been since early in 
the settlment from one to three stores at Black Creek, and usually one at 
McGrawville, now called New Hudson. There are at present seven cheese 
factories in the town. 

The first religious meeting held in New Hudson was at the house of 
Jonas Eastwood, Methodist preacher at Black Creek in 1831, who continued 
his labors for some years, and, in 1827, organized a Methodist Episcopal 
society. The meetings were usually held in the schoolhouse for the next 
ten years, when a church was built by the. society, which ever since has had 
the services of a pastor; and have always had, and still have, a large mem- 
bership. In 1848 an addition was built on front of the church with a belfry 
and bell. Again in 1881 a vestibule was added to the church, and new wind- 
ow's were put in and a furnace was put in the basement. This church has 
always been known as the " Black Creek M. E. Church." 

In 1822 a Presbyterian society was formed at Black Creek with six 
members by Rev. Robert Hubbard under the care of the Presbytery of 
Bath. A church edifice was built the next year. The Rev. Reuben Hurd 
was the first pastor. In 1831 some division took place, a portion of the mem- 
bers joining a society in the north part of the town. In 1825 the society 
numbered 11 members. In 1833 45 members. Somewhere about 1828, by 
the efforts of the Littlejohn families, a Presbyterian church was built at the 
center of the town, which a few years afterwards was moved to Bellville in 
North Valley, where for some years religious meetings were held. After 
a time the church was abandoned and was some time ago torn down and 
removed. In 1844 the Presbyterian churches at Black Creek and North 
Valley re-organized and are now known as Congregationalist. 



New Hudson. 873 



A Methodist Episcopal society was early formed in the north part of the 
town. It built a church edifice and maintained religious services till recently. 
At present the church is rented to the Baptist society, which has been kept 
up since 1828, but has nev^er owned a church building. 

A Wesleyan Methodist society was organized July 7, 1885, at North Val- 
ley with W. A. Stanfield as pastor. They hold their meetings in the district 
school house. They have 11 members, and their present pastor is Rev. G. 
W. Sibley, i3resident of Lockport Conference. 

The religious societies of New Hudson inherited to a great extent all the 
strict doctrines of the churches of Europe.- The Presbyterians preached 
and practiced the doctrines of Calvin and John Knox, the Baptists thought 
it sacrilege to relax the practice of close communion, while the Methodists 
strove valiantly against any innovation of the teaching of Wesley and the 
simplicity of worship of the early fathers. An incident will illustrate this 
feeling in the Methodist society at Black Creek. After it had become strong 
in membership and had built a church some of the members wanted to in- 
troduce choir singing. Other members bitterly opposed it, urging that the 
congregation should do the singing "as genuine Methodists had always done 
in the past." This raised a contention which lasted for some time, but, in 
the end, a choir was organized and peace was partially restored for a time, 
but the worst was yet to come. In time the leader of the choir wanted to 
use a bass-viol and discard the "pitch pipe."' This projposition was, by a 
part of the members, thought to be a horrid desecration of God's house, and 
a contention was again raised that lasted for weeks. However, at a special 
meeting the bass-viol carried the day by a majority vote, most of the younger 
members voting in favor of it. On the next sabbath the big viol, six feet 
high, was carried into the choir. After the regular service was over the 
"class" or "speaking" meeting followed. The choir leader, himself a 
member of the church, placed the big "fiddle," as it was called, up in the 
corner of the church. When Brother Hargrave. a good zealous member, 
arose to speak, he turned to the big bass viol,- shook his clenched fist at it, 
and cried out, "Thank God, my wooden brother, you can't speak in class 
meeting." 

Both the Methodist and Congregational churches at Black Creek are weU 
sustained and seem in a prosperous condition. 

Early Times and Homes. — Wm. Guilford, an aged resident of White Creek, sends us this description 
of old times and old things that is worthy of preservation and applies as well to the early settlers of New 
Hudson as to those of any other locality: " Seventy years ago in this part of the county a few settlers had lo- 
cated along the creeks. They had a few acres cleared so as to raise a little grain and cut hay enough for a few 
cows and their ox teams and some had small flocks of sheep. What wool they could get was made into cloth 
to clothe their families. This, with what flax they raised and made into cloth, had to supply their every day 
clothing. All had to use strict economy to get along for money was hard to get. In this vicinity there was a 
heavy growth of timber of beech, maple, basswood and white ash, with some splendid black cherry and scat- 
tering pines of size and quality not to be excelled. Upon the hillsides there was almost a dense forest of oak 
and pine. But there was then no way to get much money out of timber. But few mills were within reach, 
and no markets to encourage any one to make much lumber. It did not look as though a century's work 
could remove the timber from this woody country. Several times in my boyhood I have stood by one of the 
old log houses and listened to the howling of wolves." 



874 History op Allegany County, N. Y 



TIMES SEVENTY YEARS AGO. 

How things have changed in seventy years 

No one can hardly tell; 
But few log houses now are left 

Where people used to dwell. 

All the houses then were built 

Of logs just as they grew. 
They did not stop to peel the bark, 

Or even try to hew. 

A big stone chimney all must have, 
Built up straight through the " peak." 

Covered with shingles two feet long, 
So they would never leak. 

They had to have an iron crane, 

And six or seven hooks 
To hang the kettles round the fire 

And accommodate the cooks. 

The pots and kettles all were made 

Of iron, thick and stout; 
Teakettles weighing twenty pounds. 

With great long iron spouts. 

Old-fashioned griddles two feet wide, 

(But few now can be found.) 
All had a swivel in the bail 

So they could turn them round. 

Bake kettles, too, they always had 

To bake big loaves of bread; 
They set them on live coals of fire 

With coals upon the head. 

Six or seven kitchen chairs 

Most always painted red; 
And big and clumsy bedstead 

With dashboard at the head. 

Most every house had spinning-wheels 

For spinning wool and flax. 
Our mothers had to make the cloth 

To clothe the numerous backs. 

See how they had to spin and weave. 

And had to knit and sew; 
Make all the stockings and the clothes. 

How can this all be so ? 

To see the tools they used to use, 
T'would almost make you ache 

To see the swingling knives and board. 
And the old flax break. 

To see the warping bars they had, 
Those old long spools and " scarn," 

And see the big and little wheels 
They used to spin their yarn. 

Some are wishing for old times. 

But ah! they do not know 
The burdens that our parents bore 

Some seventy years ago. 

Our dear old parents, they are gone 

To another world than this; 
If we could see them here again 

How soon we'd beg a kiss. 



Soldiers of 1861 to 1865.— When the Rebellion broke out no town in the 
county responded to the caU for soldiers more promptly than New Hudson. 
Durmg the summer of 1861 more than 50 men enlisted; mostly in the 85th 
W. Y. Others enlisted in other organizations of infantry, cavalry and artillery, 



New Hudson. 875 



and there is no record of deserters from that town. The following is a hst 

of the men from New Hudson who joined the army without designation of 

regiment or rank. 

Seneca Allen, Stephen Andrews, James Lindsay, Lloyd Nichols, James Wells, Alberto 
Wickwire, Henry Odell, S. W. Robertson, Wesley Lambert, Osman Briggs, William Vaughn, 
Harvey McElheny, George Rogers, Benjamm Franklin, George Brown, Noel Burlingame, Ed- 
ward Comfort, Orsemus Crabb, Orlando P. Case. Robert Dillon, William Dunn, Amos Foster, 
Charles Himes, Fred Hall, Reuben Hurd, Leonard Hicks, Edward Hicks, Joel Hicks, Willard 
Hicks, William Johnson, Willard Hill, Edward Johnson, Samuel Lindsay, David Lewis, Charles 
Lewis, Newell C. McElheny, John O'Conner, Chauncey Pratt, Joseph Patterson, John Parks, 
Isaac Patterson, Thomas Richardson, George Rugg, William A. Rider, Wilmott RobbinS;3-_K-. 
Ricker, John W. Rugg, Bradley Swift, Washingjpn Swift, James Smith, V. J. McElhefiy^ Otis 
Hutchins, Daniel Pasco, James R. Fisher, James^MlcElheny, Wesley Brooks, John Alexander, 
Charles Brown, Edwin Pasco, Richard Ives, Leonard Adams, George W. Lamb^Henry Miner, 
Cornelius W. Miner, A. J. McElheny, Edwin Trail, Ira Thrall, John McElhenj^John J. McEl- 
heny, Abiah F. DeKay, Aaron L. Gee, Simon Ikens, Gideon L. Patterson, Leonard Pike, George 
W, Brooks, James Denison, Benjamin Gardner, John Nolan, Joseph C. Scott, John Strait, Mil- 
ton Bennett, D. J. Upham, Francis Wilson, Richard Wallace, James Wallace, John (?) Pasco. 



Of the Town's People. — Rodney. James R. and Samuel Sell were all born in Goffs- 
town, N. H. The Bell family is one of the prominent ones of that state, having furnished two 
governors, a chief justice and a U. S. senator. Rodney Bell, born in 1802, came to New Hud- 
son about 1825, took up land and did some clearing, then returned, married Almira Noyes, and 
came back with his wife, and resided here until he moved to Rushford. He died at Hornells- 
ville in 1892. His second wife was Mrs. L. R. Dunham. His children were Charles N. Bell, 
who married Jane, daughter of Alonzo Sill, and located on the old farm. (He has been en- 
gaged in fruit-growing, and is now a resident of Black Creek), Rosina E. (Mrs. C. H. Ives), died 
in 1889, Laura N. (Mrs. James Wisner), C. Adelaide (Mrs. Benjamin H. Gardner), Frederick 
D. of Hornellsville, married Sarah, daughter of Robert Ross. James R. Bell was an early set- 
tler, coming here before Rodney. He had 3 children, Alfred, Rosina and Nathaniel D. who 
was a prominent man here. Samuel Bell was also a resident of the town. He had 4 children, 
Lafayette, Jane, Cyrus and Aldura. 

Reuben Bennet, son of Cromwell Bennet, was born in Connecticut, and came to Rush- 
ford about 181 2, built his log house and moved his family there in 1816. He resided there until 
1828 when he moved to New Hudson and located on the farm his son Milton owns. He was a 
justice of the peace over 30 years, assessor and road commissioner. He died Jan. 15, 1862; 
his wife, Nancy Miller, died in 1870. They had 6 children, 2 survive. Oliver married Clarissa 
Gere in 1849 and settled on the farm he owns. They had 2 children, Elbert M. (dec.) and Elv- 
rett. He has always been a farmer and has been road commissioner. Milton, son of Reuben, 
was born July 7, 1831, in New Hudson. He owns the old homestead and is an agriculturist. 

Frank R. Case, son of Charles C, was born in Cuba in 1849. He married Merta Alexan- 
der and has 2 children, Charles B. and Adella B. He has been a resident of New Hudson 
since 1858, and has held the office of town clerk 2 years. His father, Charles C. Case, son ot 
John, was born in December, 1815, married Celestia Baldwin and settled in North Cuba. They 
had 5 children, of whom Frank R. is the only one living. Charles married for his second wife 
Mrs. L. Sibley. He died at Black Creek in 1891. John Case, grandfather of Frank R., was 
born in May, 1776, in Rhode Island. He married Elizabeth Holmes and settled at Henrietta, 
Monroe county. They had 13 children. 

Agile Clapp was born in Vermont, married Julia A. Cisco and settled in Angelica at an 
early day. In 1840 he moved to Friendship and located on the farm now owned by his son 
George Clapp. He had 8 children. He died in 1884. Henry F. Clapp, son of Agile, was born 
March 31, 1837, married Lucy Searl in 1870 and settled in New Hudson where he resides. He 
is a farmer. He enlisted in Co. F, 85th N. Y., was captured at Plymouth in 1864 and was a 
prisoner 11 months and escaped. He was discharged in July 1865. He is a member of S. P. 
Bartle Post, G. A. R., of Cuba. Mr. Clapp has 3 children : Ella, Daisy and Cecil. 



876 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



Jerry A. Cooper, son of Joel and Orra (Blair) Cooper, was born May i, 1837, in Hume. In 
1857 he married Eliza, daughter of Samuel and Clarissa (Holt) Morgan of Caneadea, and made 
his home in Hume. He had one son William H. Cooper. In 1869 J. B. Cooper moved to New 
Hudson where he has served as assessor. He is a member of the Wesleyan church and a 
Prohibitionist. 

Lewis Gere, son of Joseph, was born in Massachusetts. He married Hannah Hodskin and 
located in Chenango Co. In 1830 he settled in New Hudson where he was a farmer. He died 
in 1862, his wife in 1831. They had 6 children. Their only son, Marshall Gere, was born in 
1815. He married Almira Ives in 1839 and lived in New Hudson. Their children were Lewis 
H., James M. (died in the army Jan. 22, 1864), Catherine M. (dec), Sarah E. (dec), Joseph A., 
and Williston F. Gere who is station agent for the W. N. Y. & Penn. R. R. Marshall Gere was 
first engaged in running a sawmill, then in farming. His second wife was Margery Van Etten, 

Eri Hyde came to Rushford from Burlington, Vt., about 1830. He married Pamelia Keyes. 
James Hyde, the sole survivor of their 4 children, was born April 6, 1814. He married Fannie 
Keyes in 1836. They had 3 children: Perry, Emma (dec.) and Elizabeth (Mrs. James Mc- 
Elhaney). James Hyde held the office of superintendent of the poor and highway commissioner. 
In 1836 he went to Augusta, Mich, and manufactured " calamity" ware. Later he returned to 
care for his aged parents. Perry Hyde, son of James, was born June 15, 1837, in Augusta, 
Mich. In 1862 he married Winnie Cameron, daughter of Peter. Their children are Charlie, 
James M., Horatio A. and Laura Minerva. 

Albert Van Buren Hendryx is a farmer, blacksmith and carpenter. In April, 1 871, he re- 
moved to New Hudson and settled on" his present farm. June 14, i860, he married Mattie C, 
daughter of Ulysses H. and Jaennett (Scott) Bradley, of Cuba. They have one son, Otis James, 
born October 10, 1876. Mr. Hendryx has always been a Democrat. [For Hendryx family see 
Cuba.] 

Henry Ives, son of Josiah, was born in Massachusetts, and came to New Hudson in 1837, 
from Lansing, N. Y. He married Sarah Nichols and had 9 children. Justin F. Ives was born 
in 1829. He married Elinor, daughter of Harmon Gorton, and settled in Belmont where he 
lived some years and worked at his trade of a carpenter. He was under sheriff in 1863, 1864 
and 1865. In 1876 he moved to New Hudson. He was elected justice of the peace in 1893. 
His wife died Oct. 29, 1894. Their children are Herbert, Dell (Mrs. Orlando Lamb), and 
Eugene H. Ives, who was born March 14, 1870, in Belmont, and in 1894 married Georgia A. 
Robb. He is assistant superintendent of the Empire City stud farm located at New Hudson. 

William M. Lane, son of John V., a soldier in the War of 181 2 (whose father was in the 
Revolutionary War as a soldier from beginning to end), was born in Farmersville, Feb. 1 1 , 1841. 
In 1862 he enlisted in Co. D, 9th N. Y. Cav. He was wounded at Shepardstown, Aug. 25, 
1864, and was discharged in June, 1865. He married Harriet E. Hillman in 1865, and in 1868 
made his home in New Hudson. They have 2 children : Glenn B. and Flora E. Mr. Lane is a 
farmer, a member of the Baptist church, and of S. P. Bartle Post, and has been postmaster 
for 6 years at New Hudson. G. B. Lane is a dealer in general merchandise at New Hudson. 

Charles Lewis, son of Jason, was born in Gainesville, N. Y., April 10, 1826. He is a de- 
scendant of the Lewis family who came to America in 1633. In 1846 he married Mary J., 
daughter of Jacob Holmes of New Hudson and in 1847 made his residence here. Aug. 13, 
1862, he enlisted in Co. F, 130th N. Y., and was discharged June 30, 1865. His children are, 
Truman E., Caroline (Mrs. Wm. Gleason), Ida E. (Mrs. Fillmore Gleason), Frank J. and Eva 
M. (Mrs. Fred Willover). Truman E. Lewis was born in New Hudson May 7, 1849. He 
married Victoria C, daughter of Alfred Gleason, in January, 1870, and located at Black Creek 
where he was engaged in dentistry for some years. He then settled on the farm he now owns. 
He is largely engaged in the production of maple sugar, has a dairy of 62 cows, and deals in 
stock. He is the second largest taxpayer in the town, and has been assessor 6 years. He is a 
member of Black Creek Tent, K. O. T. M., and has a daughter Clara E. 

Otis Marsh, son of Joseph, was born in Rockingham, Vt., in 1801. He married Rosalia 
Holden of Chester, Vt. In 1832 he came with his team to New Hudson and made his lifelong 
home on the farm which his son Rufus owns. He died in 1874, his wife in 1872. His children 
were Royal, Mary, George, Rufus, Otis, Crittenden, Nelson, Dexter and Helen. All are living. 
Royal Marsh was born in 1822, married Margaret Van Fleet and located in the Marsh settle- 
ment. He has always been a farmer. He has 2 children, Sarah (Mrs. Herbert Gleason) and 
Jane. Joseph Marsh was the first of the family to settle here, in the twenties. Orlin Marsh 
came about 1830. He was a justice of the peace. 

Ephraim Perry came to Rushford in June, 1819, from Chesterfield, Mass. He was a well- 
educated man and a school teacher. His wife was Hannah Jones. None of their children 
survive. Austin Perry, son of Ephraim, was born in Massachusetts in 181 2, married Julia, 
daughter of William Vaughn, in 1834, and settled on and cultivated the farm in New Hudson 



New Hudson. 877 



now owned by his descendants. Four of his lo children survive; Chester, Lurancy (Mrs. Rial 
Wheeler of Allegany), Aurilla (Mrs. Delancy Wickwire) and Foster Perry, who was born Aug. 
lo, 1844, married Mary, daughter of James Demcey and settled where he now resides and tills 
the ancestral acres. 

Clarence Ricker, son of H. P. Ricker, was born in New Hudson in 1866. was educated at 
the public schools and Cuba Academy. He has been supervisor of New Hudson 4 years, a 
member of the Republican committee 8 years (2 years chairman, 2 years secretary and treasurer) 
7 years on the executive committee, 3 years town clerk. He has been a partner with his father 
since 1888. He is a member of Cuba Chapter F. & A. M., St. John's Commandery of Olean, 
Oriana Lodge, No. 229 of Fillmore, was a charter member of Black Creek Tent, K. O. T. M., 
and its first commander. He married Mary, daughter of L. D. Stowell. H. P. Ricker was born 
in Waterboro, Me., in 1832. When 17 he commenced teaching and taught 7 terms of school 
before leaving Maine. In 1856 he came to Cuba, kept the old Cuba Hotel for 4 years, then 
settled in Black Creek, opened a general store, which he, in company with Clarence, still con- 
ducts. Mr. Ricker taught the village school 2 terms. He was elected supervisor 8 terms, has 
been postmaster at Black Creek since 1S60 whenever the Republican party was in power, and 
held the office of justice of the peace for 28 years. He married Sarah, daughter of Major L. J, 
Reynolds, and has 4 children, Eugene (a music dealer in Scranton, Pa.), Charles (a merchant at 
Hume and county treasurer), Edith (Mrs. F. A. Hicks of Cuba) and Clarence. 

William Simpson Jr., son of William, was born in New York City. He married Jennie, 
daughter of Joseph McGraw and resided in New Hudson for some years. He was the origina- 
tor of what is now known as the Empire City Stud Farm. At first it was for the breeding of 
fine Jersey cattle and later he devoted it to the raising of trotting horses and pacers. Frederick 
B. Simpson his son wiis born in 1873. He was educated at Trinity Chapel School, New York 
City, and at Pennsylvania Military College, where he took the civil engineering course and was 
graduated in 1891. He is now engaged in looking after the stock farm. Mr. William Simpson, 
Jr., has returned to New York City. 

Solomon Van Fleet, a soldier of the War of 181 2, and son of James, a Revolutionary soldier, 
was born in Orange Co. He married Sarah Carpenter Jan. 12, 1814 and settled at Port Jervis. 
About 1823 he removed to Skaneateles where he resided until 1832 when he emigrated to New 
Hudson and purchased 200 acres of land. I-iere he was assessor for many years and a member 
of the Congregational church. He died July 3, 1870, his wife Feb. 27, 1S52. Children, Benja- 
min, Margaret (Mrs. Royal Marsh), Mary (Mrs. James Burger, dec), Henry and James. Henry 
Van Fleet was born in Skaneateles, July 5, 1826. He married Esther, daughter of William and 
Esther (Westfall) Van Noy in 1850 and settled in New Hudson on the farm owned by O. Roat. 
In 1 88 1 he moved to Black Creek where he died Aug. 27, 1887. He was highway commis- 
sioner several years. His son George E. married Leah May, daughter of Bradley Alexander, in 
1883 and settled at Black Creek. They have 3 children : Rena B., Henry B. and Edith S. 

Hon. H. H. Wakely, born in Groton, N. Y., in 1825, was educated in the common schools 
and Groton Academy, removed to Allegany with his father in 1843, married in 1846 Miss Susan 
McElheny of Black Creek in New Hudson, where he settled, and for some years engaged in 
farming. He was later a jobber and overseer on the Genesee Valley canal and was superinten- 
dent of the canal in 1865, 1866, and 1867. In 1872 he was 6 months in the railway mail service 
between Hornellsville and New York. During the war he was enrolling officer for New Hud- 
son. In 1874 he was U. S. deputy revenue collector for Allegany county. In 1874, 1875, 1876 
and 1877 he was an officer of the state senate and, in 1878 and 1879, was member of assembly, 
and was librarian of the assembly in 1880. In 1879 while member of assembly he introduced 
the measure providing for the transfer by the state of the abandoned Genesee Valley canal for 
a railroad, and, notwithstanding a strong opposition and the efforts of the state superintendent 
of public works against it, he carried it through the assembly by a two-thirds vote. The measure 
was defeated in the senate, but in 1880 became a law and the road was built on the old canal 
line. Mr. Wakely has two brothers living at Black Creek. He has 3 children, a son. Dr. B. C. 
Wakely of Hornellsville, and 2 daughters, Mrs. Charles Yaw and Mrs. Fred Williams, both of 
Franklinville. Mrs. Wakely died in 1889, and, in 1891, Mr. Wakely married Miss Florence 
Atherton of Caneadea. Their home is now in Belfast. 

Daniel E. Williams was born in Byron, N. Y., Oct. 26, 1826. He married Lolette, daughter 
of Gilbert and Melitiah (Webber) Arnold, in October, 1853. They resided in Black Creek until 
1855, when they moved to Kasota, Minn., where he took up land for a home, and served as 
justice of the peace. In 1862 he enlisted in Co. K, 7th Minn., served as a sergeant and was 
discharged in 1865, when he returned to Black Creek, where he resided until his death July 21, 
1872. Mr. Williams was a teacher in Allegany county. His children were G. Judd of Urbana, 
Ohio, Myra L. (dec), Eugenia H, (Mrs. Dr. Thomas of Cuba) and Maude E. (Mrs. Ira M. 
Godfrey of Olean). 



878 History of Ali^egany County, N. Y. 

G EM ESEE. 

BY MISS MARY A. LACKEY. 

CHAPTER LXVIII. 

GENESEE is the southwestern town of Allegany county. At the time 
the first settlement was made within its limits it was a part of the town 
of Friendship. In 1822, when the town of Cuba was formed from Friend- 
ship, it was included in the new town, and was set off from Cuba as Genesee 
April 16, 1830. The number of acres which it contains is estimated at 22,- 
905. The soil is, for the most part, a gravelly loam, though in some i^laces 
it is a sandy, and, in others, a clayey loam. The surface is very uneven, 
consisting of narrow valleys between ranges of hills both high and steep. 
The highest summits are said to be 1,000 to 1,400 feet above the valleys. 
Although many of the hills have been partially cleared, with very few ex- 
ceptions the homes have been built in the valleys. On one of the highest 
hills, a little to the northeast of the center of the town, nature has located 
a hamlet known as " Rock City." It consists of huge boulders of conglom- 
erate, some of which are as large as a good- sized dwelling, and seen from 
a distance they appear to be a collection of houses. The sides of some of 
the boulders are as perpendicular as the walls of a house, with corners as 
well-defined, while others are very irregular in shape and vary greatly in 
size. The rocks are not confined to the summit of the hill, but extend down 
its declivities and cover an area of 40 acres. In the early " forties," when 
it was surrounded by a dense wilderness and bears were sometimes met 
in going there, the "City" had its beginning as a resort for celebrations, 
picnics, etc. With the removal of the woods much of the charm of pic- 
nicking was lost, but the view of the surrounding country seen from the 
crest of the hill in a pleasant day affords the lover of nature a picture not 
soon to be forgotten, and the rocks are still monuments of the omnipotence 
of Him who placed them there. 

The streams of the town are Little Genesee, Windfall, Oswayo, Deer, 
Dodge's and Wolf creeks, Streeter, Wilson, Bell, Butternut and other name- 
less brooks fed by living springs. The valleys of all the creeks are thickly 
settled, as are also some of the brook valleys; and, while on some of the 
brooks the clearings are comparatively new, thrift and enterprise can in a 
few years make them rival those which have been longer cultivated. In 
West Genesee, besides the 20 or more dwellings in either valley, there is on 
Deer creek a schoolhouse, and on Dodge's creek a Seventh-day Baptist 
church and a schoolhouse. There is also a schoolhouse in the Windfall 
valley. 

Little Genesee.— The village of Little Genesee is in the southeastern 
part of the town, and contains one Seventh-day Baptist church, one school- 



Genesee. 879 

house with two departments, a hah, two general stores, in one of which is 
Little Genesee postoffice, one feed and hardware store, two vacant stores, a 
hotel, a milliner's shop, a barber's shop and some 30 dwellings with about 
100 inhabitants. 

Ceres. — The village of Ceres is situated on Oswayo creek, a little west 
of the center of the south line of the town. It lies partly in Genesee and 
partly in Ceres, Pa., and has nearly 300 inhabitants. It contains, in Gene- 
see, the postoffice (Ceres, N, Y.), a schoolhouse with two departments, a 
hardware store, a grocery -and shoe shop, a grocery and harness shop, a 
dry-goods and millinery store, a general store, two doctors' offices, a print- 
ing office, a saw and planing mill, a handle factory, a railroad station, a bar- 
ber shop, 48 dwellings, and about 200 inhabitants, while scarcely across the 
state line are the M. E. church and parsonage. 

First Settlements. — The first settler in the town was John Bell, who, 
born in England, came to this country when nine years of age. He came to 
Ceres in 1817, and in the fall bought land on Bell Brook with the state line 
for its southern boundary. He at once commenced a clearing and the next 
year built, near the state line, a large log house containing three great fire- 
places. In December he brought his bride. Miss Jane King of Ceres, to the 
new home, and on this farm they passed the remainder of their lives, Mrs. 
Bell living to see more than man's allotted three score years and ten, and 
Mr. Bell more than four score years. 

The second settler was Newman Crabtree of Friendship. In 1819 he 
put up a shanty on the Genesee creek and commenced building a mill which 
was not completed for two or three years. He then sawed lumber and built 
a plank house, and went with his ox sled to bring his family from his former 
home in Friendship (now Wirt.) There was an old hut on lot 3 used by the 
Indians as a half-way house in passing between the reservations on the Gen- 
esee and Allegany rivers. Around the hut the vegetation was luxuriant, 
and Mr. Crabtree stopped to let his oxen feed, and while waiting he set the 
hut on fire. Returning with his family after two or three days he found his 
own house in liames and went back to the home in Wirt. A few days later 
Mr. Cowles of Bolivar met an Indian near the mill and asked him why he 
burned the house, to which the Indian replied, "He burn me house, me burn 
his." When asked why he did not burn the mill too, he said, "Ugh, he no 
burn me mill." 

In the fall of 1822 Jabez Burdick of Berlin, N. Y., came to Genesee. He 
had passed the spring and summer in Friendship, working a farm on shares. 
He located on Genesee Creek above the village, and made a little clearing and 
built a log shanty on it that fall, and the foUowing January brought his fam- 
ily, a wife, one son and two daughters. 

In 1824 Roswell Streeter, also of Berlin, settled here, and in 1826 built 
a framed house, the first in town, which he afterward sold to Mr. Wells who 
moved it to his own land and lived in it. It still exists as part of the house 
owned by Mrs. Howe. Previous to 1830 Mr. Streeter removed to Wirt. 



880 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

In 1824 Ezekiel Crandall and Joseph Wells of Rhode Island came to Gen- 
esee and bought 1,000 acres of land for themselves and other Rhode Island 
men. Mr. Wells was desirous of having the tract which contained a good 
waterpower, and this privilege the others readily granted. The remainder 
was divided among the purchasers by lot. Mr. Wells and Mr. Crandall 
brought their families in 1825. Their goods were shipped to Rochester by 
water, Mr. and Mrs. Wells coming the same way, while their six children, 
with Mr. Crandall and his family (five children) came with horses and wag- 
ons, making the trip in about three weeks. Mr. Wells built their log house 
where the house of his son Samuel now stands. The next year he built a 
blacksmith shop, at which trade he worked until his death in 1836. His sons 
Daniel and Samuel also followed the same trade for many years. Mr. Cran- 
dall with his family were detained at Alfred by sickness and they did not 
occupy their log house until March, 1826. 

Riverions Hooker and John Loop came in 1825. Mr. Hooker settled on 
Dodge's Creek in the northwest part of the town where he lived until his 
death in 1868. Mr. Loop also settled in the northwest part of the town but 
removed to Pennsylvania in a few years. 

In 1826 Joseph Maxson of Rhode Island with his wife and four grown 
children settled on Windfall creek, building on the site where the house of 
his grandson, Asa L. Maxson, now stands. In the same year Ira Burdick 
came from Berlin, N. Y., building his house of hewed logs on the bank of 
the brook below the village. The following winter, while chopping, he was 
killed by a falling tree. Mrs. Burdick had a hard struggle to provide for 
herself and two little ones. But she "kept the wolf from the door " until 
the children were old enough to help her in the struggle. So kind and 
bright and cheery was she that she endeared herself alike to old and young, 
and "Aunt Polly " was at all times a welcome guest, especially so if there 
was sickness or sorrow. After the marriage of her children her home was 
with her daughter, Mrs. E.-R. Crandall, where she died in 1861. 

In 1826 or '27 Horace and Hiram -Wilson bought land, which, after occu- 
pying some years, they sold, to Henry C. Crandall and Wm. L. Bowler. In 
1827 William and Norry Hooker and John Cook settled on Dodge's Creek, 
and several families from Rhode Island in the southeast part of the town. 
Samuel Jaques, George Kenyon and Joel Crandall bought in the valley east 
of the village, Benj. Maxson and Ethan Kenyon in the Genesee valley, north- 
east of the village, David Maxson below the village, Amos Green and Rev. 
Henry P. Green in the Windfall valley, and James King in the Oswayo valley 
below Ceres village. Daniel and John Edwards of Rhode Island, George 
Potter of Connecticut, and Rowland Coon, formerly of Rhode Island, came 
in 1828. Mr. Coon settled in the northern part of the town where he died 
in 1848, His son, Alonzo B., owned the place until the oil development, 
when he sold it and removed to Friendship. Mr. Potter bought on Wind- 
fall creek and some years after returned with his wife to Connecticut, his 
son George remaining on the place until his death in 1856. The Edwards 



Genesee. 881 

brothers settled in the Genesee valley about a mile above Ceres, "sphere they 
lived until 1874, when they sold the farm and dissolved partnership, John 
remaining in the old home until his death in 1877, and Daniel removing to 
Nile where he died in 1878. Elliott Smith of Brookfield settled in the 
Dodge's Creek valley in 1831, where he lived until his death in 1853. His 
son, John J., who came with him, still lives on the place. Paul Ennis of 
Rhode Island also came to Dodge's Creek in 1829, and in 1850 removed to 
Little Genesee. The same year Ebenezer D. Bliss brought his family to the 
Windfall valley and lived on the same farm until his death in 1884. His son 
David cared for his father in his last years, and after his death removed to 
the village where he died in 1891. Joseph Boss, who came with Mr. Bliss, 
in 1837 bought a farm in Windfall creek where he lived until his death in 
1872. Peleg Babcock also settled in the Windfall valley about 1828 or '29. 

The first settlement was made in Ceres, Pa., as early as 1795, so that by 
1830 quite a settlement had been made there, but so far as can now be ascer- 
tained, nearly all the families living where the village now is, were in Penn- 
sylvania. Previous to 1830 Daniel Carr and Edward Steenrod had settled 
on the Genesee side of the village, and John Darling farther down the valley 
below John Bell. A few years later Mr. Darling went west. 

In 1830 George Irish of Connecticut and Joseph S. and Ethan P. Cran- 
dall of Otsego county came to Dodge's Creek. Palermo Lackey of Vermont 
came into the town in the same year, and in 1838 settled on the farm where 
he still lives. In 1831 Elias I. Maxson of Rhode Island came to Dodge's 
Creek, George Merritt and his sons of Rhode Island and John Tanner of 
Petersburg to Windfall valley, Matthew M. Crandall to the southwest part 
of the town, and Asa Langworthy located near the Bolivar line above the 
village. Jairus Crandall came in 1832 settling in the Windfall valley. In his 
later years he removed to the village. Z. Reynolds Maxson came to the 
village, Warren Hyde to the north part and Paul Edwards to the south part 
of the town in the same year. Mr. Hyde and Mr. Edwards went to Wiscon- 
sin in the early forties. 

Albert B. Crandall of Brookfield came to Deei" Creek in 1833 where he 
spent the remainder of his life, and where his son, A. K. Crandall, still lives. 
Henry C. Champlin came from Alfred to Dodge's Creek the same year, and 
the following year removed to Deer Creek. About 1834 Paul Crandall and 
Marvin Wheelock settled at Ceres, and Dennis Saunders and Horace Buten 
in the Windfall valley. In the early thirties, probably, four brothers, Alvah, 
Ira, Cyrus and Russell Cooper came to Ceres. Cyrus and Russell owned a 
mill which they operated a number of years, when Cyrus moved across the 
line. Russell remained in this town until his death, keeping store for many 
years. 

Early Events and Industries. — The first birth in the town was that 
of Francis K. son of John Bell, and the first death was that of the same child 
who lived but a few weeks. The first marriage was that of Joseph Allen 
and Phebe Maxson in 1826. Mr. Allen is still hving in Wirt. The first 



882 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



school ^jvaji taught by Elder Henry P. Green in the winter of 1826 and 27, in 
a little house on Ezekiel Crandall's land. The first term at Ceres was taught 
about 1833 by Hiram Wilson who was a Lima student. " The old yellow 
schoolhouse " was then a new one. Of the early settlers, Joseph Wells was 
blacksmith, Riverious Hooker millwright and carpenter, George Kenyon, 
Matthew M. Crandall and Paul Edwards shoemakers, Mr. Bliss chairmaker 
(and the chairs, which after 50 years of use seem good for another 50, testify 
that he must have been a good workman), Joel Maxson surveyor, D. and J. 
Edwards carpenters and wagon-makers, Peleg Babcock and Mr. Tanner 
coopers, and Mrs. Rowland Coon tailoress. The first store was kept by 
Albert Langworthy in one room of his dwelling. The first hotel was kept 
by Lewis J. Coon in 1842, but no license to sell liquors was ever granted in 
the town. In 1835 or 36 the Edwards brothers built a cabinet and wagon 
shop, and in the early fifties a gristmill, the first in town. 

In 1836 a circulating library was established for which an act of incor- 
poration was secured and which was known as "The Franklin Library." 
Many of its prominent members and patrons were citizens of Ceres, Penn. 
The library was kept up about 25 years when the books were divided 
amongst the members. It contained RoUin's Ancient History, Plutarch's 
Lives, Waverly novels, histories of France and England, works of Franklin, 
Irving, Byron, Dickens, Goldsmith, Milton, Cowper, Life of Napoleon and 
many others. 

Little Genesee postoffice was established in 1830 with Benjamin Maxson 
as postmaster. He lived and kept the office in a house now owned by W, S. 
Wells. The mail route extended from Friendship to Ceres where it con- 
nected with a route from Olean into Pennsylvania and the mails were carried 
on horseback once a week. Later a stage route was established going from 
Friendship to Olean one day and back the next making the trip twice a week. 
After the New York & Erie railroad was built the mail route was divided, 
one stage running from Ceres to Olean daily and one from Ceres to Friend- 
ship 3 times a week until 1869 or 70 after which it went daily. In 1881 two 
railroads were built through the town, the Allegany Central running from 
Olean to Angelica, now known as the C. N. Y. & W. and running only from 
Olean to Bolivar; the Bradford, Eldred & Cuba running from Bradford to 
Wellsville, with a branch road from Genesee to Cuba. The Cuba branch 
was abandoned after a few years and in 1893 the main road was also given 
up. After the railroads were built the mail was carried on them and there 
are now 4 mails a day. 

Early Experiences. — One stanza of a song familiar to the children of 
forty years ago ran thus, 

" If we a visit wished to pay 
On a winter's night or a winters's day, 
The oxen drew the ladies' sleigh 

In the new country." 

But the pioneers assure us that travel with ox sleds was not limited to win- 
ter weather, but that trips to mill and to market were made in the same way 



Genesee. 883 

in summer also, sometimes going in that manner from West G-Aj,„ge^e to 
Friendship. Some of the early settlers tell of being half a day com^-^^q- che 
last three or four miles, and others about cutting a road a mile or more be- 
yond where any had been made to get their goods to the new home. One 
pioneer at least is known to have reached the town having but $25 in 
money, with his house yet to build and winter soon coming. Doubtless there 
would be many similar records were the circumstances known. The cai3ac- 
ity of the little log houses seems at the present day almost marvelous. 
When a new family came they were taken in by some family already housed, 
until their own could be built. Houses 18 feet by 20, or 18 by 24, some with 
chambers, some without, sheltered for weeks or months two families with 
five, six, or seven in a family. Wolves and bears were frequently seen and 
several instances could be cited where daylight showed by the tracks, that 
on the previous evening mdividuals had been followed nearly to the house 
by wolves, in one instance by four. Sad havoc was made among the sheep 
by wolves and lynx for several years, and lambs were sometimes destroyed 
by eagles. Deer furnished meat for many a meal, and bears also occasion- 
ally served as food. A bear killed by Jabez Burdick was shared with his 
neighbors. In one family the good wife was not told what kind of meat it 
was until she had cooked and eaten of it, pronouncing it extra nice pork. 
Many a supper consisted of mush and milk or milk porridge or roasted po- 
tatoes, or johnny cake baked on a board before the fire (for it must be re- 
membered that for a number of years there were very few families who had 
a stove) and sometimes when there was no milk the mush was eaten in 
water gruel. 

Perhaps it may not have been a common occurrence, but it sometimes 
happened that the children must go early to bed that their one suit of cloth- 
ing might be washed or mended ready for school on the morrow. Very rich 
did the children feel when they had shoes and stockings to wear to church in 
warm weather, and so precious were they, that those who had long walks to 
church went barefoot carrying the shoes to put on when nearly there. The 
busy housewife had not simply to cut and make the clothing for the family, but 
the cloth from which it was made was also the result of her own labor. The 
woolen sheets, flannel dresses and shawls for the women and girls, flannel 
shirts and kersey and satinet suiting for the men and boys were spun, woven 
and made with her own hands. The little linen wheels, which a few years ago 
the young ladies brought from the attic for parlor ornaments, performed an 
active part in home industries in the kitchens of their grandmothers. Sheets 
and pillow slips, plain kersey and diaper towels, bird's eye, suow flake and 
rose diaper tablecloths, were all wrought by their busy fingers from flax 
grown on the land. Some of these articles are now treasured as heirlooms 
by the daughters and granddaughters. Stockings and mittens for large 
and small were knit by the same diligent fingers, much of it being done as a 
rest from heavier labors. 

Mills and Lumbering. — The towm was heavily timbered with pine and 



884 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



hersjof,!-, as well as hard woods. When the first settlements were made, 
there were no roads and no sawmills nearer than those which had been 
built at Ceres, then known as Smith Settlement, previous to 1825. So the 
timber was felled and at first burned, the settlers living near the creeks 
cut the trees into logs, put them in to the streams and let the freshets carry 
them away. Some time in the thirties after lumber could be drawn to the 
mills, the best of pine brought |2.50 per thousand delivered at the mill. The 
first sawmill was built by Newman Crabtree on the farm now owned by Mr. 
Bowler. He completed it in the summer of 1822 and had sawed but a few 
thousand boards when his house was burned and he abandoned the mill. 
Soon after the dam was destroyed by a pine tree falling across it. About 
four years later Horace and Hiram Wilson bought and repaired the mill and 
run it for several years. In 1830 the second mill was built a mile or more 
farther down the stream by Daniel and John Edwards, and was in operation 
more or less for about forty years. A year or two later one was built on 
Windfall creek by Ezekiel Crandall and Joseph Maxson and their sons, 
Henry C. Crandall and Joel Maxson. Betw^een this and 1850 one was built on 
Windfall creek 'by George Potter; on the Genesee creek, one at the village 
by Avery and Albert Langworthy; below the village one by David Maxson 
one by A. B. Coon and D. Fairbanks and one by W. L. Bowler and H. C. 
Crandall; one on the brook south of the village by Joel Crandall and David 
Maxson; one on Wolf creek by Elias Maxson; on Dodge's creek one by Paul 
Ennis and one by George Irish; on Deer creek one by Albert B. & Hamp- 
ton Crandall, one by Kinney Brown, and one by Peter Keyes. 

In 1853 the first steam sawmill was built by the Ennis brothers on the 
Genesee creek below the village. In 1855 it was burned but was at once 
rebuilt. It was undermined by the flood of 1861 and was never repaired. 
For 25 or 30 years lumbering was the principal business interest. The 
lumber was drawn from the mills to the Oswayo Creek where it was con- 
structed into rafts which on the spring and fall floods were "run "down 
the river and marketed in Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and other towns along the 
river, sometimes going as far as Cairo. Pittsburgh hands received in the 
early days twelve and thirteen and later fifteen to twenty dollars for the 
trip making it in from five to seven days, and the return trip in from four 
and a half to six days on foot. Cincinnatihands received $25 to $30, making 
the trip down in from ten to twenty days, returning to Pittsburg by boat 
and walking the rest of the way. Shaving pine shingles furnished the men 
employment on leisure days and in the long evenings and added something 
to the scanty incomes. They were taken to market on the rafts. Making 
" grubs " which were used in the construction of rafts was another industry 
for leisure hours, the finishing being frequently done by the kitchen fire 
after the day's work was completed. The last of the pine timber was cut 
some years ago; the hemlock is nearly gone and much of the hardwood. As 
the timber was removed the land was cleared for cultivation and at the pres- 
ent time dairying is the principle interest. 



Genesee. 885 

The Slade sawmill is located at Bowler Station, and was built in 1881 by 
W. M. and T. B. Love. Six men are employed and from 500,000 to 2,000,000 
Xeet of lumber is produced annually. In 1885 Marcus E. and Jasper N. 
Slade purchased this mill and operate it. 

The saw and planing mill at Ceres was built in 1895 by P. M. Van Wor- 
mer, in place of the one burned that year and built in 1890. The main build- 
ing is 36x84 feet and three stories high. An addition 12x48 feet shelters the 
boiler and engine. The mill is supplied with new and modern machinery 
and is in every way greatly superior to the old mill. 

Little Genesee cheese factory located about half a mile from Little 
Genesee, was built in 1870 by Ethan Kenyon. Charles A. Thompson pur- 
chased it in 1891, and in 1893 made 106,555 lbs. of cheese and used the milk 
of about 350 cows. The factory has a Babcock tester. 

Physician. — Ormond E. Burdick, M. D. (See page 235.) 

Oil in Genesee.— The Bradford Era of Jan. 30, 1890, said : "The first 
test well w^as drilled on lot 42, commenced in the fall of 1877 and finished the 
next spring. There was quite an amount of gas and a little oil. It is esti- 
mated that it would have been a five or six barrel well, but it was never op- 
erated. The next one was drilled on lot 28 in 1879 and was known as the 
Buifalo well, as the capital was furnished mostly by Buffalo men. A little 
oil was found. The first barrel of oil sold in the town came from this well 
and was bought for lubricating purposes. The next well was on lot 22, com- 
menced in the fall of 1880 and finished in the spring of 1881. Some oil was 
found, but it was not operated until later. In the summer of 1881 the ex- 
citement commenced and wells were put down quite rapidly. " Prom the as- 
sessment roll for those years I find that in 1883 there were 467 wells ; in 
1887 there were 497, and in 1894, 348. Several wells, I think three, but am 
not positive, have been completed since the assessment of 1894 w^as made, 
and some ten or twelve including both oil and gas, are in process now (May, 
1895,) some drilling, some putting up rigs. (The late boom in prices has 
largely stimulated production since.) In 1894 the Producers' Gas Co. was 
assessed with 15 wells, and the National Transit Gas Co. with 11 wells. The 
Home Gas Co. of Ceres, organized in 1892 has two wells, both in Genesee. 

H. D. Witter, Esq., of Bolivar, wrote us May 19, 1895, thus: "If I am 
correctly informed the first well drilled in Genesee was drilled in 1879 or '80 
up Streeter Brook on George Green's farm by one Scott, and it was thought 
that it would have been a fair well if it had been properly handled, although 
pronounced a failure by the parties who drilled it. Since this time the ter- 
ritory has been develojied, and oil in paying quantities is the result, although 
they are light wells . The greatest amount of oil produced in the town at 
any one time was in 1882, when the daily run was 3,000 barrels, and the 
least in the year 1894, when the run averaged about 100 barrels. The main 
companies operating in the town were the McCalmont, Willets, Schofield, 
and Anchor Oil companies. There are two companies operating for gas in 



History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



the town. The United Natural Gas Co. has drilled 15 wells here, and have 
pulled out three, leaving twelve producing gas." 

The First Seventh-day Baptist Church of Genesee was organized 
July 9, 1827. by Elders Wm. B. Maxson and John Green. The constituent 
members were Joseph and Lydia Maxson, Ezekiel and Susan Crandall, Hen- 
ry P., Lucy, Amos and Esther Green, Joseph and Lydia Wells, Benjamin 
Maxson, Nancy Kenyon, Joel and Phebe Maxson. Henry P. Green, whom 
the Friendship church had licensed to preach, was chosen as leader. In 
1831 he was licensed by this church, and in 1835 was ordained. He preached 
for the church for about 20 years, part of the time being the only preacher 
and part of the time preaching alternately with others. He remained a 
member of the church during his life, occasionally preaching, and often as- 
sisting in the services.* In the second decade of the church's existence, 
Edwin Stillman, Thos. E. Babcock, and perhaps others, preached alternate- 
ly with Elder Green. In 1844 Rev. S. S. Griswold was called as pastor and 
served about 15 months. He was succeeded by Elder J. L. Scott who re- 
mained two years. Rev. James Bailey commenced his pastorate in 1848 
and resigned in the fall of 1853. In May, 1854, Rev. Thos. B. Brown as- 
sumed the pastorate, discharging its duties for 23 years, when he resigned 
on account of dechning health. The remaining two years of his life, al- 
though he was unable to perform pastoral duties, brought no decrease of 
his interest in and love for the church and its work. He was succeeded by 
M. S. Wardner who remained about three years. In November, 1882, Rev. 
Geo. W. Burdick came here as pastor, and remained 11 years. He was suc- 
ceeded by Rev. S. S. Powell, the present pastor, in November, 1893. 

The deacons have been, George Potter, chosen in 1828; Jairus Crandall, 
Dennis Saunders and Peleg Babcock, chosen in 1836 ; Joel Crandall and E. 
R. Crandall, chosen in 1856 ; Joel B. CrandaU, chosen in 1876, and E. R 
Burdick and S. B. Coon in 1887. The meetings were held in the homes of 
the members until 1835, then in the schoolhouse until the church was com- 
pleted. The church was built in 1837 and 1838 at a cost of $2,400. It was 
dedicated in September, 1838, Rev. W. B. Gillette preaching the dedicatory 
sermon. In 1879 and 1880 the church was enlarged, remodeled and reseat- 
ed at an expense of $1,800. It has seating capacity for 300. In 1886 a par- 
sonage was built, and two or three years later a parsonage barn. The esti- 
mated value of the church property is $5,000. In 1831 revival meetings were 
held. Elders W. B. Gillette, John Green, Matthew Stillman, Henry P. Green, 
Spencer Sweet and others, took part. This resulted in the addition of some 
25 members. In 1840 Elder Alexander Campbell conducted revival meet- 
ings when 46 were added to the church. Again, in 1857, under the pastoral 
labors of Rev. T. B. Brown, 46 were added, and, in 1865 and 1866, 27 were 
added. In 1870 and 1871 Revs. A. H. Lewis and G. J. CrandaU assisted Pas- 

* Rev. Henry P. Green was born in Hopkinton, R. I., in 1828 he settled on the farm on Windfall Creek 
where his son, T. H. Green now lives. His wife was Lucy Rogers. Children, Frances G. (Mrs. E. M. Cran- 
dall), Thomas H., Sarah A. (Mrs. Leroy Crandall), Mary J. Mr. Green was, as a pastor, much reverenced,, 
and beloved as a man and citizen. — Editor. 



Genesee. 887 

tor Brown in a series of meetings, when 63 united with the church. In 1878 
Rev. A. H. Lewis was again called for evangelistic labor, and 52 members 
were added. During the last ten years there have been frequent additions 
to the membership, which consists of 187 resident and 44 non-resident 
members. A church prayer-meeting is held on Third-daj^ and Seventh-day 
evenings. Weekly collections are taken for the American Sabbath Tract 
Society, amounting the past year to $111. The present offlcers are : pastor, 
Rev. S. S. Powell; deacons, E. R. Crandall; E. P. Burdick and S. B. Coon, 
(also J. B. Crandall, non-resident) ; clerk, A. L. Maxson ; chorister, Dr. O. 
E. Burdick; organist. Miss M. E. Bowler. The Sabbath school w^as organ- 
ized by Rev. James Bailey in 1848 or 1849, though previous to 1848 a Bible- 
<jlass had been held for a short period. Elder Bailey was the first superin- 
tendent. The school has at present about 235 members with 11 teachers. 
The officers for 1894 were: M.E. Bowler, supt. ; T. B. Burdick, assist, supt.; 
Matt Coon, sec; Edna Hall, assist, sec; A. J. Crandall, treas.; O. E. Bur- 
dick, chorister; Alice Prindle, assist, chorister; Nettie Wells, organist; Mar- 
garet Burdick, assist, organist. 

The Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor w^as organ- 
ized in November, 1888, with 30 active and 30 associate members. It 
now has 64 active and 24 associate members. The past j^ear the society 
has raised $43 for evangelistic and missionary work. A weekly prayer- 
meeting is held. In May, 1894, a Junior Y. P. S. C. E. was organized with 
18 members. 

The Second Seventh Day Baptist Church of Genesee was organ- 
ized in 1884, most of the constituent members withdrawing from the first 
church for that purpose. Elder Henry P. Green w^as the first pastor, and 
Wm. Stillmanand Rowdand Crandall the first deacons. The church services 
"were held alternately at Ceres and East PortviUe, or Main Settlement, for a 
few years, after that entirely at Main Settlement. About 1860 it disbanded 
and w^as reorganized in 1862 as the Portville Seventh Day Baptist church. 

The Third Seventh Day Baptist Church, now the West Genesee 
Seventh Day Baptist church, located on Dodge's creek, was organized with 
12 members in 1834. In 1843 it was reorganized with these members, 
Edwin M. Crandall. John Sanders, Ethan P. and Electa Crandall, Orenzo 
Coon. Lindon, Cornelia and Narcissa Crandall, Betsey Smith, Hannah Childs, 
Sally Coon and Jane Reed. Rev. Henry P. Green was the first pastor. 
Revs. L. D. Ayers, P. S. Crandall, Z. Campbell, C. A. Burdick, J. C. West, 
G. J. Crandall, S. Burdick, J. L. Huffman, W. B. Gihette, W. H. Ernst, G.P. 
Kenyon, E. A. Witter and J. G. Burdick have served as pastors. The dea- 
cons have been Ethan P. Crandall, Arza Coon, James C. Brown, David E. 
Yapi3, Charles Wilbur, J. Marshall Crandall and James H. Crandall. Church 
services were held in the schoolhouse until 1859, when the church w^as built 
at a cost of $1,600, and was dedicated in the fall of 1859, Rev. D. E. Maxson 
preaching the dedication sermon. The present membership is 15 resident 
and 10 non-resident members. D. E. Ya^^p and J. H. Crandall are deacons 



History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



and J. H. Crandall is clerk. The Sabbath-school was organized January 1, 
1867, with Rev. G. J. Crandall as superintendent. It now has 16 members 
with one teacher. The officers are Mrs. A. K. Crandall superintendent, 
Mrs. H. E. Yapp assistant superintendent, Elsie Crandall secretary, Bertha 
Lentz treasurer, A. K. Crandall chorister. 

Physicl!\.ns. — The first one in the town was Dr. Enoch Maxson wha 
must have come as early as 1829 and vv^as for several years the only physi- 
cian between Friendship and Olean. In the early forties he removed to 
Iowa. Since then there have been located in the town Drs. Sheffield Green, 
Clark Bailey, Edwin Burdick and Henry P. Saunders at Little Genesee; R. 
P. Stevens, C. D. Thompson, J. P. Boothe (for thirty years) Dorr Cutler, T. 
Ledyard, dentist, and perhaps others at Ceres. Of Genesee's sons there 
have entered the medical profession: Dr. Stephen Maxson deceased; Drs. 
W. W. Crandall located at Wellsville, J. C. Young at Cuba, H. R. Maxson at 
Norton vihe, Kan., Delos Barber in California, A. E. Burdick at Manistique, 
Mich., O. E. Burdick at Ceres, N. Y., and Byron Cranston at Rudolph, Ohio 

Military List.— When, in 1861, the "War of the Rebellion " broke out, 
Genesee's "boys" with loyal patriotism responded to the call for troops. 
With a population of 963 in 1860, 130 of Genesee's citizens entered the ser- 
vice during the war; several families sending all their sons, numbering from 
one to five, and many families the husband and father to the defense of the 
Union. We give the names and regiments as found in the town record : 

Eighty-Fifth N. Y.— Hiram A. Adams, Everett Ackerman, Delos Barber. Edwin Beck- 
with, James S. Bissell, Gilbert Bixby, Jacob E. Brock, Addison A. Burdick, Silas G. Burdick, 
Henry C. Cojeman, J. Marshall Crandall, Marcus M. Crandall, Floyd M. Crandall, George H. 
Case, Walter Crandall, Everett N. Crandall, Alphonso Childs, Joel B. Crandall, Lyman^Dem- 
ing, Edwin Doane, Edwin C. Foster, Hiram Grow, Henry C. Hall, Arthur J. Hall, Milford D. 
Hall, Martin Hill, John Holly, Corydon Humphrey, Geo. Hadwin Irish, \Vm. H. Jennings, 
Orson Lackey, Gurdon W. Lane, Ralph C. Langworthy, John Langworthy, Israel T. Lewis, 
Daniel Loop, Edwin Lucas, Thomas U. Martin, Marshal L. Maxson, Marion M. Maxson, 
Henry R. Maxson, Phineas V. Maxson, Joseph Maxwell, Horton M. Murphy, Isaac R. Parker, 
Wm. H. Perry, Hosea Palmer, Lyman O. Slade, Isaac R. Spencer, Wm. H. Stillman, Joseph D. 
Stillman, Albino R. Stone, I. Howard Stone, Charles Velie, Jared Wales, Winfield S. Wells, 
Fayette Withey, Phineas Woodmancy. Twenty-Seventh N. Y.— Daniel B. Baxter, Charles 
Berry, William B. Bliss, Albert B. Champlin, Sebeus B. Coon, Delos Cornwall, John H. Cran- 
dall, M. Stillman Cranston, Dudley Dennison, Joseph B. Howe, Warren W. Jaques, Lafayette 
Jaques, Clinton R. Lewis, Henry D. Lewis, Winiield Ouigley, Jerry K. Redding, John W. Stan- 
ton, George L. Utter, Daniel G. Weymar. One Hundred Eighty-Ninth N. Y. — Webster 
W. Cole, Joseph C. Cole, William Crandall, Thomas G. Crandall, Almond Robinson, Chandler 
R. Spencer. One Hundred Eighty-Eighth, N. Y. — James A. Swarthout, Henry D. Green. 
One Hundred Fifty-Fourth N. Y.— Martin V. Champlin, Augustus Franklin Keyes, Har- 
ris Lamb, Seymour Sykes, Wm. Spencer Tift. One Hundred Thirty-Sixth N. Y. — An- 
drew B. Brown, George H. Crandall, Frederick R. Spencer, Israel P. Spencer, W. Wallace 
Stannard. One Hundred Ninth Y. Y.— Benj. Delmage, Palmer Hewitt, Chas. Henry Wales. 
One Hundred Forty-Seventh N, Y.— James M. Kellar. One Hundred Thirty-Third 
N. Y.— Orville P. Dana. One Hundred Fortieth N. Y.— Edgar W. Wells. One Hun- 
dred Fifth N. Y.— Julius J. Call. Ninety-Eighth N. Y.— Phineas Woodmancy. Seventy- 
First N. Y.— Alvah S. Langley. Fifty-Second N. Y.— Orson F. Maxson. Twenty-Third 
N. Y.— Albert R. Crandall, James Hall, Morton L. Spencer, Frank M. Van Wormer. Seconi> 
N. Y.— Luther J. Austin. First N. Y. Rifles.— Wm. Nelson Maxson. Twelfth N. Y. 
Cavalry.— John S. Champlin, Lewis Champlin, Allen Squire Hanks, Orson F. Keyes, Z. Pren 
tice Maxson, Amos Parsons, H. Riley Smith. Fifth N. Y. Cavalry.— George R. Brown- 
Eli P. Brown. Second N. Y. Cavalry.— Wm. Henry Hall. io8th Penn.— Wright C. 



Genesee. 889 

White. 190TH Penn. — Floyd Holly. 1ST Penn. Rifles. — L. Byron Danforth, Chas. M. 
Austin. Regiment not given, Edward McDonald, Geo. A. Whitford, Morton D. Crandall. 
Navy. — Dewane D. Babcock. 

Of this number four were killed in battle; Marcus M. Crandall and Orson 
Lackey at Fair Oaks, Martin V. Champlin at Chancellorsviile and Wm. N. 
Maxson at South Mountain. 14 suffered death at Andersonville: Addison 
A. Burdick, James S. Bissell. J. Marshall Crandall, AlphonsoChilds, Lyman 
Denning, Geo. Hadwin Irish, Orson F. Keyes, Gnrdon W. Lane, Joseph 
Maxwell, Hosea Palmer, Isaac R. Parker, Henry C. Rogers; Jared Wales, 
Chas. Henry Wales. Three died at Florence after being transferred from 
Andersonville; Floyd M. Crandall, Marion M. Maxson and Wm. H. Jennings. 
13 died in hospitals of wounds or disease: Everett Ackerman, Wm. B. Bliss, 
Andrew B. Brown. Eli P. Brown, Julius J. Call, Lewis Champlin. Corydon 
Humphrey, Augustus F. Keyes, Edwin Lucas, Edward J. McDonald, Sey- 
mour Sykes, Chandler R. Spencer, Phineas Woodmancy. George R. Brown 
died at home while on a furlough and Milford D. Hall died at Elmira on his 
way home after being discharged at the close of the war. Many other " Gen- 
esee boys " who had been in employment in other places long enough to 
gain a residence there were also to be found in the ranks. 

33 non-residents also represented the town, either as substitutes or in 
response to the towns offer of $300 for each volunteer to fill the quota under 
the call of the President made Oct. 17, 1863. Of most of these there is no 
record except the names, which are: Wm. H. Brightman, Chas. Bennett, Wm. 
Brown, David Class, Daniel Carlos, David Clark, Frank S. Dimond, John 
East, Alvin W. Kinney (who died at Andersonville), Henry Kirby, Richard 
Mattison, Clem Langworthy, James McMann, Patrick McDonald, Chas. 
Malizen, Jas. S. McCarty, Michael McGreevy, Sam'l Mclntyre, Thos. Mc- 
Henry, Edward Nichols, Louis Phillips, Samuel Pollock, Peter Rockafeller, 
Kingsley I. Snyder, Jas. Shawley, Harmon Smith, Joseph Tarball, Wm. H. 
Van Wormer, Franklin B. Woodhiser, Henry Winship, Ransom Winters, 
George Wakely, Miner Wyckoff. 

The first town meeting was held at the house of Benj. Maxson, April 
27, 1830. The first town otficers were: Benj. Maxson, supervisor; David 
Maxson, clerk; John Bell, Geo. W. Kenyon and Wm Hooker, asessors; Jabez 
Burdick, collector; Horace H. Wilson and Riverious Hooker, com. of high- 
ways; Joseph Maxson and Joseph Wells, overseers of the poor; Joel Crandall, 
Rowland Coon and Edwin Stillman, com. of common schools; Henry P. Green, 
Joel Maxson and Geo. W. Kenyon, inspectors of common schools; Jabez Bur- 
dick, Norry Hooker and Daniel Carr, constables; Ethan Kenyon, Joel Max- 
son, John L. Slayton and James Waterbury, justices. 

Supervisors. — Benj. Maxson, 1830; Hiram Wilson, 1831, '32 ; Wm. P. Langworthy, 1833, '34, '35, '39, 
'40, '47 ; Daniel Edwards, 1836, '37, '38, '67, '68 ; John Edwards, 1841 ; Asa A. Langworthy, 1842, '43, '44 ; 
Albert B. Crandall, 1845, '46, '52, '65, '66 ; Ralph H. Adams, 1849, '50, '51, '53 ; Alonzo B. Coon, 1854, '63, 
'64; Alexander H. Main, 1855 ; Francis W. Prindle, 1856, '57, '58; E. R. Crandall, 1859, '60, '87, '88 ; W. L. 
Bowler, 1861, '62; Walter Crandall, 1869, '70; A. N. Carpenter, 1871, '72; Thos. H. Green, 1873, '74 ; John 
J. Smith, 1875, '76, '89, '90; John H. Crandall, 1877, '78 ; Isaac Prosser, 1879, '80; H. A. Rose, 1881, '82; 



890 History of Allegany County, N. Y 

Fosters. Dickin&on, 1883, '84; James H. Crandall, 1885, '86; Wm. R. Hill, 1891, '92 ; Irwin S. Bellamy, 
1893, '94, '95. 

Officers for 1895. — Supervisor, Irvin S. Bellamy ; clerk, Horace G. Prindle ; justices, E. R. Crandall, 
C. A. Warner, Myron Irish, H. G. Prindle ; assessors, George D. Monger, Thos. H. Brown, James B. Gray ; 
collector, C. S. Jaques ; com. of highways, Edwin Howard ; in spectors of elections, Charles W. Fairbank, 
Thos. G. Crandall, E. B. Adams, E. R. Smith ; constables, Welcome R. Maxson, Marcus E. Slade, Cortland 
S. Jaques, Albert E. Yapp, John Holley ; excise commissioners, Edwin C. Foster, Albert K. Crandall, Joel P. 
Stillman. 

Genesee has once, during the fifties, been represented in the state leg- 
islative halls, by A. H. Main, assemblyman. 

There are seven school districts, to which is apportionedin 1896 IS65.36 , 
as follows: Dist. 1, $255.82; Dist. 2, |1.92; Dist. 3, $114.83; Dist. 4, $113.30 
Dist.5, $120.30; Dist. 6. $247.44; Dist. 7, $11.75. 



Something of the People. — David Almy was born in Washington county in 1797. 
He came with his father, Chas. Almy, to Onondaga county, town of Spafford in 1802. He 
married Lydia, a daughter of Josiah Streeter. They had 3 children, Caroline, who married 
Worden Babcock and died in 1874. Alexander S. of Ceres, and Jewett, who died in 1855. 
David Almy died in Ceres in 1888 at the home of his son Alexander, where he had lived since 
1881, coming from Richburg where he settled in 1849. Alexander S. Almy was born in Spaf- 
ford April 3, 1823. In 1844 he married Christiana J. Buffington, and in 1849 came to Rich- 
burg where he worked at carpenter work for several years. In 1868 he moved to Ceres and 
has since been engaged in manufacturing and repairing of wagons. Mr. Almy has 3 children, 
George B., Mary O., wife of E. L. Nichoson, and Jewett B. 

John W. Austin was born in 1816 in Chenango county. In 1818 his father Luther came to 
that part of Friendship now Wirt, and settled near the center, and made the first clearing on 
the farm. In 1820 he moved to Bolivar, and, in company with others, built the first sawmill in 
that town. Mr. Austin married Louisa Nichols. They had 5 children. He has resided in 
Ceres since 1840. His principal business has been that of mill building. He has served as 
justice of the peace for over 30 years. 

Thomas H. Brown, son of Rev. Thomas B. and Margaret A. (Sanderson) Brown, was born 
Oct. 23, 1853, in New York City. In May, 1854, his father became pastor of the Seventh Day 
Baptist church at Little Genesee and ." labored for that church until May, 1877." In 1880, 
September 20, Thomas H. Brown married Amanda E., daughter of William Ennis. They have 
three children, Sue, Elizabeth W,, and William E. Mr. Brown is one of the assessors of the 
town. 

Benjamin F. Burdick, son of Daniel, was born in Lincklaen, N. Y., Sept. 30, 1820. In 1836 
he came to Almond. In 1847 he married Julia A., daughter of Joel Crandall, and has since 
resided in Genesee. Mrs. Burdick died March 24, 1891. Of their 7 children now survive, Al- 
berne H. (living in New Jersey), Ormond E. (a physician in Genesee), and Agnes L. Margaret B. 
died Aug. 21, 1895. 

Daniel M. Burdick, son of Daniel, was born August 15, 1813, in Lincoln, Chenango Co. 
After receiving a common school education he taught a few terms of school, then attended 
Alfred University, and while there received a state certificate to teach. He has taught 50 terms, 
his first one when 20, his last one when 72 years old. In 1837 he married Sally A. Maxson and 
settled in Genesee, where the family now resides. Their children were Daniel O. (dec), Addi- 
son A. (he was in the 85th N. Y. and died at Andersonville prison Oct. 13, 1864), Rudolphus, 
Oscar M. and Mary C. (Mrs. Charles E. Saunders, a graduate of Alfred LTniversity). 

Prof. Oscar M. Burdick, son of Daniel M. and Sallie A. (Maxson) Burdick, was born Dec. 
2, 1855, in Genesee. He attended Alfred University, has taught 38 terms of school, and was 
principal of the Allentown High School from 1891 to 1895. In April, 1888, Professor Burdick 
married Eva M., daughter of Sebeus B. Coon. Their children are Leon M. and Raymond C. 
Professor Burdick is a member of the Seventh Day Baptist church of Genesee. 



Genesee. 891 

William L. Bowler, president of the First National Bank of Friendship, son of William D. 
Bowler, was born in Hopkinton, R. I., March 23, 181 9. In 1834 he came to Alfred where he 
remained for a year and a half working on a farm. April 18, 1836, he came to Genesee and 
worked principally at farming until 1840, when he went into lumbering and continued in that 
business for 30 years. He rafted lumber to Cincinnati and other places on the Ohio and Mis- 
sissippi rivers. Since then he has devoted himself to farming. He has been supervisor 2 years. 
In 1 841 Mr. Bowler married Elizabeth F., daughter of Paul Ennis. Their children are Anna E., 
Lorana A. (dec), Mary E., Addis E., William F., Mary L. (dec). The family are members of 
the Seventh Day Baptist church. 

Edon P. Burdick, son of Daniel and Betsy (Stillman) Burdick, was born Dec. 13, 181 8. In 
1836 he went with his mother to Almond, and after working on a farm for two years, he came 
to Genesee and leased farms for a few years when he purchased the one where he has since re- 
sided. In 1842 he married Emeline H., daughter of Joel Crandall. She died Sept. 23, 1863. 
Six of their 9 children are living : Everett E., Marcellus O., Ophelia (Mrs. J. B. Prindle), Walter, 
Thomas and Fred W., v\'ho resides in Olean. The others live in Genesee. The family are 
members of the Seventh-day Baptist church. September 19, 1883, Mr. Burdick married Phebe 
J. (Stillman) Crandall. 

Henry C. Champlin, a native of Hopkinton, R. I., came, about 1825 when a young man, to 
Almond, where he married Sarah A., daughter of Christopher and Louise Saunders. About 
1832 he moved to Genesee, and settled on Dodge's Creek where he remained two years, when 
he moved to the farm now owned by his son, John S. Champlin. Mr. Champlin resided on his 
farm until his death in 1847. His wife died in 1888. They had 9 children. John S. Champlin, 
son of Henry C. and Sarah A. (Saunders) Champlin, was born in Genesee, Dec. i, 1838. In 
1866 he married Esther A., daughter of Elias and Laurette (Robinson) Adams, and settled on 
the place where he now resides. In 1864 he enlisted in Co. M, 12th N. Y. Cavalry and served 
until discharged in July, 1865. His children are Lettie (Mrs. Wallace Parsons), Winona, a 
teacher, Lewis A. and Frank W. 

Dr. Daniel Childs, of Woodstock, Conn., in 1781 settled in Turner, Androscoggin Co., Me., 
where he practiced medicine many years and died in 1802. His son Daniel, Jr., was born in 
1778, and when 19 married Hannah, daughter of Capt Turner. She died June 29, 1848, and he 
Aug. 21, 1848. Daniel Childs, Jr., had four children: Alanson (born Oct. 20, 1797, died Sept. 
20, 1877), Mrs. Lauranda Noyce (born Dec. 18, 1S03, died Dec. 18, 1870), Mrs. Adaline Eastman 
(born Oct. 12, 1816, died Oct. 12, 1863) and Daniel. Alanson married Harriet Noyce, March 
23, 1824, and in November, 1829, he moved from Maine to Freedom, Catt. Co., N. Y. In 1830 
he moved to Centerville, thence to Clarksville, from there to Genesee, where he resided until he 
died. He was a pioneer lumberman and followed that business until near i860 when he settled 
down to an agricultural life. In i860 he united with the United Brethren church, upholding 
that faith the rem.ainder of his days. His wife died Nov. 16, 1893, Alanson Childs had 12 
children : Ferdinand, born in Maine Feb. 19, 1825, died 1858 ; Chloe, born Oct. 24, 1827, died 
Dec. 4, 1878 ; Ann, born at Freedom, N. Y., Feb. 20, 1831 ; Brooksie, born March 20, 1833, died 
1858; Brunell, born May 11, 1835, died Oct. 14, 1893. Brunell married Elizabeth A., daughter 
of Geo. W. Merritt, an early settler of Genesee. He came early from Rhode Island and took 
active part in pioneer life. Brunnell had 5 children ; Elba A., born Feb. 11, 1859, married Lizzie 
v., daughter of Josiah Bartlett, of Alma, N. Y., who came from Bangor, Me., in 1853, and cut 
the first tree in that part of Alma where he cleared a farm and lived until his death March 6, 
1882. His grandfather, Josiah Bartlett, signed the Declaration of Independence. Elba A., lives 
in Wellsville and follows general reporting as a profession. In September, 1895 he was ap- 
pointed official stenographer for the county court of Allegany Co., by Hon. S. M.Norton, county 
judge. He has two children, Ethel A. and Alfred L. ; Herbert W. born Sept. 18, 1863, married 
Lizzie Taylor, of Hornellsville. They live in Lima, Ohio; Alice E., born March 10, 1871, mar- 
ried Willis M. Keller of Genesee ; Jessie M., born July 27, 1873, married Arthur J. Maddock of 
Wellsville; Fred F., born Nov. 15, 1878. Alfonzo, born Aug. 2, 1837, died in Andersonville 
prison. He married Sarah, daughter of William Courtney of Clarksville ; Emily, born Oct. 17, 
1839, died March, 1896 ; married Norman Lebar of Clarksville. John C. Childs, son of Alanson, 
was born in Clarksville in 1843. He enlisted in 1861 in Co. I, 85th Regt. N. Y. S., and was taken 
prisoner at Plymouth, N. C, and was in prison about 1 1 months. He served 3 years and re-en- 
listed Jan. I. 1 864 and was discharged June 5, 1865. In 1867, he married Sarah W., daughter 
of John W. and Louisa (Nichols) Austin of Ceres. They had 2 children, Maud, wife of Earl L. 
Moore, and Edna, who died at the age of 4 years. Mr. Childs died Oct. 28, 1881. Alexander, 
born June 18, 1845, married Mrs. Alfonzo Childs, his brother's widow ; Hannah, born Sept. 20, 
1848, married William B, Perry of Genesee; Rosanna, born Jan. 24, 1850, died Feb. 12, 1854; 
Charles L. Childs, son of Alanson and Harriet (Noyce) Childs, was born May 12, 1852 in Clarks- 
ville. In 1871 he married Myrtle Howard and settled in Genesee. He is a farmer. His chil- 



892 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

dren are Orson C, Ada M, (dec.) Carl L., Willie (dec), Claudie M., Edward R., Goldie L., 
Rosana and John. 

Lewis J. Coon, a native of DeRuyter, came to Genesee about 1833 and settled near Ceres. 
He was a farmer and lumberman. He married Emily Kenyon. Their children were Biol O., 
and Rozena A. Mr. Coon died April 30. 1887. Biol O. Coon was born June 21, 1837. Heat- 
tended Alfred University. In 1858 he married Caroline Hall. Their children are Lewis S. of 
Westerly, R. I., Mary L. (Mrs. Walter H. Burdick), Ida B. a teacher, and Josephine M. of Gen- 
esee. Mr. Coon has been highway commissioner for several years. He has dealt in all kinds 
of agricultural implements, in ice and sand, and has a fish hatchery of German carp, and sends 
fish to many parts of the United States and Canada. The family are members of the Seventh- 
Day Baptist church. 

Sebeus B. Coon, son of Avery and Polly (Stillman) Coon, was born Dec. 2, 1834. He was 
a farmer and lumberman. April 25, 1861, he enlisted in Co. I, 27th Regt. N. Y. S. V., and was 
the first resident of the town who enlisted in the Civil War. After serving his country two 
years he returned and in 1865 married Sarah E., daughter of Matthew R. Maxson. He settled 
on the old homestead where he resided until 1892, when he moved to Little Genesee. His 
three children are Leone L. (Mrs. Benjamin Wilbur), Eva M. (Mrs. Oscar Burdick) and 
Matthew A. 

Albert B., Hampton C. and William A. Crandall, sons of Sanders Crandall, came from 
Brookfield, Madison county, to Genesee (hired horse team to move them here), " took up " 
wild land and settled on Deer creek in 1833 where they made homes. Albert B. Crandall 
married Fanny, daughter of Ethan Stillman. He was a farmer and lumberman, conducted a 
large business, and had the first sawmill in the Deer creek part of the town. He was supervi- 
for several terms, justice of the peace and assessor. He died Feb. 15, 1881, his wife died Aug. 
13, 1880. Of their ten children only two survive, Albert K. and Elnora (Mrs. A, J. Armstrong 
of Alfred). Marcus M. was a sergeant in Co. C, 85th N. Y., died at Fair Oaks, Va. J. M. 
Crandall was a soldier in same regiment and company and died in Andersonville prison; F. M, 
Crandall was with his brothers engaged in his country's defense and died in Florence, S. C. 
Albert K. Crandall was born Jan. i, 1833, and, in 185:5, married Lovisa E., daughter of Elias I., 
and Rachel R. (Nye) Maxson, and settled in the southwest part of the town of Genesee where 
he has since resided. He has been engaged m farming and lumbering. He has served as 
justice of the peace and assessor. His children are Francis D. and Elsie A. 

Joseph S. Crandall and Ethan P. Crandall, sons of Augustus and Thankful (Saunders) 
Crandall, were natives of Rhode Island, and came to Genesee from Madison and Otsego coun- 
ties in 1830, and located at West Genesee where they cleared up their farms and made homes. 
Joseph S. Crandall married Olive, daughter of Samuel H. Coon, of their family of 9 children 
6 survive. Olive J. (Mrs. Samuel Champlin of Alfred), Narcissa L. (Mrs. Green Champlin of 
Alfred), Samuel H. of Bolivar, Cornelia A. (Mrs. Isaac Prosser of Genesee;, Jeanett (Mrs. 
James Coon of Old Milton, Wis.) and Edwin M.of Milton Junction, Wis. Mr. Crandall moved 
to Christiana, Wis., in 1854, where he died in 1873, his wife died in October, 1872. Ethan P. 
Crandall was born in 1800. He married Electa E. Maxson. Of their three children, two sur- 
vive, Charles M. of Portville, and Joel A. Mr. Ethan Crandall was prominent in the Seventh 
Day Baptist church of West Genesee. He died in 1877 and his wife in 1883. Joel A. Cran- 
dall, son of Ethan, married Jennette E., daughter of William R. and Abbie (Langworthy) Max- 
son and settled at West Genesee. Their daughter, Florence G. (Mrs. Will H. Reid) resides at 
Obi. Mr. Crandall is a carpenter and farmer, has been road commissioner 12 years and asses- 
or six years. 

Ezekiel Crandall, a native of Rhode Island, came to Genesee in 1826, and settled on the 
farm now owned by his son Ezekiel R., where he built his log house and made the first clear- 
ing. He resided here until his death in 1855. He married Susan Wells who died in 1861. 
They had seven children, Henry C, Samuel W., Susan, Ezekiel R., Eliza, Dr. W. W., George 
P. Ezekiel R. was born in Hopkinton, R. I., June 26, 1820, came to Genesee when five years 
old and has always resided in town. He married in 1844, Miss N. Celestia Burdick, who died in 
1878. Their children are Ira B. (a merchant in Westerly, R. I.), Mary S. (Mrs. M. A. Cran- 
dall of Andover), Frances B. (Mrs. Orlando J. Warren of North Cuba). In 1886 he married his 
present wife Mrs. Amy K. L, Bond. Mr. Crandall was town superintendent of schools when 21 
years of age and held the office 7 years, has been supervisor 4 years, justice of the peace since 
1864, has been several times town clerk and assessor and 31 winters he has driven lumber 
teams. In 1829 he was playing too near where his father was splitting rails and had his 
hand cut off. They were obliged to send to Angelica, 25 miles, for a surgeon and then wait 
two days for him. His charge for his services was $10. Mr. Crandall has been a deacon of 
the Seventh Day Baptist church over 40 years. 

Major Henry C. Crandall, son of Ezekiel, came with his father from Rhode Island to Gen- 



Genesee. 893 

esee in 1825. He was born July 16, 1809, at Hopkinton, R. I. He married Lucinda, daughter of 
Paul and Lurana Ennis, and settled in this town. He was a farmer and lumberman. His 
children were Ann F. (Mrs. Dr. J. P. Colgrove), who resides on the old homestead, and Eliza 
B. (Mrs. Geo. W. Fries of Friendship.) Major Crandall died June 8, 1892, his wife Dec. 29, 1894. 

Jairus Crandall was born in 1799. He followed the sea, and was also a cloth dresser ; 
About 1832 he came to Genesee, bought 100 acres on lot 5, and made his first clearing on the 
farm which is still owned by the family. He married Julia A., daughter of Harris Wells of Gro- 
ton, Ct. His children were Lucy C. (Mrs. Thos. A. Green of Alfred) ; William H., killed at the 
battle of Jonesboro, Ga., two weeks after his death his commission as second lieutenant, on 
account of bravery, was received ; George H., and Thomas G. of Genesee. Albert R. for 10 years 
assistant geological surveyor of Kentucky, now resides in Milton, Wis., and John H. of Bolivar. 
All of these 5 sons served in the Civil War. Jairus Crandall died in February, 1883. His widow 
born in 1808, during the last years of her life was cared for in the homes of her children and 
died in Genesee at the home of her son, Thomas G. Crandall, Dec. 21, 1895. 

George H. Crandall, son of Jairus and Julia A. Crandall, was born Nov. 22, 1836. In 1862 
he enlisted in Co. A, I36lh Regt. N. Y. S. V. At the battle of Bentonville, N. C, Mr. Crandall 
was wounded in the left thigh by a minie ball and was discharged June 30, 1865. In 1866 he 
married Carrie E., daughter' of Amos and Julia A. (Loop) Bristol, and settled in Bolivar, and 
worked in a sawmill. In 1868 he came to Genesee, remained a few years, then made his home 
in Richburg for 9 years, then returned to Genesee and is engaged in farming. His children arc 
Frank M. (died in 1893), George R., of Dunellen, N. J., and Albert J., who lives at home. 

Thomas G. Crandall, son of Jairus and Julia A. (Wells) Crandall, was born Aug. 5, 1838. 
He married Hannah M. Finch in 1862 and made his home in town, and has been a farmer. In 
1864 he enlisted in Co. B. 189th Regt. N. Y. S. V., and was discharged June 10, 1865. He was 
one of the patriotic band of five brothers who fought for their country's flag. His children are 
Julia, Herbert E., Josie M., Nina A., and Anna L. 

James H. Crandall, son of Ira B. and Lucy P. (Randall) Crandall was born in Brookfield, 
Madison Co., March 14, 1835. In 1856 he married Ordelia O., daughter of Harry and Fanny 
(Clough) Blakley. September 27, 1861, he enlisted in Co. A, ist Reg. N. Y. Light Artillery. He 
was in Casey's Division in the peninsula campaign, fought at Fair Oaks, later his company was 
sent among the coal mines of Schuylkill Co., Pa., and was discharged Oct. 3, 1864. In 1879 he 
moved to Genesee, and is now residing in West Genesee. Mr. Crandall is a member of H. W. 
Wessel, Post No. 85 G. A. R., was supervisor in 18S5 and 1886 and has served as justice of the 
peace since 1882. He is a deacon of the West Genesee Seventh Day Baptist church. His chil- 
dren are Hervey L. and Ira B. (of Farmington, Conn.) and Minnie M. (Mrs. S. O. Willard of 
Springfield, Kansas). 

Joel Crandall, son of Benjamin, was born in Hopkinton, R. I. He came to Genesee about 
1827, and took up 125 acres of land, the farm his son Albert W. now owns. Mr. Crandall 
cleared his land, set out an orchard, made a comfortable home, and was a lifelong farmer and 
lumberman. He married Huldah, daughter of Capt. Benjamin Maxson. Of their 9 children 6 
were living in 1894, Joel B., of Kansas, Walter, who was major of 85th N. Y., now resides in 
Arkansas, Elvira (Mrs. W. W. Wellmanof Salamanca), Amelia (Mrs. B, C. Buten), Sarah (Mrs. 
H. Smith) and Albert W. Mr. Crandall was deacon of the Seventh Day Baptist church and its 
chorister. He died in 1875, his wife in 1889. 

Orville P. Dana, son of Lester H. and Polly (White) Dana, was born in Pennsylvania, April 
17, 1839. When a boy he went to live with fames B. Hewitt at Hunt's Hollow, Liv. Co. May 
4, 1 861, he enlisted in Co. E, 33d Regt. N. Y. S. Vols., and was in the battles of Williamsburg, 
Mechanicsville and Antietam, was promoted to Sergeant Nov. i, 1862, and was mustered out 
June 4, 1863. He then came to Genesee, where, September i, 1864, he enlisted in Co. B, iiith 
Regt. N. Y. S. v., and was in all the battles this regiment was engaged in. He was mustered 
out June 3, 1865, when he returned to Genesee, where he married Oct. 14, 1865, Augusta 
A., daughter of Daniel B. and Sally A. Burdick. Mr. Dana has since devoted himself to agriculture.. 
He has been assessor and collector of his town, is a member of H. C. Gardner Post No. 247 
G. A. R. and of Little Genesee Lodge 1. O. of G. T. Mr. Dana's children are Judson S. and 
Ward A. 

John C. Danforth born in Massachusetts in 181 1. came to Allegany county early and was 
well known to the people as a teacher of singing schools. In 1885 he married Mary Lord of 
Richburg and settled in Ceres (Genesee) and was an innkeeper for more than 30 years. He 
died in 1885. 

Almond Fairbank, son of Chester who settled in Eagle about 1820 and was a native of 
Vermont, was born in Eagle March 24, 1822. In 1844 he came to Genesee and worked by the 
month. In April, 1845, he married Eleanor F., daughter of Samuel P. Hinds of Almond. Of 
their 4 children only 2 attained maturity, Harriet A., widow of Artemas Barnes of Olean, and 



894 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Charles W., who married Delance M. Bentley of Ward. They have 2 children, E. Hortense 
and Mildred E. 

Calvin Fairbank, of English ancestry and New England parentage, was born in Pike, then 
in Allegany county, Nov. 3, 1816, was graduated from Oberlin in 1844, and was imprisoned in 
Kentucky for aiding in the escape of slaves Sept. 30, 1844, and sentenced to 15 years in the 
penitentiary at Frankfort, and Aug. 23. 1849, was released by pardon by Gov. John J. Critten- 
den. Having paid $800 for Mr. Hayden, one of the slaves for aiding whom he was imprisoned, 
he was again arrested at Jeffersonville, Ind., on Sunday, Nov. 9, 1851, while on his way to 
church, kidnapped into Kentucky without the authority of the governor of Indiana, tried and 
sent to prison, March 9, 1852, under sentence of 15 years. When the war broke out in i86r 
his bonds became moderate. John C. Fremont and Richard T. Jacob of Kentucky interceded 
with Pres. Lincoln, who replied, " Jacob, if you fellows in Kentucky would kick up I could 
proclaim martial law, and appoint you governor, and you could turn him out." Finally Thomas 
E. Bramlett was made governor and Richard T. Jacob lieutenant governor in 1864. Then 
Pres. Lincoln said to Jacob, " Now, I have the plan, I'll send Gen. Fry to Kentucky to enroll 
all the slaves and the men fit for the service in the army. Bramlett will forbid it. Says he 
will. Then I'll call him before me and you will be acting governor and you can turn him out." 
So it was and he was released April 15, 1864, and June 9, at Oxford, Ohio, married Mandana 
Tileston, to whom he was engaged in August, 1851. She died at Williamsburg, Mass., Sept. 29, 
1876, leaving him with a son of 8 years, who now resides at Saybrook, Conn. 

Matthew B. Frair, son of Daniel, was born in Owasco, Cayuga county in 1824. In 1865 he 
settled in Genesee where he has since resided. He is a farmer and carpenter and carries on 
lumbering. He married first, in 1845, Rachel Wright, second, Harriet, daughter of John Hatch 
in 1858. They had 8 children, 7 are living, Leroy H., who married Minnie, daughter of Lewis 
Fish of Independence, John W., Alice (Mrs. D. Livermore),dec., Giles D., Mary E. (Mrs. Owen 
Stillman), Helen (Mrs. Porter Hanks), Hattie (Mrs. Orson Hatch), and Floyd. 

Paul Ennis, a native of Charleston, R. I., settled in Genesee, on Dodge creek, in November, 
1824, where he bought a farm of 172 acres. The log house was already built. His family of 
5 children came with him, William, Lucinda, (married Hiram Wilson), Matthew S. (dec), 
Elizabeth F. (Mrs. W. L. Bowler). Mr. Ennis built a house at Little Genesee about 1855, 
where he died at the age of 69 years. William, oldest son of Paul Ennis, was born June 19, 
181 1, married Eliza, daughter of Ethan Kenyon. They had 4 sons and 4 daughters. Mr. 
Ennis was in company with his brother Matthew S. about 20 years in lumbering and also kept 
a general store. The family belong to the Seventh Day Baptist church. 

Erastus Gleason, a native of Lowell, Mass , came to West Almond in 1833. He was a 
shoemaker by trade. His children were Hannah (dec), Cordelia (Mrs. William Kernes of Penn- 
sylvania), and John B. Mr. Gleason died at Ceres in 1891. his wife in 1892. John B. Gleason, 
son of Erastus, was born in West Almond Aug. 25, 1836. He received a common school edu- 
cation, and while a boy learned the trade of a shoemaker. In 1858 he married Angeline, 
daughter of Levi P. Holcomb. She died in 1859, leaving one son, Charles H. In 1859 Mr. 
Gleason settled in Pennsylvania near Ceres, where he kept a grocery and also had a sawmill. 
He early enlisted in Co. G, 150th Penn., the " Bucktails," served one year and was discharged 
on account of sickness. July 4, i860, he married Albina Coon. Their children were Frederick 
E., John and Minnie who died in 1880. Since 1872 Mr. Gleason had been in mercantile busi- 
ness in and a resident of Ceres, was postmaster ^% years, has been commissioner of highways, 
notary public and justice of the peace. 

Amos Greene, son of Benjamin, was born in Hopkinton, R. I., and came to Genesee in 
1827, and was the first settler on Windfall creek. He purchased a lot of 80 acres of wildland, 
and here he built his loghouse, carried on farming and worked at his trade of cabinet-maker, 
making chairs and other useful articles of furniture for the people. He married Esther Lewis. 
Of their five children only two survive, Matthew and Benjamin F, Mr. Greene died about 1883 
and his wife in 1875. Benjamin F. was born in 1825 and married first, Frances Rogers, sec- 
ond, Martha Hargrove. Their children are Mahlon, Florence and Alice. Matthew Greene, 
son of Amos, was born Nov. 17. 1818. He married Mrs. Anna Lamphere. Mr. Greene has 
always been engaged in cabinet-making, and is the owner of land on which oil is produced. 

Benjamin S. Hall, son of Benjamin, came to Genesee at an early day. He married Lydia, 
daughter of Joseph Wells, and made his home in the town, where he conducted a sawmill. 
His children were Caroline (Mrs. B. O. Coon), Sardinia (Mrs. I. B. Crandall), and Arthur J. 
Hall, who was born Jan. 28, 1844. In 1862 Arthur enlisted in Co. E, 85th N. Y., and was with 
the regiment untill he was captured at Plymouth, N. C, April 15, 1864, when he was taken to 
Andersonville then to Charleston and later to Florence, S. C, where he was paroled in March, 
1865. He was then sent to Elmira where he was discharged June 17. 1865. Mr. Hall returned 
to Genesee and the same year married Viola J., daughter of Isaac Prosser, and settled upon 



Genesee 895 

the farm where he now resides. His children are Edna B. and Dudley P. Mr. Hall has served 
as assessor. 

Hiram R. Hall, son of Alden Hall, was born at Sandy Hill. N. Y., in 1812. When he was 
about 3 years old his father died, and Hiram went and lived with his uncle William Root till he 
was 17 years of age. Then he started out for himself. When about 25 years old he was mar- 
ried to Eliza Jones, daughter of Godfrey and Salley Jones. They then made their home in 
Olean, and were living there when the big hurricane occurred in 1834. Soon after Mr. Hall 
moved to Portville and worked for Mr. Rice at lumbering. While living there his oldest son, 
Henry C, was born in 1840. Mr. Hall th3n moved to Deer Creek on what is known as the 
Hanks farm. In 1842 he took up 100 acres of wild land about }{ of a mile back from any 
improved land and moved into the dense forest with an ox sled. A few years afterward his 
brother-in-law bought 50 acres on the west side of Mr. Hall's land. He made a " bee " and 
raised him a log house. After the building was up some one asked " What shall we call it? " 
One of the men, Norrey Hooker, said " Call it Nauvoo," and the valley has gone by that name 
ever since. Hiram Hall had 3 children, Henry C, Hiram W. and Caroline M. Hall. Caroline 
was drowned about 40 years ago at the age of ten. Henry C. bought 40 acres of his father's 
farm while a soldier in the war. When he returned home he bought 93 acres more, and 
two years ago he bought sixty acres, the remainder of the old homestead and owns all of 
the farm that was taken up by his father 55 years ago. He has now 193 acres, the best 
part of the valley. Walter lives at Bolivar. He is 47 years old. Henry C. enlisted Aug. 31, 
1862, in Co. H, 85th N. Y., for "three years or during the war," and was discharged July 15, 
1865. Two years after he was married to Helen E. Tyler, daughter of Arthur Tyler. His 
surviving children are Adelbert C, Truman A. and Clair M. Hall. 

Milford D. Hall, son of Benjamin and Wealthy (Stillman) Hall, was born in Petersburg, 
N. Y., in 1826. While Milford was yet a lad his father removed to Pennsylvania and subse- 
quently came to Genesee. Milford D. Hall married Diantha B., daughter of Jonathan and 
Sally (Havens) Woodard in 1849 and made his home in Genesee. In 1864 he enlisted in Co. 
A, 85th Regt. N. Y. S. V., and he was one of the many whose lives were sacrificed for their 
country, as he died in Elmira, in July, 1865, before he was discharged. His children were Zora D. 
and Elnora A. 

Oscar A. Hanks, son of David S. and Jane (Washburn) Hanks, was born Dec. 4, 1825, in 
Greenwich, Washington Co. In 1841 he came with his father to Centerville, and in 1841 also 
married Electa Allen and settled in Portville. In 1858 he removed to Genesee and in 1863 made 
his home where he now resides. He is a farmer. His children are Squire, Betsey C. (Mrs. 
Addison Loop of Otto, Pa.), Roxy J. (Mrs. Lemuel Wales of Friendship), Otis A. of Friendship, 
Porter L. and Adele (Mrs. C. C. Holcomb of Portville). 

Philander T. Hatch, son of Ira, was born in New Hampshire, and when a boy he came with 
his father to Rochester, then to Farmersville, Catt. Co. About 1858 he came to Genesee, and 
settled on Streeter brook. In 1864 he removed to Nauvoo, located upon a farm, and resided 
there until 1866 when he moved to Portville, where he now resides, He married Rachel Hop- 
kins who died in 1866. Their children are George and Miranda, who live in Portville, Willard, 
Mary (Mrs. Joseph Reynolds) and Leonard. Leonard Hatch was born May 6, 1842. In 1868 
he married Amanda M., daughter of George W. Stevens, and settled at Nauvoo, where he is a 
farmer, and is also engaged in stock breeding. His children are Orson L. and Celia F. George 
W. Stevens, son of Josiah, was born in Pittsford, Vt., April 30, 1818. October 30, 1841, he mar- 
ried Aurilla, daughter of Peter Keyes of Eagle, Wyoming Co., and about 1848 settled in Gen- 
esee, and was a farmer. His wife died in July 1850. They had two children. In 1852, Mr. 
Stevens married Abigail Keyes. He died in 1869. Peter Keyes came to Genesee in its early 
days, settled on Deer cregk, built a sawmill. He died in 1867. 

James Edwin Howard, a native of this county was born July 26, 1854. He is son of James 
V. and Phoebe M. Newton Howard. In 1864 when ten years of age, and while his father was 
faithfully serving his county as a soldier in the Union Army, he came to Genesee from his former 
home in Amity and became the adopted son of John J. Smith. Educated in the schools of West 
Genesee and Portville. he has been a farmer and a pumper of oil wells, commencing in 1888 on 
the farm of the late James Young. He is a member of the Odd Fellow fraternity and of the 
Knights of the Maccabees. He married July 26, 1876, Carrie I. Lewis. Their children are John 
Arthur Howard aged 16, and Charles Lewis Howard aged 13. 

Martin Hill came from Tioga county about 1852, and took up a lot of wild land. Here he 
cleared up his farm and made his home where his son William R. now resides. He married 
Chloe, daughter of Alanson Childs. Their children were George (died when an infant), Ezra, 
Susan H. (Mrs. Alonzo Taft of Friendship), and William R., who was born Oct. 5, 1857, and 
married in 1887, Bertha Scott, and has children, Gertrude, Ralph D., Walter L. Mr. William R. 
Hill is an oil operator and producer. He was supervisor of Genesee in 1891 and 1892 and was 



896 History of Allf.gany County, N. Y. 



assessor of Clarksville. Martin Hill died in January, 1891, and his wife died in December, 1878. 
His second wife was the widow of Albert Scott. William R. Hill, Sr., son of Roswell, was born 
in Belfast in 1835, came to Genesee in 1856 aided in clearing and settled on the .farm where he 
now resides. He married Cordelia, daughter of Nathaniel Eastman an early settler. Of their 

6 children none are living. His wife'died about 1879, and he married second Hannah Card. 
Their children are Nathaniel, Milo E., Clinton E., Lulia and Pearl. 

John Holly was born in New Jersey, Dec. 13, 18 16. His father, Increase Holly, settled at 
Portage early, and John when a boy lived with Martin Elmer, and for several years was foreman 
at Mersereau's mills at Portville. He married Amelia Searles of Portville. She was born Nov., 
23, 1825. They had 6 children. About 1850, John Holly came to Ceres, and built a large saw- 
mill in Pennsylvania, about two miles from the state line, known as the Holly mills. He was 
for several years in the lumber business in company with Ralph and George Adams under firm 
name of Holly & Adams. He died Oct. 27, 1890. His daughter Kate (Mrs. Charles Simons) 
was appointed postmaster at Ceres in 1894. His children all resided in Genesee except Caro- 
line, the widow of Williem H. Smith, who lives at Allentown. 

George Irish, Jr., son of George and Elizabeth (Babcock) Irish, was born at North Stonmg- 
ton, Conn., Feb. 7, 18 10, and in 1830 he came to West Genesee and settled on lot 48, where he 
took up 165 acres and built his log house and commenced clearing his farm. In 1837 he mar- 
ried Maria Potter. Of their children, Edgar W., and Sarah M. (Mrs. Stanley Potter), are living, 
George H. died in Andersonville prison in 1864. Mr. Irish was a blacksmith, surveyor, farmer 
and teacher. Mrs. Irish died in 1844, and Mr. Irish married second, Mary S., daughter of John 
and Sophia (Brown) Adams. Mr. Irish died June 2, 1888, and Mrs. Irish in 1889. They had 

7 children, Mary E. (Mrs. Byron Alford of Eldred, Pa.), Martha A. (Mrs. Silas G. Burdick of 
Centralia, 111), N. Wardner Irish of Allegany, Viola S. (Mrs. G. P. Carpenter of Centralia, 111.), 
Flora B. (Mrs. H. L. Crandall of Farmington, Conn.), Albertine S. (Mrs. E. L. Slocum of Canby, 
Minn), and Miron C. Irish, who was born July 4, 1855, ^^^ married Ellen A., daughter of Sam- 
uel P., Jr.. and Marian A. (Webber) Crandall. (S. P. Crandall, Jr., was son of Samuel P. Cran- 
dall. They were natives of Rhode Island, and settled in 1823 in Friendship. Julius A. Crandall 
brother of Mrs. Miron C. Irish, was a union soldier and died in prison.) In 1876 Mr. Crandall 
settled on the old homestead ; he is a surveyor and justice of the peace. His children are Jessie 
M. and Mary C. 

Samuel Jaques, a native of Hopkinton, R. I., a cooper and a farmer, came to Genesee in 
1827, and had to cut a road for one mile and a quarter. He brought his wife, five children, 
and all his household goods with one horse and a wagon. He made the first clearing on his 
farm of 100 acres, built his log house and later bought another 100 acres, for which he paid 
$1.25 per acre. Mr. Jaques died in 1883 aged 97 years, his wife died in 1877. 

John Keller, a native of Cherry Valley, Otsego Co., came to Hume about 1835. He was a 
farmer and also was a hatter by trade. In 1849 he moved to Clarksville where he carried on 
farming. He married Margaret Reury, who died in i860. Mr. Keller died in 1875. Of their 
9 children 4 are living. Elizabeth (Mrs. Thomas J. Armstrong) of Genesee, Caroline C. (Mrs. 
Seth Fitch) of Hume, George B. of Clarksville and James M., who was born Dec. 16, 1837. He 
married in 1861, Mrs. Elvira Tanner, and settled in Genesee. In 1863 he was enrolled in Co, 
5, 147th Regt., N. Y. S. V. In front of Petersburg he was wounded by a shot in the breast, 
and was discharged March 27, 1865, when he returned to Genesee where he has since resided. 
Mr. Keller has been assessor for three years, and in 1875 was census enumerator. He has al- 
ways affiliated with the Democratic party, and is a member of H. W. Wessel Post, No. 85, 
G. A. R. His children are Willis M., Fred N., Llewellyn L., James H. and Mermie A. 

Ethan Kenyon, a native of Hopkinton, R. I., came to Genesee in 1827, and settled near 
Little Genesee. He was a farmer and lumberman, and one of the first highway commissioners 
of the town and held other town offices. His first wife was Nancy Maxson. Their children 
were Mary A.. Eliza, Ethan, Benjamin and An^eline. His second wife was Ruth Prosser. 
Their children were John of Providence, R. I., Amanda, Sanford, Wealthy and Alice. Ethan 
Kenyon, Jr., born in Hopkinton, R. I., in 1821, came with his father to this town. He married 
Comrort, daughter of Jedediah Kenyon of Hopkinton, R. I. He was engaged in lumbering 
with his brother Benjamin for some years. In 1850 he moved to Bolivar and was located on 
the place where Eliza J. Kenyon now resides. In 1864 he removed to Genesee, where he died 
in February, 1889. His widow is a resident of Olean, N. Y. None of their four children are living. 

Francis King came from London to America in 1795, and to Ceres in 1798. He settled on 
the Pennsylvania side about half a mile from the line. His son James, who was born in 1792, 
in 1822 married Diana, daughter of Evert Van Wickle of Angelica, and in 1827 bought land 
and began farming about half a mile west from the village of Ceres. He was a tanner and 
currier by trade and had had a tannery a half mile south of his father's, but had sold out and 



Genesee. 897 

been in business several years at Olean. In 1835 he was piloting a raft and was killed while 
going over a dam at the mouth of the Oswayo. His wife died in 1848. Of their three children, 
Janette died May i, 1847, while attending school at Alfred University. Esther the youngest 
married Edwin Wilbur of Columbia, O., and died in 1877 at the age of 46. Maria attended 
school at Alfred University and at the State Normal School at Albany, and became a teacher. 
She taught her first term in 1846 at East Portville, receiving $1.25 for a week of five days and 
a half, and " boardiiig around." She continued to teach until 1892 and poor health alone 
caused her to stop. She has taught over ninety terms. She is a member of the M. E. church. 

Palermo Lackey, son of Isaac Lackey, was born in Swanton, Vermont, Feb. 25, 1806. In 
1830, he came to Genesee, purchased 100 acres on lot 57, and engaged in farming and lumber- 
ing. In 1833 he married Louisa Jaques. Their children were Betsey and Louisa. Mrs. Lackey 
died in 1835, and he married second, in 1836, Eunice Edwards. Their children were Sophronia 
B., Amy K., Harriet E., Orson C. and Mary A. who is the author of the well-written history of 
the town of Genesee in this volume. Mr. Lackey has been justice of the peace one term, and 
commissioner and assessor for several terms. His family are members of the Seventh-day Bap- 
tist church. 

Walter H. Lackey, a native of Vermont, was born in 181 1, and came to Genesee in 1833, 
where he married Martha E. Crandall. Of their family of 10 children 5 survive, Benjamin F. a 
merchant in Chicago, Edward B. of Kossuth, Pa., Susie A. (Mrs. George W. Ward of Austin, 
Pa.), Mary A. (Mrs. Allen Peckham), and Angelina who resides in Genesee. Mr. Lackey 
enlisted in Co. C, 85th N. Y., and was discharged in 1863 on account of illness. He was a 
Baptist in his religious aflfiliations, a farmer, and for 18 years he with his family resided in Ohio. 
Mr. Lackey died May 2, 1891. 

John A. Langworthy was born Dec. 27, 1799, in Stonington, Conn. In 1838 he moved to 
Genesee, and, with his brother Albert, was engaged in mercantile busmess for some years and 
was also a farmer. He was supervisor of the town, and prominent m affairs. 

Caleb Lewis, Jr., son of Caleb, was born in Stafford, N. Y. At an early day his father 
settled in Farmersville, Cattaraugus Co., and about 1844 he came to the town of Genesee. He 
married Elizabeth A. Babcock and in 1856 settled on the farm now owned by George D. Mun- 
ger. Mr. Lewis was a farmer, a good citizen, and served as assessor for some 1 5 years. He 
died in 1891. His children are Clara M. (Mrs. A. J. Robinson), and Hattie L. (Mrs. G. D. 
Munger). 

Elijah Lewis, an early settler of Alfred, came from Rhode Island about 1814. He was a 
farmer and cooper. He married Sally Burdick in 181 6. They had 5 sons, Leander W., Elijah 
P., Israel T., Alvin A. and Isaac M., and 3 daughters, Sarah C, Phebe P. and Aurilla E. 
Leander W., born in Alfred in 1820, married Clarissa L., daughter of Green and Lovisa 
(Eggleston) Worden, in 1844, moved to Genesee in 1848 and settled on the place he now owns. 
Of their 4 children Florence E. and Clarence L. E. survive. Green Worden. Mrs. Lewis's 
father, was a native of Stephentown, N. Y., and came to Ward in 1840. In 1848 he moved to 
Genesee where he died in 1855. His wife, Lovisa Eggleston, died in 1871. Their children 
were Clarissa L. and Sarah C. (Mrs. H. D. Green of Friendship). Clarence L. E. Lewis, son of 
Leander W. Lewis, was born July 5, 1862, in Genesee. He received a common school educa- 
tion which was supplemented by attendance at Alfred LIniversity. Mr. Lewis was married, 
Dec. 5, 1895, to Miss H. Estelle Buten of Genesee. He is a member of Macedonia Lodge No. 
258, F. & A. M. of Bolivar, Buttrick Chapter No. 109, O. E. S. of Bolivar, Bedford Tent No. 42, 
K. O. T. M. of Portville and Little Genesee Legion No. 60, N. P. L. He has been excise com- 
missioner and constable of the town of Genesee. His occupation is that of barber and a musi- 
cian. Elijah P. Lewis, second son of Elijah and Sally (Burdick) Lewis, was born Sept. 6, 1821, 
in Alfred. In 1848 he married Mary A., daughter of Elihu and Celia (Wilbur) Babcock. In 
the fifties he removed to Bolivar and was for many years a resident of that town. In 1882 he 
came to Genesee and located on the farm where he now resides. He has been a farmer. His 
children are M , L and Mary A. (Mrs. M. D. Collins). Mrs. Lewis died Feb. 13, 

1870, and Mr. Lewis married second Mrs. Asenath Wakeman. Israel T. Lewis, third son of 
Elijah and Sally (Burdick) Lewis, was born June 17, 1823, in Alfred. In 1848 he married 
Ehnina Worden and made his home in Alfred where he resided 3 years and then came to Gen- 
esee, and after a residence here of 8 years he returned to Alfred, remained 5 years and again 
moved to Genesee. In August, 1864, he enlisted in Co. A, 85th Regt, N. Y. S. X., and served 
till the close of the war. He is now a resident of West Genesee, and a member of H. W. 
Wessel Post, No. 85, G. A. R. His children are Ella (dec), Sarah A. (Mrs. H. F. Gardner of 
Bolivar), Carrie I. (Mrs. James E. Howard) lives in town, Mary M. (Mrs. Freeman S. Persing) 
of Michigan and A. Lincoln, who resides at home. 

Capt. Benjamin Maxson, son of Benjamin, was a native of Rhode Island. He came to 
Genesee in 1827 with his family of 10 children and settled on the farm owned by Winfield 



898 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Wells. He was a shipbuilder by trade. He was postmaster for several years. His first wife 
was Penelope Nichols, who died April 22, 1832. His second wife was Susan Potter. Mr. 
Maxson was very kind to the poor, and he was much esteemed. He died May 17, 1859. Three 
of his children survive, Mrs. Almira Prindle, Benjamin F., a lawyer in Rochester, and Fanny M. 
(Mrs. Asa Stetson of Centralia, 111.) 

Joseph Maxson, son of Sylvanus, was born in Hopkinton, R. I., April 25. 1771, and in 1826 
came to Genesee and took up a lot of 75 acres, where his grandson, Asa L. Maxson, now lives. 
Joseph Maxson was elected one of the overseers of the poor at the first town meeting of Gen- 
esee, and was one of the constituent members of the first Seventh Day Baptist church in the 
town. He died in January, 1856, and his wife Lydia (Potter) Maxson died June 15, 1843. 
Joel Maxson, son of Joseph, born in Hopkinton, R. I., came here with his father, and took up a 
lot of 75 acres where A. J. Hall now lives. He married Mercie Green, was a farmer, served the 
town as justice of the peace and town clerk, and as a surveyor was very useful. He died Feb. 
28, 1865. His wife died Jan. 28. 1865. They had 6 children, 4 survive. The only one resid- 
ing in Genesee is Asa L., who was born Oct. 29, 1832. In 1863 he married Caroline A. John- 
son, who died Aug. 18, 1881. They had two sons, Cortland J. and E. Willis. Mr. Maxson 
married, second, Mrs. Caroline D. (Babcock) Young. Mr. Maxson was educated m the com- 
mon schools, Richburg Academy and Alfred University. He is a farmer and has also been 
engaged in surveying for 30 years. 

Deacon Zaccheus Maxson was born in Hopkinton, R. I. He served 5 years as a Revolu- 
tionary soldier, and was also in the War of 181 2. He came to Genesee with his son Zaccheus 
R. in 1832, aud remained until his death. Zaccheus R. married Temperance Coon Nov. 3, 
1816. They had 7 children, 4 survive. Welcome R., Sarah A., Nancy M. and Temperance E. 
Mr. Maxson died Oct. 27, 1868. Welcome R. Maxson, son of Zaccheus R. and Temperance 
(Coon) Maxson, was born Nov. 4, 1834, in Genesee. March 20, 1856, he married Sophronia, 
daughtar of Martin Grow of Wirt. Their children are Frank H., Sherman U. and Mary M. 

Daniel S. D. Millard was born in Bolivar Aug. 3, 1849. His father, Clark Millard was 
born in Berlin, Rensselaer Co., N. Y., Aug. 12, 1790, and was son of John (born March 22. 
1766, married Martha Clark), and grandson of John of whom little is known. Clark Millard 
came to Bolivar in 1834 from Otsego Co., settled on lot 60, was married first to his cousin Sarah 
Millard, daughter of Elijah, second to Mrs. Abbey Daniels, third to Mary Denison, Dec. 21, 
1847. In March, 1850, he moved to Genesee where Mrs. Millard died May. 16, 1876, and Mr. 
Willard May 23, 1876, aged 86 years, 8 months and 11 days. Children by first wife, Clark 
Nelson, Jarius, Silas, Sarah M. (married first C. C. Mosher, second Benjamin Tefft). Lovica ; by 
second wife, Abby Dorleska (Mrs. Lewis Emmerson) ; by third wife, Daniel S. D. and John 
W. Daniel S. D. Millard married M. Jennie Whittemore of West Edmeston, Otsego Co., May 
28, 1876. She died May 17, 1888, aged 31 years, 10 months. Their children born in Little Gen- 
esee, were Fred C, born April 28, 1877 ; Florence Kittie, born Oct. 18, 1878; Maggie Alena, 
born Sept. 5, 1882 ; Gertrude May, born Aug. 27, 1884, Early Lee, born Aug. 21, 1886. Mr. 
Millard married Oct. 3, 1889, Mrs. Mary C. Lewis. She was born in Codenoy, Oswego Co.^ 
Aug. 29, 1853. 

Rev. Allen Peckham, son of Hiram, was born in Groton, Conn., in 1833. His father came 
to Clarksville in 1840, and here Allen was educated in the district schools, later at Richburg 
Academy. When 1 5 years old he joined the Methodist church, was licensed to preach when 
17, and commenced preaching when 18. In 1865 he joined the United Brethren church and 
preached for that society for about 1 5 years. In 1880 he joined the Baptist church and has 
since been a pastor of that denomination. In 1854 he married Sarah C. Frost; tliey had four 
children. Mrs. Peckham died in 1863. In 1866 Mr. Peckham married Mary A. Lackey, widow 
of William O. Main. Their children are Fred W. H., who has attended school at Lebanon, 
Ohio, and Julia (Allen) Peckham. 

Francis W. Prindle, son of Zachariah, was born in Newtown, Conn., March 21, 1819. He 
came to Bolivar about 1846, and in 1847 to Little Genesee, where in 1848 he married Almira 
A., daughter of Capt. Benjamin Maxson. Mr. Prindle was educated at Unadilla, N. Y., and 
studied law. He practiced his profession at Bolivar and Little Genesee for some years. In 
1866, he moved to Eau Claire, Wis., and was considered one of the best lawyers in that section 
of the country. He was a partner of W. P. Bartlett. He died Dec. 2, 1870. His children 
were Sarah A., Horace G. and Frank B. Horace G. was born April 6, 1864, in Genesee. He 
returned to Genesee after his father's death. He attended school at Dundee, Mich., and Little 
Genesee. In 1884 he married Alice A., daughter of Benjamin Green. Mr. Prindle is in the 
mercantile business at Little Genesee. 

Isaac Prosser, son of Isaac, was born in Washington Co., R. I., in January, 1816. In 1843 
he married Cornelia A., daughter of Joseph S. Crandall, and settled at Dodge's Creek where he 
was engaged in lumbering. In 1856 he removed to Little Genesee and was in the mercantile 



Genesee. 899 

business for a few years. He was supervisor, and served as justice of the peace for about 25 
years. He was a man well known and respected. He died Nov. 30, 1888. Of his family of 7 
children 4 are living: Mary E. (Mrs. Sherman D. Wells), Viola J. (Mrs. A. J. Hall), Arlouine 
and Martha M. 

Almond Robinson, son of Isaac, was born in Maine. He came to Clarksville in 1844, and 
was a lumberman. He married Sarah Ellis. They had 5 children. He enlisted in the 189th 
N. Y., and after his military service returned home and died in 1868. Andrew J., son of Al- 
mond, was born in Clarksville April 7, 1845. He married, in 1868, Clara M., daughter of Caleb 
and Elizabeth (Babcock) Lewis, and has 2 children. Grant and Emma. 

Henry A. Rose, son of Abel B. and Mary J. (Wood) Rose, was born in Portville, Catta- 
raugus Co., Dec. 15, 1841. In 1867 he married Adelaide, adopted daughter of Nelson and 
Harriet R. Peabody, and settled in Sharon Center, Pa. In 1872 he removed to Ceres, where he 
carried on lumbering and farmmg. He was supervisor in 1882 and 1883, justice of the peace 
4 years. In 1889 he moved to New Decatur, Alabama, where he was chief clerk in the United 
States Rolling Stock Co. His children were Marion L., H. Nelson, Janet I. and Christine A. 
Mr. Rose's present residence is Port Allegany, Pa. Nelson Peabody was born in Manlius, N. 
Y., July 8, 1 81 3. At the age of 25 he came to Genesee and settled in Ceres, and was a promi- 
nent business man for many years. He was in merchandising, lumbering and farming. He 
was justice of the peace over 40 years, and side judge two terms. He was twice married, first 
to Harriet Thompson, second to Eliza Rose. His son, Alonzo, died in May, 1869. His adopted 
daughter, Adelaide, married Henry A. Rose. Nelson Peabody died May 26, 1894. 

Lyman O. Slade, son of Martin, was born in Bainbridge. He came to Genesee in 1856, 
and had charge of Mr. Langworthy's sawmill for several years. In 1864 he enlisted in the 85th 
N. Y., and served until he was discharged with the regiment in 1865. He married Roxy P. 
Kibbe and has 6 children, Jasper N., Lucinda L., Byron B., Hermon E., Marcus E. and Charles 
L. Jasper N. Slade was born July 1 1, 1849, in Sharon, Pa. He came with his father to Gene- 
see and has since resided there. He is a farmer and lumberman. In 1873 he married Ida A., 
daughter of M. A. and Cordelia (Perry) Nichols. Their children are Hattie A, and Ruby P. 
Mr. Slade is in business in company with his brother, M. E. Slade. 

Marcus E. Slade, son of Lyman O., was born March 25, 1857. In 1879 he married Ida A., 
daughter of Geo. B. and Harriett W. (Clark) Tanner. In 1885 he, in company with Jasper N. 
Slade, bought a sawmill of W. M. and T. B. Love, and since then it has been operated by 
them. Mr. Slade has 5 children, Leola A., Lena M., Flora D., Ethel C. and Mildred I. 

Benjamin Smith of Rhode Island, an early settler of Clarksville, came from Edmeston, 
Otsego Co., N. Y., in 1835 with his wife and 9 children, and located on the farm where Mrs. 
Mary J. Smith resides, where they passed the remainder of their lives, having kept house for 70 
years, over 50 in Clarksville, where 3 of their 12 children were born. Mrs. Smith, whose maid- 
en name was Main, died Nov. 10, 1887, aged 90 years, and Mr. Smith died Feb. 10, 1888, aged 
95. Of their children were Mary (Mrs. H. Dakins), Benjamin, Betsey (Mrs. Christopher Tefft), 
Daniel ot Genesee, who married Julia Hatch, Lucy (Mrs. M. Jordan), Sarah (Mrs. Geo. Hamil- 
ton), Electa (Mrs. John Fuller), Harriet (Mrs. Carrier). The privations of the pioneer is graph- 
ically described by Daniel Smith, son of Benjamin : "They started for Clarksville some time in 
January with a sleigh and 2 horses. When they arrived at Elmira one horse was taken sick. 
Mr. Smith hired a house for 2 weeks, his horse died, sleighing all went off, and he hired a man 
with team to move him to Clarksville, and after paying him he had no money nor credit, and 
took a bed to Cuba and pawned it for provisions until he could pay for it. He made black salts 
and hauled it to Rushford for $3 and $3.50 per hundred, and made shingles and delivered them 
to Portville for 75 cents per thousand," and Mr. Smith adds " vv^ould not go through the same 
thing again for all Allegany county." 

Elliott Smith, son of Josiah, was born in Berlin, N. Y., in 1788. He married Betsey Gal- 
lup, and settled in Madison Co. where he resided until 1831 when he moved to Genesee on the 
farm now owned by his son, John J. Smith, and built his log house. He was assessor of the 
town. Mr. and Mrs. Smith were members of the Seventh-day Baptist church at West Genesee. 
He died in 1853, iiis wife in 1859. They had 7 sons and one daughter. John J. Smith is the 
only child living in the town. He was born Jan. 9, 1829, married Brettana Robinson, settled 
on the old homestead and is a farmer. He was supervisor 4 years, assessor 3 years, road com- 
missioner 9 years, and superintendent of the county house from Jan. i, 1877, to Jan. i, 1880, 
and was postmaster at Obi four years through Harrison's administration. 

Job Spencer was born in Sangerfield, Oneida Co., N. Y., Oct. 16, 1809. In 1839 he mar- 
ried Welthe E. Lewis of the same town. In 1852 he came with his family from Corning to 
Bolivar, and after a residence of four years removed to Genesee, where he died June 18, 1893. 
His widow, W. E. Spencer, died April 12, 1895, at Bolivar, aged 78 years, 8 months and 8 days. 
Of the 6 children (4 sons and 2 daughters) 3 sons, Morton L., Frederick R. and Israel P., were 



900 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

in the civil war, serving in tiie aggregate nearly 9 years. Morton L. Spencer, son of Job, was 
born Jan. 25. 1840, in Sangerfield, Oneida Co., and accompanied his father to this county. In 
April, 1861, he enlisted in Co. B, 23d N. Y., for two years, and remained with the regiment 
until its discharge, May 22. 1863, when he returned to Genesee. He is now engaged as a vete- 
rinary surgeon. His was the first enlistment for the civil war from Genesee, and he was wound- 
ed at Fredericksburg, Va., Dec. 13, 1862. 

Charles A. Thompson was born in Lyndon in 1861. In 1882 he learned cheesemaking in 
the old Lyndon factory and was subsequently for two years in Stonespring factory at Hume. In 
1890 he came to Genesee, and, in 1886, married Ella Baker of Michigan. They have two sons, 
Rennie Earl, and Merl Eldeau. In 1870 the Little Genesee cheesefactory was built by Ethan 
Kenyon, and in 1891 Mr. Thompson, after managing the factory for a year, purchased it, and 
from 1893 to 1894 made over 100,000 pounds of cheese and used the milk of 350 cows. The 
factory is supplied with a Babcock tester, and is situated one-half mile from Little Genesee. 

Charles A. Warner was born in 1837 near Montrose, Pa. When a boy he learned the 
harnessmaker's trade at Binghamton, N. Y. In 1857 he came to Ceres and worked at his trade. 
In i860 he came to Richburg and opened a harness shop. In 1862 he went to Clean and 
worked at his trade. In 1867 he came back to Ceres and established himself in the harness 
business, which he has since conducted, and he also has a grocery store. In 1863 he married 
Margaret Fay, who died in 1869, leaving 4 children. In 1871 Mr. Warner married Ruth A., 
daughter of Cyrus Cooper. They have 3 children. Mr. Warner was elected justice of the 
peace in 1863. The family are members of the M. E. church. Cyrus Cooper was born in 
Washington county in 1803. He came to Ceres about 183 1. He married Harriet Fitch. Three 
of their 6 children are living. Oscar, in South Dakota, Evaline (Mrs. J. C. Dyer of Plainfield, 
N. J.) and Ruth (Mrs. C. A. Warner). Mr. Cooper was engaged in lumbering for many years, 
had a store in Ceres, and also drove stage to Coudersport, Pa., for several years. He died in 
1888. Mrs. Cooper died in 1849. 

Joseph Wells came from Westerly, R. I., to Genesee in December, 1825, and took up land 
where the village of Little Genesee is now located, and made his home. Mr. Wells carried on 
blacksmithing. He was one of the prominent members of the Seventh Day Baptist church. He 
died in 1836, and his wife Lydia (Maxson) Wells died in 1861. Their son Samuel, born July 
27, 1 8 17, has lived in the town since 1825, and owns the homestead. 

Samuel Yapp, son of Samuel, came to Alfred from Marlborough, N. J., about 1821. He 
married Mary daughter of Elder Jacob Ayers. He was a brickmakcr and made the brick and 
built the first brick store in Cuba. While in this county he lived most of the time in Friendship 
and Cuba. In 1855 he moved to Georgetown, 111., where he and his wife both died in August, 
1864. Of their family of nine children five are living, only one in this county, David E. David 
E. Yapp, son of Samuel and Mary (Ayers) Yapp, was born in Belfast Feb. 17, 1831. Oct. i, 1853, 
he married Mary E., daughter of Ethan P. and Electa (Maxson) Crandall, and has one son, 
Herbert E. Mr. Yapp came to Genesee in 1850 and for most of the time has lived on the same 
farm that he and his son now own. He has been deacon of the West Genesee Seventh Day 
Baptist church for 31 years. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

WILLIAM CRANSTON. 



William Cranston, son of Gardner and Desire (Prosser) Cranston, was 
born in Mansfield, Conn., June 28, 1837. He was of pure and direct Scotch 
descent, and his genealogy is easily traced to the nobility of Scotland. 
There is no doubt but that he was in the 7th generation from • Lord William 
Cranston, who came very early from Scotland to New York, and by whose 
landing the name of Cranston was planted on American soil. William Cran- 
ston came from Willimantic, Conn., to Allegany county with his uncle, Isaac 







£^->-J 




Genesee. 901 

Prosser, to whom he was "bound," as was then the custom, and who 
thought much of him. Mr. Prosser settled on Dodge's creek in 1851 and 
Wilham remained with him until he was of age, when he engaged in mercan- 
tile business. He was later in trade as a dealer in meat, which soon devel- 
oped into wholesaling, dealing in live stock. At a still later period he was a 
breeder of fine horses. When the Allegany oil field was opened he became 
actively engaged in oil and gas operations, produced the first barrel of oil 
obtained in the town of Genesee, and was connected from 1880 with Isaac 
Willets in large leasing and developing transactions. At one time he held 
oil leases on 5,000 acres of territory. At his death he had a claim in court 
against the Willets' estate amounting to thousands of dollars. He was a 
staunch Democrat, and influential in the party. He was U. S. enrolling olfi- 
cer during the Civil War, w^as appointed postmaster of Little Genesee April 
9, 1894, and was in ofiice at the time of his death. Mr. Cranston possessed 
unusual energy, yet this was coupled with a disposition so kind, sympa- 
thetic and obliging (ever ready to do any one a favor), that he was highly 
prized as a neighbor and won and retained many friends. He was public 
spirited and ever did his best to advance whatever seemed to be for the 
best interests of the community. But it was the Masonic fraternity with 
whom he was most closely identified, and by whom he is most deeply 
mourned. Entering into Masonic life with all the ardor of his earnest na- 
ture, he aided in the promulgation of its principles and had a wide acquaint- 
ance with members of the order. He was affiliated with Macedonia Lodge 
at Bolivar, St. John's Commandery of Olean, the Consistory of Rochester 
and with Ismailia Temple of the Mystic Shrine of Buffalo. He died at Gen- 
esee July 3, 1895, and his was the first funeral of the town conducted accord- 
ing to Masonic rites, under the direction of Masonic bodies, who buried him 
with full Masonic honors and planted the ' ' sprig of acacia ' ' at the head of 
his grave. In the home circle Mr. Cranston was very kind-hearted and in- 
dulgent. He married Harriet Lucelia, daughter of Jared and Harriet (Bur- 
dick) Maxson, of Little Genesee. Their children were Norman (dec), Thad- 
deus S. (a member of Wood Co. Lodge, No. 112, F. & A. M., also of Crystal 
Chapter, No. 157, R. A. M., of Bowling Green, Wood Co., Ohio), Byron S. 
(a physician), Claud M. (publisher of Portville Autograph), and William I., 
who graduated from the graded school at Little Genesee on the night of his 
father's death. 



902 History of Allegany County. N. Y. 



BO LI VAK.* 

CHAPTER LXIX. 

BOLIVAR is the southeast town of the Holland Purchase and is distin- 
guished in the survey of that land as " Town One, Range One. " It is one 
of the southern tier of the towns of the county and borders on the state of 
Pennsylvania. An elevation taken in front of the Newton House in the vil- 
lage of Bolivar shows that its altitude there is 1,250 feet above the level of 
the sea, and that of the hills is in some places several hundred feet more. 
The highest altitude of the county (2,500 feet) is claimed for the hills in the 
southeastern part, near Stony Lonesome. It contains 22,600 acres of land 
and its equahzed value of real estate is (1895) $553,811, and its total eq ualized 
valuation of real and personal estate is $613,206, of which $89,284 is assessed 
to corporations. The amount of taxes spread on this valuation is $5,527.25. 
The total amount of tax^s for 1895 was $6,056. The population in 1830 was 
499; 1835, 752; 1840, 408; 1845, 517; 1850, 708; 1860, 959; 1870, 959; 1880, 
1,029; 1890, 2,233; 1892, 2,219. There are eight school districts which will 
receive in 1896 public school money amounting to $1,719.43, apportioned thusr 
Dist. 1, $938.32. Dist. 2, $110.52. Dist. 3, $106.32. Dist. 4, $107.64. Dist. 5, 
$104.66. Dist. 6, $130.80. Dist. 7, 116.70. Dist. 8, $104.47. 

The surface of the town is broken and irregular, consisting of high, 
steep and disturbed hills and their narrow picturesque valleys. There are 
but two valleys of marked width in the town, one of which, that formed by 
Little Genesee creek, runs southwesterly from Wirt through the village of 
Bolivar and across the northwest corner of the town into the town of Gene- 
see. The other valley is the southeastern part of the town, and has from 
the earhest white visitations, and perhaps from the days of Indian occupa- 
tion, been known as Honeoye valley. Horse creek, a small tributary of 
Honeoye creek, flows through the' southwest part. 

The town lies almost entirely in the Mississippi valleys, as all its 
streams are tributaries of the Allegany which flows into the Ohio and that 
into the Mississippi. The northeast corner is an exception to this as the 
water there runs into the Genesee valley streams, and this portion of the 
town is therefore a part of the St. Lawrence valley. The "divide" is not 
far from Allentown, and in coming along the road between that village and 
Bohvar the change of the direction of the streams is hardly discernible. 

The soil of the valleys is mostly a gravelly loam with some alluvial flats, 
that of the hills a tenacious red clay loam. The agricultural facilities of the 
town tend strongly to dairying, which has in some places attained consider- 
able proportions. Since the development of the Allegany oil field, however,. 

* We are under obligations to Mr. C. M. Williams and Mr. Victor Hammond for valuable information 
used in this history. — Publishers. 



Bolivar. 903 

the town has been more noted for its oil production and the industries aris- 
ing from its development than for its agriculture. Of some parts of the 
rough land it has been said, "It is too valuable to use for farming pur- 
poses." 

The town was formed from Friendship, Feb. 15, 1825, and named from 
the noted Gen. Bolivar, the South American "Liberator," who was at that 
time, like the Cubans of to-day, largely the recipient of American sympathy. 
The first town organization of which the territory of Bolivar formed a part 
was the old town of Whitestown, which was created in 1780 and included all 
of Western New York west of a line drawn north and south through what is 
now the city of Utica. Later towns of which Bolivar has formed part have 
been Leister, formed March 30, 1802, one of the original towns of Genesee 
county. The name was soon changed in compliment to Leicester, son of 
Oliver Phelps, and became Leicester. Then came Angelica, formed Feb. 25, 
1805, Caneadea, created March 11, 1808, and Friendship, organized March 24, 
1815. From a part of Bolivar and a portion of Friendship Wirt was orga- 
nized April 12, 1838. 

The first town-meeting of Bolivar was held at the store of Hollis B. 
Newton March 21, 1825. This store stood on the site of the Clark House of 
to-day, and a part of the hotel as used to-day was then standing. At this 
meeting the new organization of Bolivar took form by the election of these 
officers: Supervisor, Asa Cowles; town clerk, Austin Cowles; assessors, Pliny 
S. Evans, Jonah French and Eli LeSuer; collector, Elijah Fuller; overseers 
of the poor, Jonathan Hitchcock and Simeon Wightman; constables, Elijah 
Fuller and Philip Appleby; school commissioners, Levi Appleby, Alvan 
Richardson and Ebenezer Kellogg; overseers of highways — district No. 1, 
Elijah Fuller; district No, 2, Asa Cowles; district No. 3, John Scott; district 
No. 4, Philip Appleby; district No. 5, N. R. Bliven; district No. 6, Simeon 
Wightman; district No. 7, E. Rogers; district No. 8, William Kellogg; district 
No. 9, M. R. Randolph; district No. 10, Samuel Frost; district No. 11, N. B. 
Scott; district No. 12, Joshua Chapman. 

The settlement of the town can be directly traced to Zephaniah Smith, 
a resident of Unadilla, Otsego county, who in 1816 here built a hunting camp 
of logs (with a loft in which to sleep out of the way of prowling beasts) which 
he covered with birch bark. He made this his headquarters for hunting 
and trapping operations for several months in each year until 1819. It 
stood almost directly across the road from the Baptist church now standing 
on the Ackerman farm in the southern part of Richburg. Mr. Smith made 
such representations of this section in Otsego county as to attract 
the attention of some of its enterprising citizens and the result was 
that a number of families from that section ultimately made new homes 
here. Mr. Smith was never a resident, but his log hut was the first resi- 
dence of several of the newcomers and was at last burned by the Indians. 

Early Settlers. — The first permanent white settler was Timothy 
Cowles, a native of Vermont, who came from his native state to Otsego 



904 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

county, and then to Bolivar, arriving December 8, 1819. He went west 
and died there in the year 18 — . He br ought with him two sons, AlvinT., 
born in Otsego county in 1808, and Erastus, born in Friendship in 1819 while 
the family were enroute for Bolivar. Asa came to Bolivar in February, 

1820. He served as the first supervisor of the town in 1825, 1826 and 1827. 
In 1820 he and his brother Austin built and occupied a house together until 

1821, when Asa built himself a house. Asa immediately became identified 
with the business interests of the town and was a useful and intelligent set- 
tler. He built a gristmill on the site now used by C. and E. Smith, and a 
part of the old frame is the timber put into its foundation by Asa Cowles in 
1824. He died in Bolivar Oct. 21, 1829, and was buried in the old burying- 
ground, now a part of the present cemetery. At the head of his grave 
stands the first tomb-stone erected in the town. It is in a good state of 
preservation and an object of historical interest, being erected in 1830. 

Jonathan Hitchcock, properly called the second permanent settler, came 
in 1819, locating on a part of lot 48, and occupying the hut vacated by Smith, 
enlarging and rebuilding the same. Mr. Hitchcock was the first settler to 
move his family into the town which arrived at Bolivar on February 
15, 1820, from Unadilla, N. Y. When Mr. Hitchcock first came he 
was accompanied by his two step-children, Samuel and Polly Buckley. He 
left his wife and four small children in Unadilla. In November, 1819, he 
concluded to return for them, and left Samuel and Polly with their uncle 
Azel Buckley who had settled in Wirt. Before his return to Otsego coun- 
ty, Mr. Hitchcock cleared and sowed about five acres of wheat, rolled him- 
self up a log house and became a permanent settler. So Bolivar was practi- 
cally settled in 1819 by Timothy Cowles and Jonathan Hitchcock as the first 
two settlers, and there are some now living in this town that have person- 
ally listened to their oft-repeated stories of their hardships as pioneers. 
Benjamin F. Cowles, a direct descendant of the family of Timothy Cowles, 
was born in 1803, came here in 1824, and is a familiar figure on the streets 
of Bolivar, being hale and hearty, and a fountain of information in regard 
to the early history. 

Christopher Tyler came from Friendship in the winter of 1819, and was 
accompanied on the route from Otsego county to Friendship by two broth- 
ers of Timothy Cowles, viz., Asa and Austin Cowles who came from there 
to Bolivar in 1820. When Mr. Hitchcock concluded to return to Otsego 
county he did not vacate the Smith hut but left nearly all his household 
goods there, so when Tyler arrived and found the hut nearly empty he 
moved in and was living "there when Hitchcock and family returned. Both 
families then occupied the house until Tyler built a log house the following 
season. Tyler was a native of Rhode Island. He was followed by quite a 
number of relatives; some settled here while others went west or returned 
to Otsego county or Rhode Island. Luther Austin came from Friendship in 
1821 and settled on the farm now occupied by Rowland Burdick immediate- 
ly north of the village on the " Salt-rising road. " He was a millwright, built 



Bolivar. 905 

a mill with and for Asa Austin and Timothy Cowles and later disposed of 
his interest and removed to Pennsylvania. Eli LeSuer settled here in the fall 
of 1821, coming also from Otsego county, N. Y. He returned and brought 
his family the following winter, arriving at Bolivar in January. He was 
born at Unadilla Nov. 25, 1796, and died at Bolivar. On his arrival at Boli- 
var he also constructed a log house and made it ready for his family. This 
house stood near the present residence of his son, Cyrus E. LeSuer, about 
one-half mile south of the village. 

Samuel Davie, a well-known character, came March 28, 1823, from Una- 
dilla, he having moved there with his parents from New Jersey, where he 
was born Feb. 14, 1794. He, too, constructed a log house, and returned for 
his family the following June, arriving with them in July, 1823. He first 
settled on the farm now owned by E. R. Kilbury, across the creek, some- 
times called the Wilber farm. Some claim there was a log house already 
built on the farm on which he settled, but the writer is convinced that such 
was not the case. On his return from Unadilla he brought the first span of 
horses ow^ned in Bolivar. When Mr. Davie was first at Friendship he 
bought the farm above mentioned of persons representing themselves to be 
agents for the Philadelphia Land Company, but about five years afterward 
the true agents of the company satisfied Mr. Davie that he had been im- 
posed upon, and that his title was worthless. Mr. Davie had to part with 
this span of horses as a part payment of the second purchase. The true 
agents however refused to take more than the original price for the land, 
$3 per acre. Mr. Davie considered this a generous act, as land had consid- 
ably advanced by reason of settlers coming in and the fact that he made 
great improvements upon his farm. He died at the residence of A. G. Wil- 
liams in Bolivar village, April 20, 1875. William Davie, son of Samuel, born 
in Cherry Valley in 1821, came to Bolivar in 1823, later married Angenette 
Montrose. Their children were: Carey D., a lawyer and surrogate of Cat- 
taraugus Co., resides at Salamanca; Frank C, a physician of Oneonta; Lu- 
ella (Mrs. A. Stillman), of Alfred. 

In September, 1823, came Ebenezer Kellogg from Otsego county. Abel 
Root came here from Scio. He had also come from Otsego county about 
1821 with three boys, Abel Jr., David C. and Freeman B. Of Mr. Root's 
children born in Bolivar one is James H. Root, of the drygoods firm of J. H. 
Root & Son, who was born in Bolivar in 1821 and is believed to be the oldest 
living male child born in Bolivar alive at this writing. 

Lucius Daniels, son of Leonard and Abigail (Kellogg) Daniels, was born 
in Butternuts, Otsego county, July 6, 1822. Leonard Daniels came to Boli- 
var in the spring or summer of 1830 and sent for his family (who arrived 
here Oct. 18, 1830), and was a farmer for a year or two and then purchased a 
sawmill of Leonard & Wellman. This mill was situated on the Kenyon mill 
site exactly on the line between Little Genesee and Bolivar. The Daniels " 
family (4 boys and 2 girls) lived in a house near the mill. One day in April, 
1834, while the son Alexander, 8 years old, was running on the logs in the 



906 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

millpond he fell into the water, his mother hastened to the place, waded into 
the water up to her neck and tried to grasp her boy but could not do so. 
The father, who was about 80 rods away, ran with all his speed, and being an 
expert swimmer ran out on the booms as near his floating boy as possible, 
plunged into the water to save first his wife (already being assisted by a man 
named Mills, who had caught hold of her clothing and sitting astride of a 
log was slowly but surely carrying her to the shore), Mr. Daniels then 
turned his attention to his boy who was farther in the pond, and swam again 
to the boom, raised his hands as if to pull himself upon the boom, when he 
sank and was drowned, his body not again coming to the surface. At this 
time Merrill Cowles arrived and assisted in getting Mrs. Daniels out of the 
water, and then rescued the body of the boy, which, strange to say, had never 
sunk. It was hard to make Mr. Cowles believe that Mr. Daniels was in the 
water, but at last he took a pike-pole, went to the place where the body sank 
and succeeded in catching it with the pike-pole and hurried it on shore where 
physicians had arrived but they failed to resuscitate his body. In 1837 
Lucius Daniels, then 15, went into the tannery to learn the trade and worked 
in the same place 28 years. He has always lived in Bolivar and occupies the 
same farm he has occupied for about 35 years. 

Isaac Case and son Bradford W. moved from Onondaga county with an 
ox team and located in the southeast part of Wirt in January, 1822. In Jan- 
uary, 1825, they removed to lot 16 in Bolivar. Bradford was a mechanic and 
millwright. In 1827 Thomas Wait from Otsego county settled in Bolivar, 
and Peter Ayers came from Wirt in 1827. David Thurber from Cayuga 
county in March, 1829, settled on lot 46, where he died in February. 1845. 
Jeremiah Burdick, in 1830, was a settler on lot 55. Asa P. Stetson settled 
about 1828 and became a leading real estate operator. About 1850 he 
removed to Allegany. In 1831 Elias Scott, originally from Genesee county, 
located on lot 39. Charles Cowles from Steuben county, and James Davie 
from Otsego county, settled here in 1833. The next year John PhilJips from 
Vermont located on lot 24. In October of the same year Clark Millard from 
Otsego county settled on lot 60. He later lived in Genesee. His son Nelson 
remained here. Azel Buckley, born in Massachusetts, came to Friendship 
in 1814, settled in the part now Wirt, bought 100 acres of land, made the first 
clearing and built a log house. He lived there until 1828 when he settled in 
Bolivar near Richburg. He married Mary Rowley and had a family of 11 
children. 

Moses J. Chapin came in 1831 and only lived 4 months. He married A. 
Sherman. Of their 4 children the only one living is Mrs. Joseph Davie. 
Mrs. Chapin built the first two-story house in Bolivar and was the first 
tailoress here. She carried on that business for 25 years and died in 1852. 
Joseph Mulkins came here from Otsego county in 1834. He was born in 
1802 in Connecticut. He married Hannah Giles, their children were Amos, 
Alonzo and Hannah. Mr. Mulkins died in 1838, and his wife in 1837. Hiram 
Mead, son of John, a farmer, about 1836, married Hannah Mulkins. They 



Bolivar. 907 

had 7 children. He died Feb. 27, 1838. George W.Kenyon, born in Decem- 
ber, 1799, in Hopkinton, R. I., married Sally Maxson, and, about 1828, settled 
in Genesee. They had 5 sons and 5 daughters. In 1838 he made his home 
in Bolivar. He died May 5, 1882, his wife died Sept. 17, 1878. Mr. Kenyon 
was a tanner and currier, a shoemaker and a carpenter. 

The Wellman brotliers Isaac and William came to Bolivar from Vermont 
in 1829. They were students of medicine, and settled on lot 16 in the north- 
eastern portion of the town w^here they were the first settlers. They 
removed in after years to Friendship. 

A very important citizen, one whose personality and descendants fur- 
nished a large proportion of the " bone and sinew " of Bolivar, was Hollis B. 
Newton. He hailed from Madison Co., and moved to this town in 1824. We 
find him with Austin Cowles building and opening the first store in Bolivar. 
He engaged in the manufacture of furniture at an early period. He was the 
builder and proprietor of the first hotel in Bolivar in 1831. This building, 
remodeled, is now the Clark House by reason of passing at one time into the 
hands of a Mr. Clark of Scio. Mr. New^ton was twice married, first to Miss 
Rhoda Lyons, a native of New Jersey, who died in 1856; afterward to Phoebe 
Smalley of Friendship. Mr. Newton died Feb. 19, 1873. His son, D. A. 
Newton, was born Dec. 25. 1829. He w^as engaged in various industries 
and was one of the citizens to forward new enterprises and promote the in- 
terests of the village and the vicinity. The large hotel, The Newton House, 
was built by him during the oil excitement. The site of the Catholic church 
was his gift to the Catholic society. He married in 1852 Miss Abigail 
Cowles of Bolivar. Several children were born to them, one of whom, F. L. 
Newton, acted as cashier of the Bolivar Bank for a term of years and now 
occupies a responsible position in Buffalo. When D. A. Newton's death oc- 
curred the whole town had cause to mourn the loss of a patriotic, enterpris- 
ing citizen, one of the chief promoters of Bolivar's prosperity. 

The oldest pioneer now in Bolivar is "Uncle" Ben Cowles, who is 92 
years of age. He came to the town in 1824. He has a good memory and has 
many anecdotes of the " times gone by." He has killed deer where now 
stand the derricks on the hillsides about the village. "Once," he relates, 
" I tracked two deer up to the second bench on one of these slopes, after 
spying them I crawled up to within 35 rods and saw one lying down asleep, 
and the other standing chewing his cud. I fired at the one standing and 
kiUed him so dead he never kicked." The sleeping deer jumped up, but find- 
ing its comrade lying i3eacefully on the ground, concluded that all was well, 
until a second bullet from Uncle Ben's rifle laid him low. Mr. Cowles now 
resides with his son and daughter, P. W. Cowles and Mrs. M. E. Hovey. 

Stephen W. Thomas is a prominent pioneer of the town. He moved 
from Angelica to Bolivar in 1834. He began life as a clerk for Hoyt & Co., 
at Richburg, afterward he became a partner of Mr. Hoyt. His life has been 
passed mostly in the mercantile business, and he has been one of Bolivar's 
leading merchants for many years. 



908 ^ History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Early Mills and Manufactures. — Owing to the plentiful supply of 
pine and hemlock the sawmill has from the earliest pioneers been a flourish- 
ing institution. The larger amount of this natural wealth was taken away, 
the Allegany river furnishing means of transporation, but considerable 
lumber has always been manufactured in and about Bolivar. The first saw- 
mill was erected in 1822 by a number of the pioneers. It was located just 
below Bolivar village on lot 55. The motive power was furnished by Little 
Genesee creek. Another early mill was located in Kansas Hollow, three 
miles south of Bolivar. Of this mill there remains no trace. In 1824 Asa 
Cowles erected a gristmill in the village. Up to this time the settlers were 
obliged to take their grain either to Friendship or Ceres, a considerable dis- 
tance with no roads to speak of only forest paths. In 1829 Mr. Cowles died, 
and the mill passed into the hands of A. P. Stetson, who operated it until 
1850, when two brothers named Burdick purchased it. In 1876 steam pow- 
er was used instead of the old-fashioned water-wheel. Soon after the mill 
came into possession of Curtiss Smith who operated it until his death in 
November, 1895. After oil operations commenced in Bolivar natural gas 
was used as fuel for the boiler. In 1835 Mr. Stetson, who owned the grist- 
mill, built a small tannery which he operated until 1844. This business was 
then conducted by different parties until 1866 when the owners, Kenyon & 
Cowles, added the manufacture of harnesses to the tanning industry. The 
trade in harnesses flourished and gradually the larger tanneries crowded 
out the smaller ones until the owners relinquished tanning and turned their 
attention entirely to harnesses. The building was destroyed by fire the 
winter of 1894-95. An article universally manufactured by the early 
settlers was black salts. A ready market for cash was found in the larger 
villages, Cuba and Friendship being the point where most was sold. Maple 
sugar was made for home use also, it being the only sugar easily obtained. 
Another article of value was the skins of wild beasts and fur-bearing ani- 
mals, deer skins especially. These and venison, and the black salts trade 
were the only sources for obtaining money during the pioneer times. 

South Bolivar. — About four miles south of Bolivar village is a small set- 
tlement and postoffice known as South Bolivar. Here are some thrifty 
farmers, one of whom, Mr. Haywood, owns the cheese factory located at this 
point. This was built in 1887 by C. and E. Smith. It produced 43,000 lbs. 
of cheese in 1893 and uses the milk of over 150 cows. At the present time 
the oil developments are becoming quite extensive. Some of the wells in 
this vicinity starting at thirty barrels per day. A hotel or tavern also is 
located near the postoffice. Some of the earliest settlements were made at 
this place and it also served as headquarters for lumbermen. The hills about 
here were once covered with a magnificent growth of pine and hemlock. To 
saw the necessary lumber used in the vicinity portable mills were erected 
at various points. At present there is one in operation about a mile above 
the corners, which is owned by B. A. Root, of Bolivar village. TheE. Sher- 
wood sawmill on the California branch in South Bolivar was built in 1873. It 



Bolivar. 909 

has a circular saw and cuts 30,000 feet of lumber annually. Chapel's saw- 
mill and turning lathe was put up about 1860. Its product is bedslats and 
table legs. But a hill clothed with the beautiful dark green of the pine and 
hemlock is a rare sight now. The beech and maples have taken the places of 
these valuable evergreens. 

Stephen Chapel was an early settler in South Bolivar coming in 1835. 
He was preceded by Elisha Mix however who came in 1830. Gilbert Chapel 
was postmaster of South Bolivar office over 30 years, and was succeeded in 
1885 by his son Leonard G. Jonathan Chapel had a wagon shop here for 
many years. 

Sawyer & Company's Oil Refinery was established in 1893 by William 
Sawyer and Miner Wellman. It has a capacity of 50 barrels per day, and is 
located 4 miles east of Bolivar at Sawyer's. "The most independent pro- 
ducers to-day in the Allegany tield are Sawyer Bros. When the market is 
low they refine the oil produced by the 50 wells on their lease, and when it 
is high they sell the oil to the pipe-lines. In this way they always get a good 
price for the product of their wells." Ira and Isaac D. Sawyer, twins, are 
sons of Rev. John Sawyer, who about 1820 settled in the northeast corner 
of present Wirt. About 1857 the brothers became residents here. Isaac 
now lives in Wellsville, where his son Rufus has kept hotel and is now a 
merchant. 

Soldier Dead. — E. C. Kelloeg, enlisted Sept. lo, i86i; died Florence, S. C. Daniel B. 
Garthwait, 1 86 1; died Aug. 20, 1 86 1, Washington. Stephen Wilmouth, 1861; died Annapolis. 
Lieutenant Edward J. Davis, 1861. 85th N. Y.; died Newport, N. C, April 11, 1862. Hiram 
Pierce, 1861; died Andersonville. Joseph Pierce, Aug. 20, 1862; died Andersonville. John L. 
Weston, Sept. 5. 1863; killed. Hiram G. Wakeman, Aug. 12,1862; died Howard Hospital 1863. 
William S. Moore, September, 1861; died Andersonville. Edward B. Griffith, Aug. 14, 1862; 
died Andersonville. David Cowles, Feb. 12, 1864; died Bolivar, Jan. 2, 1865. Hiram C.Gard- 
ner, Aug. 13, 1862; killed Lookout Mountain. Edwin R. Smith, September, 1861; died York- 
town, May 4, 1862. William H. Stratton, Jan. 2, 1864; killed at the Wilderness. Alfred Chapin, 
September, 1861; died Andersonville, August, 1864. James Visber, Sept. 16, 1861; died Ander- 
sonville, June I, 1864. Elijah C.Gilbert, i86i;died Andersonville, July 25, 1864. Alvin White, 
August. 1861; killed at the Wilderness. Esyor Day, January, 1864; died Washington, July, 22, 
1864. David Crandall, Aug. 13, 1862; died Andersonville, Sept. 10, 1864. George W. Living- 
ston, Jan. 4, 1864; died Bolivar, Nov. 20, 1864. George Smith, Feb. 15, 1864; died Morganzia, 
La. J. Dry, Feb. 12, 1863; died Red river. John Keckhow, Sept. 8, 1861, 85th N. Y., died 
Andersonville, June 24, 1864. Charles H. Johnson, Sept. 8, 1861; died Andersonville, July 13, 
1864. James H. Cranford, August, 1861; died Andersonville, Aug. 16, 1864 Thomas Shields, 
record unknown. Asa W. Root, Sept. g, i86r; died Andersonville. Henry Baulsover, Septem- 
ber, 1861; shot while escaping from the rebels; buried Florence, S. C. Francis E. Brames, 
Sept. II, i86j; died Florence, S. C. Sanford Davie; died Fairfa.x C. H. 

Railroads. — Only one of the many railroads once known to Bolivar now 
exists. During 1881, '82 and '83 it was not a surprising thing to awaken in 
the morning and find a new railroad in town. They were all of the narrow 
gauge order, the rails being but three feet apart. The trains were remark- 
able for ability in climbing hills and rounding the astonishing curves with 
which the roadbed abounded. It cannot be said that much attention was 
paid to the time scheduled on the time-table, but passengers were repaid 
for the time lost in the beauty of the scenery and the novelties displayed by 
this style of railroading. During 1881 the Olean and Friendship railroad 



910 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



was built. This was afterward extended to Angelica. The road is now in 
operation between Bohvar and Olean, running two trains each way daily. 
This railroad has been burdened by a great number of names — enough to 
swamp anything but a narrow-gauge railway. It was first known as the 
Olean and Friendship, then as the Allegany Central, the Lackawanna and 
Pittsburgh, then the Lackawanna and South-Western, and now rests under 
the title of Central New York and Western. The president of the road is 
John Byrnes of Wall Street, New York City, who is also supposed to own a 
controling interest in the stock; Frank S. Smith of New York City is vice 
president; M. S. Blair, superintendent; C. H. Hammond, passenger and 
freight agent. The gentleman in charge of the Bolivar office is Barney S. 
Dunn, who has been in the employ of the company many years; he has been 
in charge at Bolivar and Richburg during the past 8 years. There is every 
reason to suppose that the road will be made a standard gauge the coming 
season and be extended to Hornellsville, such at least seems to be the opin- 
ion of Supt. Blair. 

During 1881 the Bradford, Eldred and Cuba road was built. The ter- 
mini were Wellsville and Eldred. This road was operated until 1888 when 
it was abandoned. In 1884 came the Tonawanda Valley and Cuba road with 
the terminal points at Bolivar and Tonawanda. This road never paid run- 
ning expenses. It soon passed into the hands of a receiver, Hon. T. C. Piatt 
being appointed. It was in this road that Gen. U. S. Grant owned stock. 
The narrow-gauge road is an institution peculiar to the oil country, and, as 
a rule, a ride over any branch is a novelty worth trying. The time, owing 
to the steep grades and sharp curves, is necessarily slow. Between Olean 
and Bradford is a road running in connection with the C. N. Y. & W., which 
for wild and picturesque scenery is equalled by few roads in the East. 

Cemetery Association. — This was organized March 30, 1869, and was 
duly incorporated with E. R. Kilbury as president, A. G.Williams vice pres- 
ident, J. H. Root secretary. The grounds consisted of nearly 3 acres of 
land immediately surrounding the old cemetery of about f of an acre, in 
which burials had been made from 1828, and are nearly one-half mile south 
of Bolivar village on the Ceres road. The lands were purchased of Eli and 
Cyrus LeSuer and James Davie, and while beautiful by nature have been 
made much more so by the artistic hand of man. 

Supervisors.— 1825, '27, Asa Cowles ; 1828, '29, Pliny S. Evans; 1830, '31, '37, Jonah French; 
1832, '36, Warren Wellman ; 1838, '40, '42, Martin Butts ; 1841, '45, '48, Asa P. Stetson ; 1843, '52, G. W. 
Kenyon ; 1844, S. G. S. Rowley ; 1849, H. B. Newton ; 1850, '51, A. Hosley ; 1853, Merrill Cowles ; 1854, S. 
J. Newton ; 1855, '57, '62, '67, '74, '75, '81, '82, '83, '84, '90, J. M. Curtiss; 1858, '59 "62, A. A. Lewis; i860, '70, 
J. L. Cutler ; 1861, '63, H. R. Burdick ; 1864, U. L. Davis ; 1865, '66, '73 ; R. L. Andrus ; 1868, '6g, E. R. Kil- 
bury ; 1871, J. C. Reed ; 1872; D. A. Newton ; 1876. '77, '79, J. S. Hoyt ; 1878, I. G. Le Suer ; 1880, J. L. 
Cutler, (S. W. Thomas was appointed Nov. 2, 1880, to complete the term) ; 1885, '87, E. W. Cowles ; 1886, 
L. J. Murphy ; 1888, '89, C. H. Brown ; 1891, '92, F. S. Gulick ; 1893, F. A. Hulbert ; 1894, J. H. Crandall 
(C. H. LeSuer was appointed Oct. 19, 1894 to complete the year) ; 1895 '96, C. E. LeSuer. 
^ The town clerks that have had longest terms of service are I. J. Cooper, in office in 1880, '81, '89, '90, '94, 
95 and '96, and C. M. Williams, who served from 1882 to 1888 inclusive. 



Town Officers.— 1895, assessors, M. J. Crowley, A. Crandall, J. Dunham ; 
town clerk, L J. Cooper; justices, L. Daniels, A. Keeney, C. M. Williams, S. S. 
J. A. Young ; highway commissioner, J. C. Holcomb. 



collector, F. R. Spencer ; 
Applebee ; overseer poor, 



Bolivar. 911 

BoLrv^AR Village. — Bolivar, like her sister villages of Southern Allegany 
is surrounded by picturesque hills. These gradually grow higher and more 
abrupt in passing toward the southeast until they become mountains of the 
Appalachian system. The elevation of these hills is greatest perhaps in the 
town of Bolivar than in any part of this county, being in many instances 
over 1,800 feet above the sea level. These steep slopes are dotted with oil 
derricks and the paraphernalia of oildom, while in the narrow valley north- 
ward from the village rest the mammoth iron tanks in which during the past 
few years were stored immense quantities of crude petroleum, but which at 
the present time are being fast emptied, owing to the small amount which 
is now produced. At the conjunction of two narrow valleys rests the vil- 
lage. The place is similar to most country towns, one main thoroughfare 
with others branching off at right angles. In Bolivar the principal street 
bears the customary name. Main street, and extends from north to south 
through the central portions of the town. Branching westward from Main 
are Boss and Liberty streets. To the eastward are Olive, South, Olean, 
Friendship, Wellsville and Plum streets. These last named are occupied 
principally by residences. Friendship and Wellsville streets are called the 
most pleasant in the village. At the extreme end of Friendship street lies 
the half-mile track of the Bolivar Track Association. This village has that 
pecularity of oil towns, love of fast horses. Most any pleasant day can be 
seen the " trainers " exercising their favorites on the track and afterwards 
driving through the streets of the village exhibiting the paces and qualities 
of their steeds amid the approving nods of the inhabitants. After an oil 
well, the genuine oil man loves a fine piece of horse flesh, and Bolivar yet 
contains many thoroughbreds of both species. The architecture of the 
buildings in Bolivar betrays those unmistakable signs which speak of the 
times when fortunes were made and lost in a day, when houses, hotels, and 
almost everything, sprang up with the mushrooms "in a single night," but, 
unlike other oil towns, Bolivar has not yet suffered from that desertion gen- 
erally following the rapid "boom." Her streets, although not graced with 
many elegant residences, show very few vacant houses, and although the 
exterior of many dwellings presents a somewhat rough appearance, this is 
amply counter-balanced by the comfort and refinement within. Bolivar has 
an extensive supply of natural gas, and the open fireplaces and well-lighted 
streets are a comfortable sight after a long cold drive on a bleak wintry 
evening. Some residences, however, are noticeable as belonging to people 
who "have come to stay." The homes of E. C. Garth wait on Wellsville 
street, Geo. Bradley on Boss street, Dr. Joe Cutler on Friendship street, C. 
R. Kilbury on Main street and H. L. Zimmerman[on South street, are models 
of neatness and modern construction. The business blocks were constructed 
mostly during the season of rapid growth and consequently more attention 
was given to completing them in as short a time as possible than to their 
general appearance. The building occupied by the State Bank of Bolivar 
and also the Masonic Temple are substantial brick buildings. The village 



912 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

was incorporated in the early part of 1882. The first meeting of the village 
board was March 23, 1882. D. A. Newton, president; J. E. Patridge, J. S. 
Kincade, I. J Cooper, trustees; F. S. Gulick, clerk; J. H. Voorhees. street 
commissioner; H. D. Patridge, chief of police. The present officers are: R. 
N. Andrus, president; W. J. Hunt, A. Wilbur, E. M. Strayer, trustees; B. 
S. Dunn, clerk; J. W. O'Day, F. Davie, J. W. Hamsher, John Drake, J. Dun- 
ning, board of health; W. T. Bliss, corporation commissioner. D. A. New- 
ton, Alex Wilson and R. N. Andrus have been the village presidents. In 
1890 the census gave the village nearly 1,500 population. 

The first oil well put down by O. P. Taylor in Bolivar was a dry hole on 
lot 37 on the Williams farm. Taylor and Riley Allen then bought an interest 
in a well just started on the Sawyer farm by Charles Campbell, this was a 
fair producer and soon the boom commenced. 

This piquant description written by J. P. Herrick, the brainy editor of 
the Bolivar Breeze, for the Illustrated Buffalo Exjyress, tells neatly of a cer- 
tain period of Bolivar's existence. 

A BIT OF bolivar's HISTORY. 

Next to Richburg, Bolivar was for a season a hot oil town, but Bolivar people showed good 
sense in confining oil operations to territory outside of the village limits. In 1882 Bolivar 
boasted of nearly 5,000 population. At this time the Police Gazette had the largest circulation 
in Bolivar of any New York weekly. In January, 1882, Olean capitalists sent F. L. Newton, 
now a Buffalonian, to Bolivar with a canvas sack containing $20,000 in currency to open a bank. 
In four months' time the deposits exceeded $250,000. Like Richburg, Bolivar sheltered a very 
tough element, and the nightly scenes witnessed on Railroad street — Bolivar's Bowery— were 
very wicked. Along with the oil boom came a German philosopher with a stink-pot full of 
chemicals and a mineral rod. He felt sure that he could pick out a location for a good well, 
Finally he succeeded in interesting some oil men in his theory and a well was drilled a short 
distance below the village. Much interest was manifested in the test. When the old German 
learned that the well was " dry," he packed his grip and started for the woods. And they 
haven't seen him since. The rabble that drifted in on the oil tide has all left now, and Bolivar 
has settled down into a steady-going prosperous village ; in fact it has held its own the best of 
any oil town in the country, unless it is Bradford. Bolivar has a state bank, good hotels, ex- 
cellent schools, well-equipped fire department, fine academy, excellent stores, a race track and 
a newspaper. Bolivar is the oil headquarters of the Allegany field, and the local buying agen- 
cies of the National Transit Company and the Tidewater Pipe Company are located there. 
The wealth that poured out of the hills and valleys made a few men very rich, many comfort- 
ably well off, and many lost the savings of years in a vain endeavor to " strike it rich." One of 
the earliest and brainiest operators in the field was George V. Forman of Olean, now of Buffalo. 
In company with H. L. Taylor and John Satterfield of Buffalo, Mr. Forman in 1881 owned 
3,000 acres of " cream " territory in the Allegany field. In May, 1882, the Cherry Grove bubble 
induced many of the producers of the Allegany field to offer their leases at ridiculously low 
prices. They were fairly crazy to get to Cherry Grove and offered oil property at almost one- 
fourth of the real value. Mr. Forman bought up every lease offered for sale and when the re- 
action took place a few months later, he sold out at profit of nearly half a million dollars. The 
late Asher ^V. Miner of Friendship is credited with clearing over half a million dollars in oil 
operations in the Allegany field. The McCalmont Oil Company of Pittsburg have cleared a 
round million dollars out of their oil operations in the Allegany field, and the Hazelwood Oil 
Company have also made a fortune. Both of these companies still retain large interests m the 
field. Not over 10 per cent of the farmers who originally owned the land were benefitted by 
the oil boom. The majority of thern sold their farms at high prices and fooled away the money 
in speculating. Those who leased on a royalty are to-day comfortably well off, and assured of 
a steady income as long as the wells on their farms continue to produce oil. One old farmer 
who lives near Allentown has already received over $100,000 in royalties, and many others have 
received like amounts. There are a large number of producers in the field to-day who are 
worth from $10,000 to $25,000, who 10 years ago were employed on leases "by the month." 
There are probably a dozen resident producers who have amassed from $75,000 to $100,000. 



BOLTVAR. 913 



There are also men to be found at work on the leases "by the month '" who were comfortably 
well off ID years ago. Fortune was ever fickle, and one is impressed with the fact at every 
turn in the oil regions. 

The drilling of the old Richburg well opened up one of the richest oil fields of modern 
times. Other good wells came in rapid succession. In June, 1881. the Boyle well, another 
noted well, was struck. It started off at 200 barrels a day, and the lucky strike caused intense 
excitement. In 1881 the Allegany field produced 681,509 barrels of oil, and in 1882 the pro- 
duction was increased to 6,519,000, the top-notch record. Up to date the field has produced 
29,000,000 barrels. The first big reverse the Allegany field suffered was in May, 1882, when 
the Cherry Grove gusher came in and smashed the market to 49c. Since 1882 the production 
of the field has steadily declined, until it has reached 2,000 barrels per day. The largest wells 
ever drilled in the field are located on the Reed and Garthwait farms in the town of Bolivar. 
Both of these wells started off at 400 barrels a day, and both wells are still producing oil. Dur- 
ing the first year of the boom thousands of barrels of oil ran to waste every month. The 
wells came in so fast that the pipe-lines could not take care of the oil. The longevity of the 
wells drilled in the Allegany field is quite remarkable. The oil sand is very hard. The 30 
wells drilled on the Reed farm in the town of Bolivar have already produced $1,000,000 worth 
of oil, and they will continue to produce oil for a dozen years to come. Records show that in 
the past twelve years a cluster of eight wells on a farm owned by Riley Allen at Allentown, 
have produced over $135,000 worth of oil, and they are still producing 2,000 barrels a year. 
And there are many farms in different parts of the field that show better records than the one 
owned by Allen. The average depth of the wells drilled in the Allegany field is 1,200 feet. 
The average cost of drilling a new well at present and rigging it up for pumping is about 
$1,500. In 1882 the same work cost $2,200. From 40 to 60 quarts of nitro-glycerine are usu- 
ally used in shooting a well, but sometimes 100 quarts are used. Nitro-glycerine now sells for 
$1,00 a quart. In 1882 a 40-quart shot cost $140. In this field several handlers of this dan- 
gerous explosive have lost their lives and many others can relate thrilling and truthful stories of 
hair-breadth escapes from frightful deaths, while following their hazardous calling as oil-well 
shooters. Within two years, two well-known Bolivar shooters lost their lives. All that was 
found of the two bodies could be placed with ease in a peck measure. And yet there are half 
a dozen applicants ready to fill every vacancy that occurs. The pioneer oil-well shooter of the 
Allegany field is Col. W. A. Myers of Bolivar. The story of his experience in the nitro-glyce- 
rine business would make an interesting volume. He claims the honor of making the first 
pound of nitro-glycerine ever exploded in an oil well. He established a factory at Titusville, 
Pa., in the winter of 1869. At that time he mixed the stuff in earthern crocks. Later on he 
invented a machine that made 400 cans a day. In those days it was almost impossible to se- 
cure any helpers at the factory and farmers would drive three miles out of their way to avoid 
passing close by where the deadly explosive was made. Myers built a factory near Olean in 
1879. It was afterward blown up. One of the most exciting events in his life took place at 
Bolivar Run, Pa., in May, 1882. A factory containing 3,200 pounds of nitro-glycerine blew 
up. Myers had just stepped out and was not over 50 feet distant when the explosion took 
place. He was hurled through the air over 100 feet, but strange to say, he was not seriously 
injured. When he recovered his senses he discovered that he was almost nude. One stock- 
ing was all the wearing apparel he had on. His coat was blown off and torn to tatters. It 
is now highly prized as a relic. Myers built a factory near Bolivar in 1882, the capacity of 
w-hich was 5,000 pounds of nitro-glycerine a day. He gave up shooting entirely and devoted 
his attention to supplying explosives to other men. In 1884 he sent his son, W. R. Myers, 
to Egypt to build a factory and shoot some test wells near the great pyramids for an En- 
glish syndicate. He retired from his hazardous calling in 1886, after an exciting experience 
of 17 years in the business. He is one of the few survivors of the old-time Oil Creek shoot- 
ers, the majority of whom met violent deaths. 

Bolivar Business Interests.^ — The business men are an enterprising-, 
energetic class of people. Among them the oil man holds a conspicuous 
place, in fact most everyone is an oil man to a certain extent, very few have 
been able to resist that contagious chance-taking, Louisiana-lottery feeling 
which leads people into taking an interest in a well or speculating in the ex- 
changes. Before the advent of the oil industry the interests were mostly 
agricultural, dairying and lumbering being the principal pursuits. The 
mercantile interests were inferior in comparison to the present situation 



914 History op Allegany County, N. Y. 

The population of the village was then about 200. During the summer of 
1880 Richburg, the sister village, experienced a boom which has had few 
equals in oil country history. Bolivar was not very much affected until the 
following winter. The development of the Richburg pool having become 
pretty well defined, the enthusiasm cooled down with the cold weather. 
Meanwhile- developments were becoming quite extensive to the south of 
Bolivar village, and during the summer of 1881 the territory between Boli- 
var and Allentown was creating considerable excitement and proving valu- 
able property. Bolivar was the most accessible station for headquarters 
during the operations of 1881. The nal^row gauge roads came winding their 
serpentine paths over the hills from all points, Bradford, Cuba, Angelica. 
Friendship and Wellsville all sent eager crowds over the miniature rail- 
roads to Bolivar. Machine shops, stores, allmanner of institutions, began a 
steady growth. The boom was not such a prodigy as Richburg experienced 
but it proved far more lasting. To-day it is a serious matter to obtain a 
fairly good house to rent in this town while Richburg is a desolate ruin, the 
empty, windowless buildings displaying endless visions of haunted houses 
of all descriptions. Although the oil industry experienced a season of great 
depression for several years, through low prices and a falling oif in produc- 
tion, still Bolivar held to a great extent the prosperity gained during 1881. 
And at the present price of crude petroleum the town is enjoying a great de- 
gree of prosperity. Perhaps there is more cash per capita in circulation in 
Bolivar than in any other village in Allegany county. 

The interests of that great corporation, the Standard Oil Company, in 
Bolivar and vicinity is carefully looked after by W. F. Thomas, who knows 
all that there is to know about oil in the Allegany and Pennsylvania fields. 

One of the most prosperous of the firms in the oil and gas industry in 
town is the Empire Gas and Fuel Co. Their office is located on Boss street 
and is the real center of the great gas-plants supjDlying Cuba, Wellsville, 
Bolivar and Richburg. Beside the great number of gas wells this company 
has an extensive production of the oleaginous fluid. The Bradley Bros, are 
the owners and directors of this company. They began the business by 
supplying Richburg and Bolivar with gas, and have gradually increased 
their operations until their interests mount upwards into the hundred of 
thousands; still Mr. Bradley will tell you, with a twinkle in his eye, that he 
has never been out of debt " since he was twenty-one." 

Another prosperous company is the Bolivar Oil Co. This firm was or- 
ganized three years ago by twelve business men of the village, the capital 
raised by them was |8,000. This was so judiciously invested in oil and gas 
plants in Ohio and elsewhere, that their property is now estimated at |75,000. 
The president of this company is E. J. Wilson, who has a comfortable income 
from his various interests of $250 per day. The office of the company is the 
old Tidewater office. The secretary and treasurer is W. L. Nichols. 

There are several industries which are in a measure connected with the 
production of oil. At the western extremity of Liberty street A. C. Mc- 



Bolivar. 915 

Donell has a machine shop. He manufactures and repairs drilhng tools, 
engines, etc. Gas is used in the plant for lights and fuel. Mr. McDonell 
also is engaged in oil production. Alex. Wilson has a shop on Main street 
where engines, boilers and all sorts of machinery is repaired. There are 
two plants for repairing boilers in town — Dempsey Bros, on Liberty street 
and A. Elsesser near Main street. One of the best patronized stores in 
town is the Oil Well Supply Co. 's establishment on Main street. At this 
place all the hardware necessary (except the silver dollar) to the production 
of oil from the time the well is located until the tank is filled, is furnished. 
The gentleman in charge is J. Craig. For several years a similar store 
owned by the Jarecki M'f'g. Co., was located here — but the business proved 
that one such store was sufficient. 

In the autumn of 1895 several gentlemen established a nitro-glycerine 
plant. Until this time the dangerous compound was drawn into town from 
Bradford or Warren. The Rock Glycerine Co. No. 2 now manufactures a 
grade of the explosive which proves highly satisfactory. The site of the 
plant is in a secluded hollow about a mile west of the village, on land owned 
by E. R. Kilbury. The reason for selecting this retired spot is not attri- 
buted to the modesty of the gentlemen engaged in the industry, but is owing 
to the fact that sometimes circumstances of a highly startling nature trans- 
pire, — after which it is difficult to find any tangible evidence of the existence 
of such an establishment except a great hole in the ground, which proves at 
least that it would not be well to locate on Main street. An expert, a gentle- 
man from Bradford, presides over the manufacture of the article and is 
aided by one or two assistants. 

The oil well shooter, with his glycerine carriage, is a familiar sight in 
Bolivar. His duty is to take the cans from the magazine, haul the explosive 
to the well, lower it in the long tubes called " shells " and explode it where 
required. This duty requires nerve of all qualities and descriptions. There 
are several shooters at present in the village. The Van Curen Bros, are inter- 
ested also in the nitro-glycerine plant, with M. Williams, who is in business 
for himself, and H. H. Young, better known as " Brig "' Young, who shoots 
for the Newton Torpedo Co. The events which occasionally happen in the 
lives of these shooters would make the dime novel retire with a blush. The 
writer vividly remembers one occurrence which took place in September, 
1892, for the reason that he was one at least of a small party who wished for 
a few seconds they were " some where else." The well was located in the 
woods on a steep hillside. The shooter was H. H. Young " who " (upon his 
own statement) " was born lucky. " After the shot had been successfully 
lowered, "Brig" got into the wagon preparatory to driving the team and 
wagon out of danger from the falling debris which follows the explosion of 
the torpedo. There were two cans in the wagon which had not been used. 
As the team backed on the side hill the two upper wheels left the ground, 
rose slowly, — higher, higher, reached the line of the center of gravity, — 
hung there a single tremendous second as " Brig " crawled upon the rising 



916 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



wheels and slowly forced them back to terra firma. All others of the party- 
had meantime made an inglorious retreat, feeling that their combativeness 
was not equal to the shock of the explosion of 16 qts. of nitro-glycerine. The 
shooter was calm and unembarrassed and the job was finished according to 
law and order. 

One of the most thriving institutions of the village is the cigar factory 
(No. 1528, 28th District) of F. A. Loop & Co., started Nov. 27, 1893. Employ- 
ment is given to ten men, sometimes more, and a very satisfactory article is 
produced. The members of the firm are F. A. Loop, J. M. Van Gorden and 
S.A.Wertman. They make several brands of all qualities. Two men are 
travelling for them in the interests of the company during most of the year. 
The employees are paid so much per hundred. One of their most expert 
workmen often earns $18 per week working 8 hours per day. 

E. A. Root is building a sawmill on South Main street and near it a plan- 
ing mill is to be established. 

There are two hardware merchants driving a rushing trade, H. L. Zim- 
merman and Ira Voorhees. The clothiers are R. L. Andrus & Son and Fitz- 
gerald Bros. The drygood merchants are Hoyt & Cowles, J. H. Root & 
Son, and Mitchell & Co. (drygoods and groceries), who occupy the lower 
story of Masonic Block. The grocery men are F. Hulbert & Co., Mrs 
O'Brien and J. J. Cooper. The druggists Seibert & Cutler and J. E. Drake. 
Gavin & Healy have a news oftice, jewelry and notion store. All of these are 
estabhshed on Main street. The miUinery establishments are owned by 
Mrs. Bertha Weiler and Miss Mabel York. Mrs. Weiler has been engaged 
in the business in this town for 12 years. There are two first class hotels, 
the Newton House built by D. A. Newton to accommodate the crowd during 
'' the excitement," and the Clark House. Both are located on Main street. 
The Newton House is a wooden structure, 4 stories high, and large, consider- 
ing the' population of the town. The present proprietor is C. C. Thomas. 
The Clark House is a smaller establishment. D. E. Brock has just sold it 
to Calvin Scott for $3,500. Wesley Hoyt has a fine line of furniture in his 
store on Main street. In addition to these establishments Bolivar has a 
harness shop, a boot and shoe store, barber shops, a fruit store, owned by 
G. H. Parker, who is also the postmaster, a bakery, three meat markets, 
several restaurants, a crockery store owned by J. T. Cowles, and two livery 
stables. Nearly all the mercantile establishments are on Main street. 

The dairying interests of Bolivar have been a secondary industry since 
the oil boom. There are two cheese factories located in the town, one near 
the village another at South Bolivar. The first one in the village was built 
by D. A. Newton in 1874, and made that year over 65,000 lbs. of cheese. (It 
was discontinued in 1882, made into a hotel and called the Manchester 
House.) The Bolivar cheese factory built in 1887 by Curtis Smith is situated 
at Bolivar village. The main building is 24x24 feet, the wing 20x50 feet. 
In 1893 the milk of 200 cows was used and about 50,000 pounds of cheese was 
made. At the present time the business is an unsatisfactory one, and the 



Bolivar. 917 

factory is not making a large quantity of the article. At South Bolivar a 
larger quantity of cheese is made, during 1895 over 100,000 pounds. 

Banks. — The State Bank of Bolivar was organized May 31, 1882, 
with R. F. Burckman president, and J. P. Thompson cashier. Mr. Thomp- 
son now occupies the responsible position of cashier of the Seaboard National 
Bank of New York City. In 1884 a change in the ownership of the stock 
took place and an election occurred which made J. M. Curtiss, of the law 
firm of Curtiss & Bliss, president, with F. L. Newton, a son of D. A. New- 
ton, cashier. Mr Newton is now cashier of the Fidelity Guarantee and 
Trust Co. of Buffalo. The capital stock of the State Bank of Bolivar is 
$100,000, with a surplus of $60,000. The present officers are J. M. Curtiss 
president, J. B. Bradley vice president, G. H. Root cashier, J. F. Hogan is 
book-keeper. This institution is on a sound financial basis and is one of the 
most profitable financial institutions in the county. A recent report gives 
this statement of its business: Resources: Loans and discounts $100,391.45, 
due from directors $1,367.23, overdrafts $3,014.14, due from Trust compa- 
nies, etc, $10,133.03, banking house and lot $3,000, bonds $1,000, specie $3,- 
092.12, U. S. notes $1,844, cash $163.02, expenses $176.74, Furniture, etc., 
$1,000, oil property $10,600, total $135,781.73. LiabUiies: Capital stock $30,- 
000, surplus $5,044.69, discount $1,071.87, exchange $107.85, deposits $70,- 
153.57, demand certificates $29,403.75, total $135,781.73. 

Fire Companies. — Bolivar has two fire companies, the J. B. Bradley 
Hose Co. and the Citizens Hose Co. The aggregate number of members is over 
one hundred. The Citizens Hose Co. own its hose-building, which is located 
on Friendship street, and is a pleasant well-kept structure. The president 
of the J. B. Bradley Hose Co. is M. Furnald. The water-works system of 
the town is unique. Two large wooden tanks are located high up on one of 
the surrounding mountains and are kept full of water froma near-by spring; a 
system of water pipes lead down and about the village, giving a tremendous 
preasure when it is required. 

Physicians. — Although the general health of the population of Bolivar 
is excellent owing to plentiful supply of pure water and air, yet we have an 
intelligent and thrifty staff of physicians. Among them perhaps Dr. Joseph 
L. Cutler has gained the most prominence. [See Medical Chapter.] He 
began life as a teacher, earning enough at that profession to complete a 
a course of study in the University of New York. While a teacher studied 
medicine. Among those to experience Dr. Cutler's guidance along " The 
flowery path of knowledge " was John Rockefeller, the head of that greatest 
business organization in the world, the Standard Oil Co. Rockefeller was 
then a lad of eight years, and Dr. Cutler was his first teacher. A younger 
brother, Wm. Rockefeller, and an older sister were also among the Doctor's 
pupils. It is evident that at the schoolmaster's desk the Doctor was a suc- 
cess. He has given up in a great measure active practice, but his advice 
is sought at all times, and perhaps there is not a man in Bolivar or the south- 
ern tier of Allegany's towns who has more friends or who has done his fel- 



918 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

low mortals more practical good than genial Dr. " Joe." Dr. Dorr Cutler, a 
brother of J. L. Cutler, was during the Civil War a volunteer of the 138th 
N. Y. (9th N. Y., H. A.) He married Miss Harriet Cowles. (See Medical 
Chapter). The family of Dr. Latham traces ancestry to Mary Chilton, one 
of the passengers of the Mayflower, by some historians said to be the first 
woman to land on Plymouth Rock. She married John Winslow, a brother of 
Edward Winslow, one of the first governors of the Plymouth colony. Their 
daughter became the wife of Robert Latham who came to America about 
1640. Prom this couple all the Lathams in this country (so far as known) 
have descended. Dr. Latham's father, Rev. Joseph Latham, Jr., has been 
a minister in the Genesee Conference of the M, E. church for over 40 years. 
Dr. Latham is a member of the M. E. church, and secretary of the 
official board. Dr. Latham is a great student, a man of cultivated 
tasts and an enthusiast in his profession. (See Medical Chapter). 
Dr. Charles P. Hoffman, who has practiced medicine in this state 
since 1885, is one of the modern, thoroughly equipped physicians, who from 
their natural abilities and excei3tionally fine educational advantages, deserve 
and win high rank in their profession. (See Medical Chapter.) 

Attorneys. — J. M. Curtiss, Esq., the first lawyer to locate in Bolivar, 
came here in 1850, and has been in constant practice from that time. Pour 
years ago he formed with Walter T. Bliss, Esq., the existing law firm of 
Curtiss & Bliss. (See Courts and Lawyers). 

Photographers. — M. A. Purnald, H. A. Cudding. 

Macedonia Lodge No. 258, P. & A. M.,* was organized at Bolivar. 
The first meeting was held U. D. at Odd Pellows Hall in the hotel (now Clark 
House) March 10, 1852. The officers elected were: S. G. S. Rowley, W. M.; 
S. W. Thomas, S. W.; A. G. Williams, J. W.; S. S. Buckley, Sec'y; J. M. 
Curtis. S. D.; Orry Millard, Tyler. The charter was later granted and was 
dated June 12, 1852. The first installation of officers under the charter was 
on Aug. 11, 1852, by D. G. M. Jeremiah Hatch as follows: S. G. S. Rowley, 
W. M.; S. W. Thomas, S. W.; A. G. Williams, J. D.; S. S. Buckley, Sec'y; 
Geo. J. Adams, S. D.; D. A. Hix, J. D.; Alvey Withey, Tyler. The members 
at that time were: J. M. Curtis, D. C. Root, J. W. Rowley, Wiloby Jakways, 
C. A. Withey, Cyrus J. Newton, Alex. Martin, Isaac D. Smith. . The Masters 
have been: S. G. S. Rowley, J. M. Curtis, E. W. Cowles, A. N. Carpenter, I. 
H Mourhess, Chas. H. Brown, C. L. Jukes, Stephen W. Thomas, A. G. Wil- 
liams, E. R. Kilbury, R. L. Andrus, C. M. Williams, John P. Calvert, Pred 
A. Hulbert. Por 1896 C. B. Montgomery. The place of meeting of the 
lodge from its organization to June, 1881, was in the hotel where it was insti- 
tuted. Prom June, 1881, to June 7, 1882, it was without a regular lodge 
room. Then it moved into a hall in the A. G. Williams' building on the west 
side of Main street and remained there until 1891 when the lodge and 
chapter erected a good commodious building of their own, affording an ele- 
gant hall and necessary apartments. The corner stone was laid June 17th, 

* Masonic history furnished by E. W. Cowles, Esq. 



Bolivar. 919 

and the hall was dedicated Oct. 22, 1891. The lodge and chapter occupy the 
upper rooms and the lower part is occupied by stores. The building is 
brick veneered, and cost $3,400. The fraternity made a bonded indebted- 
ness of $2,300, and there is now an indebtedness of $1,050 on the building. 
The regular Lodge meetings are held monthly on the 1st and 3d Wednes- 
days. The membership Jan. 1, 1896, was 115. S. G S. Rowley, the founder 
and father of Macedonia Lodge, was born in Otsego county May 31, 1799. 
He was made a Mason June, 1820, and a Royal Arch Mason before he was 22 
years old. He lived in Bolivar the most of his life and took great interest in 
masonry. He was at the home of one of his sons, P. E. Rowley, in Port 
Allegany, Pa., when he died Oct. 15, 1894, aged 95 years, 5 months. The re- 
mains were brought to Bolivar for burial. He had been a Mason 74 years. 

BoLR^AR Chapter No. 280, R. A. M., was organized May 8, 1890, with 
26 members. The charter bears date Feb. 4, 1891. The first officers were: 
William P. Thomas, H. P.; Fred L. Newton, K.; C. L. Jukes, S. The High 
Priests from organization have been: Wm. P. Thomas, C. M. Williams and 
George A. Beers. Wm. F. Thomas, A. G. Wilhams and J. M. Curtis are the 
only ones now living in Bolivar of the charter members. The regular con- 
vocations of the chapter occur on the 2d and 4th Wednesdays of each month. 
The membership of the chapter was 65 on Jan. 1, 1896. 

BuTTRiCK Chapter No. 109, O. E. S. The first charter for this chap- 
ter was granted to Allentown Chapter No. 62, which w^as largely promoted 
by the efforts of Mr. and Mrs. Fred A. Hulbert. Mrs. Melvina Allen, W. 
M. has kindly furnished us its history as follows: "Allentown Chapter No. 
62, was organized at Allentown March 31, 1887, with 65 members, Mrs. Lina* 
Raydure, W. M. and Robert McCutcheon as W. P.. by Mrs. Sadie McKelvey 
of Rochester, Grand Matron. This chapter prospered well until 1894 when 
the charter was surrendered. Some of the members united with ladies of 
Bolivar, and applied for a charter for the present chapter, the chapter was 
organized U. D. July 11, 1894, and the chapter, 109, was granted in June, 
1895. It had 25 charter members: Mrs. Melvina Allen, W. M.; Mrs. Harriet 
Beatty, A. M.; Mrs. F. A. Hulbert, Treas.; Mrs. Frank Beers, Sec'y; Mrs. 
Clara Andrus, Con.; Mrs. LiUian Tuttle, A. Con.; Mrs. Elizabeth Garthwait, 
Warden; Legrand A. Tuttle, Sentinel; Mrs. Ada Barber, Ada; Estella Smith, 
Ruth; Mrs. Bertha Weiler, Esther; Mrs. Hunt, Martha; Mrs. Ella Dunning, 
Electa; Thomas P. Hardin, "V^. P. The membership is 43 and meetings are 
regularly held in Masonic Temple on the 2d and 4th Tuesdays of each 
month." Mrs. Melvina Allen has been W. M. 5 years in the two chapters 
and District Deputy Grand Matron of the 13th District since 1890. 

Bolivar has her quota of other societies, social and literary. The Inde- 
pendent Order of Odd Fellows has a growing well-ordered lodge. Its number 
is 615, and it w^as instituted March 3, 1884. The society has several rooms 
on south Main street and hold their meetings weekly. The membership is 
43 and it is constantly increasing. This order is one of the oldest in town, a 
lodge having been organized in 1856. The first' officers were J. Bernhoff, 



920 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

N. G. ; J. H. Hendrickson, V. G. ; C. M. Stoppard, secretary; C. Reed, treas- 
urer. The present order got its charter Aug. 21, 1884. The present officers 
are E. R. Williams, N. G.; W. C. PhilUps, V. N. G.; J. T. Cowles, secretary; 
I. G. Cooper, treasurer. 

The Tent of the K. O. T. M. was organized in 1881. The Bees now number 
101. Their meetings are weekly and held in the Wilhams block. The pres- 
ent officers are Chas. Sheffer, commander; Wm. Harrington, lieut. com- 
mander; J. Craig, record keeper. The L. O. T. M. was organized Feb. 7, 
1894 with a membership of 45. The officers are Mrs. Emma Hulbert, lady 
commander; Mrs. D. T. Beatty, past lady commander; Mrs. Anna Fritz, 
record keeper; Miss Kittie McBride, finance keeper. 

An organization of the Royal Templars of Temperance was instituted 
March 24, 1886. 

H. C. Gardner Post No 247 of the G. A. R. is the society in the eyes of 
the old soldiers. The Post numbers 40 members and was organized in 1881. 
The present officers are A. George, commander; M. A. Furnald, adjutant 
Many of the members were in the 189th N. Y. Regt. and the division in. 
which were Lieut. E. R, Kilbury and M. A. Furnald were in the front ranks 
and received the flag of truce when Lee surrendered. Some of the battles 
in which the 189th participated were Petersburg, Five Forks and Appa- 
natox. E. R. Kilbury a member of the post entered the war in 1863 as first 
lieutenant. M. A. Furnald entered the same year. The colonel of the 189th 
was A. L. Burr of Bath. Some of the other members of the post are Lyman 
Root, John Beers, E. Richardson and C. Allen. The post has a number of 
feoldiers who enlisted from other towns in other regiments. The meetings 
of the G. A. R. are held semi-monthly in the W. C. T. U. hall. E. R. Kilbury 
was the ambulance officer for the first division of the first corps, during 
1864-65. He was promoted from second lieut. to first lieut. while in the ser- 
vice. He was in the Weldon raid and in the fight at Petersburg when Fort 
Stedman was recaptured. Lieut. Kilbury's command was noted for efficient 
service in caring for and removing the wounded from the field to the hospi- 
tal. Its work was in the heat of the battle, often between the fire of the twa 
armies. 

The prominent literary societies are the Sorosis and the Epworth 
League. The former was founded May, 1895. Its membership is limited 
to twenty-five ladies. They meet once a week, and the society is incorporated 
under state laws. The work of " Sorosis " is reading and reviewing some 
of the literary productions of the day, also occasionally sketching the lives 
of prominent authors or topics of interest. It is a pleasant and instructive 
feature of the social life of the town especially for the ladies of the organi- 
zation. 

The Epworth League was organized first as the Young People's Union 
Jan. 2, 1890. The date of their charter is March 1, 1890, which is also No. 
20. The first officers were, J. V. Lovell president, C. F. Albee, L. Furnald, 
S. Potter and L. Barmore vice presidents, Maria Fisher secretary, L. Le 



Bolivar. 921 

Beouf treasurer. The present officers are, S. E. White president, B. 
Main, L. Purnald, P. Davie, Mrs. H. L. Zimmerman vice presidents, A. 
Durnell secretary, R. Stone treasurer. The present membership is 60. 
Associated with the Epworth League is the Junior League, No. 226, orga- 
nized Nov. 29, 1890. The membership is 75. Pres. Mrs. J. W. Barnett. 
Both associations meet weekly. 

W. C. T. U.— The W. C. T. U. was organized Dec. 6, 1883. Pirst officers 
were Mrs. J. B. Bradley president, Mrs. J. N. Dalby vice president, Mrs. 
M. A. Wood corresponding secretary, Mrs. A. E. Kenyon recording secre- 
tary, Mrs. D. C. Hoyt treasurer. The organization rooms on Boss street 
and meet each Priday P. M. The lady who has perhaps been the chief pillar 
of the W. C. T. U. is Mrs. J. B. Bradley. 

Methodist Episcopal Church. — The first religious services of the 
town were held by Austin Cowles, a local Methodist i3reacher, in 1820. Meth- 
odist sentiment was strong here and resulted in 1828 in the Bolivar Metho- 
dist church. The first trustees were Nelson Hoyt, Eli LeSuer, Abel Root, 
Jr., Clark Millard, Levi LeSuer. There were then 30 members. In 1843 a 
neat church was built costing $1,900, Nelson Hoyt contributing the building 
lot. The present building was erected in 1882, costing, with general fur- 
nishing and pipe organ, about $13,000. The membership is now 125. The 
trustees are R. L. Andrus, J. L. Cutler, J. W. Hamsher, E. R. Kilbury, A. 
C. Pire. Dr. Latham, clerk; classleaders, J. W. Hamsher, L. G. Campbell, 
James Turner. Pastors as recorded: 1855-6, T. W. Eaton; 1856-7. Wm. 
Leak; 1857-8, W. Herd; 1859-61, O. S. Chamberlayne; 1861-2, T. W. Potter; 
1864-5, H. O. Abbott; 1866-7, A. W. Willson; 1867-8, Joseph Latham; 1870-1, 
T. E. Clayton; 1871-2, G. H. Van Vradenburg; 1872-3, John Agar; 1874-5, J. 
K. Torrey; 1875-7, A. H. Johnston; 1877-8, Rowley; 1878-9, A. B. Kelley; 
1879-81, R. Canfield; 1881-2, T. R. Stratton; 1882-5, I. H. Dalby; 1885-6, G. 
W. Loomis; 1886-9, P. S. Parkhurst; 1889-90. J. V. Lowell; 1890-4, S. W. 
Arnold; 1894, J. W. Barnett, present pastor. The Sunday school was early 
organized. R. L. Andrus was superintendent for 32 years, resigning the 
office in January, 1896. M. A. Purnald is the present superintendent. 

The Pree Methodist class of Bolivar, N. Y., was organized on the first 
Sunday in January, 1884, by Rev. A. C. Leonard, who then resided in Bel- 
mont. The class consisted of three members, John Crandall, Mrs. John 
Crandall and Mrs. Mary Wheelock. June 11, 1884, the class met and in- 
corporated themselves, thereafter to be called the Bolivar Pree Methodist 
church, then having a membership of nine. Rev. J. G. Terrill was the first 
regular pastor, under whose pastorate the church building was erected. 
This was dedicated Aug. 3, 1884. Valuation $1,000. The church grew 
rapidly for sometime, but, owing to the removal of the greater part of its 
membership to other localities, it only numbers fourteen at present It has 
six officers. Rev. J. H. Wheeler is pastor. The Sabbath school was organ- 
ized soon after the church was erected, John Crandall superintendent. 
At present the school numbers thirty, with six officers and teachers. 



922 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Catholic Church. — The Catholic society was organized during 1882. 
The pastor, who was also the prime mover in bringing about the building of 
the church, was Rev. Father Caraher. He also had charge of a similar or- 
ganization in Cuba. Most of the money for building the church was fur- 
nished by the Catholic fair which netted the society $1,500 in one week. 
Father Caraher raised by other means $500. The land on which the church 
stands was the gift of D. A. Newton, When Father Caraher left Cuba, the 
Bolivar parish came into charge of Father Griffin. At present Rev. Father 
J.J. Rogers has charge of three parishes, Cuba, Friendship and Bolivar, 
Services here are held every third Sunday. There is a Sunday-school con- 
nected with the society which contains about 200 members. The present 
trustees are L. Seibert, A. C. McDonell and J. Devlin. The assessed valu- 
ation of the church property is $1,000. 

Schools. — The first schoolhoase was built in 1820. Logs served as 
material in building. The first teacher was Rachel Gilbert who taught dur- 
ing the summer, while Austin Cowles taught the succeeding winter. The 
schoolhouse was located on the northeast corner of lot 55. Could one of the 
boys who attended the log cabin school renew his youth and creep once more 
"like a snail unwillingly to school," he would find, in place of the log cabin, 
a large wooden structure with crowds of children, young men and women 
within, under the guidance of a corps of seven teachers. He would also find 
the methods used in urging pupils " along the flowery path of knowledge," 
while not so violent as in the olden days, had produced a pace of w^hich he 
had never dreamed. Instead of one old spellingbook and a bit of charcoal, 
lie would find innumerable books, tablets, charts and apparatus of all de- 
scription. In 1885 the district school in "No. 1," by virtue of the greatly 
increased population, became a Union school. The members of Board of 
Education were E. R. Kilbury, president; W. R. Stevens, C. H. Brown, 
Frank Hoover and R. L. Andrus, trustees. The first principal was Prof. 
McCartney. The district schoolhouse was greatly enlarged. A larger school 
yard was also procured by purchasing land from the Olean Land Co. The 
annual registration is usually about 300 with an average daily attendance of 
from 220 to 240. The school by the last inspection of Inspector Clement is 
ranked as a High School, having sufficient library and apparatus, and courses 
extensive enough to entitle it to that rank. The number of academic pupils 
is usually about 40 with a tendency to increase as the population of the village 
becomes more stable. Many who have been in attendance but who have not 
completed a formal course leading to graduation, have entered business and 
professional life. Since 1891 the standard for graduation has been that of 
the Regents. In the four years succeeding 1891 nine male and 12 female 
students have been graduated on Regents diplomas. Of the male graduates 
3 are at Cornell University, each on a state scholarship obtained by a com- 
petitive examination. One is in Milton College, Wis., and one at Alfred Uni- 
versity. Of the female graduates six are teachers, three have taken Normal 
training in addition to their academic course. The full list of High School 



Bolivar. 923 

courses is maintained with the aim of meeting any requirement whether of 
business or jDreparation for college. All students for college are in courses 
leading to the degree of A. B. To the Bolivar High School belongs the credit 
of having the highest honor certificate issued in the state, a 100 credit class- 
ical scientific diploma secured in 1893 by Miss Josephine E. Keeney, who 
afterward graduated from the Albany Normal College. To prevent the 
necessity for pupils going to other schools for higher academic work, ad- 
vanced and post-graduate work have received attention, and since 1891, 30 
diplomas have been received for post-graduate work. The school year is 
divided into two terms, the first of 19 weeks and the second of 20 wrecks. At 
the middle and expiration of those terms grade examinations are given 
throughout the school. Faculty meetings are held each Monday evening, 
and at these meetings principles and methods are discussed. This weekly 
meeting has proved of great help in promoting and maintaining unity and 
integrity of work and to establish a faculty to keep abreast of main lines of 
educational progress. In the woi'kings of the Board of Education a remark- 
able unanimity and harmony has prevailed, while the trustees have always 
had the support of the people in their decisions. To Mr. E. R. Kilbury, pres- 
ident of the board for the entire time since the organization (with the excep- 
tion of two years, when he declined the position and the office was efficiently 
filled by Mr. J. W. O'Day) is due much .of the credit for an intelligent and 
harmonious administration of affairs. The teachers are now seven in number, 
though there have been eight and six, according to the varying number of 
pupils. The principal, Alexander J. Glennie, was born in Aberdeenshire, 
Scotland, and came to America in 1871, when 5 years old, with his parents, 
his father George Glennie settling at Geneseo, N. Y., his present home. In 
1872 became a pupil of the Normal school and was graduated from the Nor- 
mal department in 1889 as president of his class. While attending the school 
he taught several terms of district school, and, on graduating, at once be- 
came principal of the graded school at Arkport for one year. The next year 
he was principal of the union school at Alexander. In 1891 he commenced 
his very successful principalship of Bolivar's school system in which he is 
now engaged. "He is extensively known as a thoroughly energetic and 
progressive teacher, who can show tangible results of his work with young 
men and women." Mr. Glennie is senior warden of Macedonia Lodge of 
Freemasons, and a member of Bolivar Chapter R. A. M. He married Mary 
K. Cowles of Bolivar. Miss Ella Crandall, graduate of the Geneseo Normal, 
class '95, began her work as precei^tress in September, 1895. Miss Crandall 
was a former student of the school and a successful teacher before her nor- 
mal course. Miss Alice L. Sibley, appointed in 1894 to the 7th and 8th grade 
is a graduate of the Brockport Normal class of '94. Miss Lena B. Munroe, 
appointed in 1894, was a student of the Oswego Normal school and came to 
Bolivar as teacher of the 5th and 6th grades. Miss Louise Flint, of the 1st 
and 2d grades, was appointed in 1895, and has had a number of years' expe- 
rience as a teacher in Cattaraugus and Chautauqua counties and other places. 



924 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

She is a graduate of theFredonia Normal. Miss Adah M. Perry lias charge 
of the 3d and 4th grades. She has been a teacher in this school since the or- 
ganization as a union school in 1885. Miss Kittle R. McBride, now teaching 
the primary, has a similar record of continuous teaching. The expenses of 
the school year in Dist No. 1 are from $4,000 to $4,200. The members of the 
present Board of Education are E. R. Kilbury, president; R. L. Andrus, C. 
C. Garthwait, A. Wilson, Geo. Beers, trustees. There are six other schools 
in the town with an average attendance varying from six to twenty. These 
are subject to the vicissitudes of the frequent changes in teachers, good, bad, 
and indifferent. Perhaps the largest of the schools, aside from Dist. No. 1, 
is the school at "Kossuth," a small settlement a mile south of Bohvar vil- 
lage. Among those who have held the principalship of the Bolivar High 
School is school commissioner Stephen Pollard. 



Of Bolivar's People.— Richard L. Andrus, son of Elisha N., born in Tioga, Pa., Sept. 
II, 1835, came with his father to Ceres in 1844, attended common schools and Richb'urg Acad- 
emy, became a popular teacher, and, after teaching district schools for several years, was as- 
sistarit teacher of Richburg Academy for seven terms. He was school commissioner six con- 
secutive years, has been supervisor, town clerk and highway commissioner, has been a mer- 
chant for 25 years and is an oil producer, owning 18 wells, and with his sons conducts a 
clothing store. He has been a member of the M. E. church for many years, and superintend- 
ent of the M. E. Sunday-school of Bolivar 32 years. He married, first,' in 1858, Amelia, 
daughter of S. W. Thomas, who died in 1881. Children : Ralph and Claire. His second wife 
was Kate Thornton of Ashland, Ore. Children : Don and Lowell. 

Wakeman Beers was born in Walton in 181 8. He came to Bolivar about 1850. He mar- 
ried Clarinda, daughter of Alva Withey. They settled on a farm half a mile east of the vil- 
lage where Mr. Beers, a carpenter by trade, engaged in farming. He held the office of assess- 
or 3 terms. During the oil excitement he sold his farm to an oil company, and removed to 
Hinsdale, purchased a farm and resided there until 1887, when he returned to Bolivar, where 
he died Sept. 4, 1888. His 2 sons were John H., a farmer at Hinsdale, and George A. 
George A. Beers married Frances, daughter of Edwin and Miranda Smith. He is engaged in 
farming, has held the office of assessor 9 years, and is a member of Macedonia Lodge of Free- 
masons at Bohvar, and is also High Priest of Bolivar Chapter, No. 280, R. A. M. Alva Withey, 
son of Stephen Withey, who, it is said, was an early settler of Friendship, married Clarissa 
Hitchcock. They had 9 children. Alva was a shoemaker and carpenter. He lived in Wirt 
several years, and in 1834 settled in Bolivar. His wife died about 1850. He died in 1869. 
They were members of the Methodist church. Their children were Clarinda, widow of Wake- 
man Beers, Narissa (Mrs. Martin Shaw), Charles, of Tiona, Pa.. William H., of South Dakota 
(he was major in 89th Regt., N. Y, S. V., was taken prisoner and passed several months in a 
rebel prison), Eliza J. (Mrs. Jonas White of Wisconsin), Amelia (Mrs. Wm. Hulbert, dec), 
,^""y^^'^''^- J3"ies Durfee, dec). Fayette (dec), was captain in 189th Regt., and Mary S. 
(Mrs. Calvin Clark, dec.) v s - :i 

^n'n"^'"^ ^' ^°y^''' ^°" °^ Samuel and Elizabeth (Reed) Boyer, was born Sept. 9, 1834, in 
Schuylkill, Pa. From his eleventh year till his seventeenth he worked in coal mines, then for 
three and a half years as a moulder, then was engaged for five years in coal and mercantile 
business In October, 1 861, he enlisted in Co. F. 7th Pa. Vol. Cavalry, was in the Army of the 
Cumberland, and took part in every general engagement in which his regiment served. He 
was promoted from private to first lieutenant, and was in service till March, 1865. From June, 
1879, he has been in the employ of the Tide Water Pipe Line Co. In 1891 he became a resi- 
Q<^ '?u°''^^''' ^" i860 he married Elizabeth Partridge (daughter of Henry). She died in 
u n ^^^y^had one child. Dora L. By his second wife, Emma L. Murkle (daughter of Mi- 
chael), who died in 1 88 1, he had one child, Claude. His third wife was Sarah L. Martin. Chil- 
dren : John, Elsie, Albert, Elizabeth and Gertrude. 



Bolivar. 925 

J. B. Bradlev, son of Hiram, a native of Connecticut, was born in 1826 in Cussawago 
township, Crawford Co., Pa. He is one of the pioneer oil operators. In i860 he drdled. in 
Mecca, Ohio, one of the verv first wells sunk in that state, then went to Oil Springs, Canada, 
where he built a large oil refinery, one of the first ever built. In 1864 he went to Rouseville, 
Pa., and has since operated there.' He came to Bolivar in 1881 and established the Empire 
Gas and Fuel Co. in companv with Wm. and F. P. Kneeland. He and his brother, EC. Brad- 
ley, soon bought out the Kneelands and are the sole proprietors. They were also half owners 
and the founders of the Keystone Gas Co. Mr. Bradley married Naomi Cook, of Crawford 
Co., Pa., a lady extensively known from her prominence in W. C. T. U. work. T'"^ ur "^ 
sons, George H,, general superintendent of the Empire Gas and Fuel Co. and of Cuba Gas 
Co., Justin B. and John C. 

William Cochran, son of Allen, was born in Geneva, N. Y., in 1861. His father com- 
menced operating in oil on Oil Creek in 1863. When only 15 years old he began pumping for 
his father, and when 17 took an interest in the business. He came to Bolivar in 1883. In 1883 
went to Bradford, where he was in business until 1890. when he returned to Bolivar. 1" ip^3 
he married Hattie E. Northrup, a Vermont ladv, who died Jan. 13. 1892. Children : William 
Harold and Allen Leroy. Mr. Cochran has assisted in drilline 85 productive wells in the Alle- 
gany field, and is now a partner with Allen Cochran and John^nd Allen, Jr. 

The Cowles family descends from John Cowles, an Englishman, who came to Massachu- 
setts in 1635, and settled at Hartford, Conn., from 1636 to 1639. Timothy Cowles, one of his 
descendants in the sixth generation, settled in 1819 in the southwest part of Bolivar, coming 
from Otsego Co. in the spring to Friendship, and in the summer to Bolivar where he bought 
land and built a log house into which he moved in December. He was a noted hunter and 
trapper, a shoemaker, a carpenter and a farmer. He married Anna Wilbur, had 10 children, 
and died Nov. 11. 1855. Mrs. Cowles died May 26, 1853. Their son, Merrill Cowles, was 
born in Otsego Co. in 1806, came to Bolivar in 181 9, was a farmer and lumberman, captain in 
the militia, supervisor of Bolivar, justice and postmaster two terms. He married Susan, daugh- 
ter of Alvan Richardson. Children : Abigail (Mrs. D. A. Newton), Walter, Edgar W. and 
Harriet (Mrs. Dr. Dorr Cutler). Merrill Cowles died April 17, 1864, his wife in May. 1890. 
Edgar W. Cowles. son of Merrill, was born Jan. 23. 1837. and, after attending Richburg Acad- 
emy, when 17, entered the store of D. A. Newton as clerk, and continued there until 1859, 
when he became a farmer with his father. In August, 1861, he enlisted, but failing to get 
transportation from Harrisburg returned home, and in October again enlisted, joining the band 
of the 85th N. Y. Regimental bands were abolished and discharged in 1862, and Mr <-owles 
returned to farm life until Feb. i, 1865, then for 3 months was a member of a brigade band. 
In 1866 he was a member of the firm of Kenvon & Cowles, tanners and manufacturers ot 
harnesses, etc. From 1880 to 1887 he was a harness maker. From 1888 to 1893 he was en- 
gaged in leasing oil lands and getting rights of way for pipe-line companies in New York. Penn- 
sylvania and West Virginia, and is now the junior member of the firm of E. W. Cowles is: Co., 
undertakers. He has been justice of the peace 8 years, justice of sessions 2 terms, and super- 
visor of Bolivar 2 terms. He belongs to Macedonia Lodge. F. & A. M. (was its master two 
years), and to Bolivar Chapter. He is also a member of H. C. Gardner Post, G. A. K. He 
married. Feb. 22. 1863, Angelia, daughter of George Kenyon. Children: Marcia (Mrs. b. M. 
Lowry) and Susie (Mrs. T. J. Connors), both of Pittsburgh, 

Asa Cowles, a brother of Timothy, was an active and important early settler, built the 
town's first gristmill, held important offices and died in 1829. He married Juda Wilbur. Chil- 
dren : Lovisa, Curtis, Almond W. (first white child born in Bolivar), Edna and Warren. Eras- 
tus Cowles, son of Timothy, born June 19, 18 19. married, first, Betsey Wilbur (died May, 1855), 
second, Nancy M. White (died in 1865). Their daughter Ada (Mrs. L. M. Curtis) lives in Oil 
City, Pa. Benjamin F. Cowles. son of Daniel, was born in Andover, Conn, Aug. 12, 1803. 
He settled in Bolivar in 1824, and in 1828 married Elvira P. Phillips. Of their 5 children, are 
living Minnie (Mrs. S. Hovey) and Porter. Warren Cowles died in August. 1894. 

Alvin T. Cowles. son of Timothy, was born in 1808 atUnadilla, and came to Bolivar with 
his father in 18 19. He married Aurelia Mix, of theirs children, 4 attained maturity. Mr. 
Cowles was a carpenter by trade. 

Thomas Crandall, son of Stephen, was born in Alfred in 1832. In 1854 he married Mary 
A., daughter of Hiram and Almira B. Beers, and settled in Bolivar and was an agriculturist. 
He died in 1891. Mrs. Crandall survives him. Hiram Beers, son of Daniel, was born in 
Steventown. came to Bolivar in 1832 and and settled near Genesee on his lot of of wild land, 
which he took up. cleared and cultivated. Later he lived in Friendship for some years He 
died in Cuba in 1884. His wife, Mrs. Almira B. Beers, died in 1880. Of their 9 children 5 
are living. 



926 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

John H. Crandall, son of Jairus. was born March i8, 1843, in Genesee. July 6, 1861, he 
enlisled in Co. I, 27th N. Y. Vols. Three months later he was discharged on account of pul- 
monary disease. Aug. 6, 1862, he enlisted in Co. A, 136th N. Y., was orderly sergeant 2 years, 
commanded his company at battle of Averysburgh and Bentonville, N. C, receiving a personal 
greeting from Gen. Slocum for bravery. He was in 31 battles and was mustered out in June, 
1865. In 1870 he married Laura O. Finch, daugter of Jason of Bolivar and settled in Genesee 
as a lumberman and farmer. In November, 1881, he removed to Bolivar and has held various 
business relations, and stood high in the esteem of his townsmen. He is member of H. C. 
Gardner Post, G. A. R., was its second commander, serving three years. He was supervisor of 
Genesee two years, postmaster of Bolivar from September, 1890, to March, 1894, supervisor of 
Bolivar in 1894, collector two years, excise commissioner six years. Children, Mary E. (Mrs. 
H. D. Hazzard of Wirt), Belva D., Jessie G. and Hazel L. 

Allen L. Cranston, son of William H. and Alice V. (Prosser) Cranston, was born in Gen- 
esee, May 31, 1865. He was educated at Corry, Pa., and at Willimantic, (Conn.) high school. 
He learned telegraphy, and was an operator at Willimantic and Philadelphia. In 1892 he mar- 
ried Inez L., daughter of DeWitt Clinton Hill of Willimantic (chief engineer of a large manu- 
facturing company there), and came to Bolivar, where he is now engaged in breeding blooded 
horses. His children are Allen L* Jr., born May 19, 1893, and Alice A., born Nov, 13, 1894. 

John A. Dempsey, son of Dennis, was born in 1858, at Binghamton. Dec. 25, 1886, he 
married Maggie Murphy. Their children are John, Frank and Catharine. Mr. Dempsey 
learned the trade of a boiler maker at Binghamton and Bradford, Pa., and established the busi- 
ness at Richburg and Bolivar. He has a branch shop at Allentown. His brother, Daniel S. 
Dempsey, is associated with him, and, in 1881, one Coppinger was in company with them. In 
1882 they had a shop at Bolivar which was burned in 1884. The Allentown branch shop is 
conducted by Dempsey Bros. & Co. In 1892 the Bolivar firm was changed to Dempsey Bros. 
They employ several men, and attend principally to repairing of boilers. 

Timothy Devlin was born in Dublin, Ireland, Oct. 17, 1844. In 1867 he emigrated to 
America and made his home in Rochester for two years, when he went to Petroleum Centre, 
Pa., and entered the employ of his brother James as an engineer in the oil field, and continued 
two years. In 1871 he commenced dealing in oil wells for himself, and in 1881 located in Rich- 
burg. After a year and a half there he came to Bolivar and for several years was associated 
with D. O'Connor as an oil producer. In 1890 they dissolved partnership, and Mr. Delvin is in 
business alone. He has held the office of assessor for 5 years, and school director for several 
years. In 1880 he married Agnes A. Wood of Oil City, Pa. Their children are Georgia, Mary 
and Theodore. The family are members of the St. James Catholic church. 

Bernard S. Dunn, son of Michael, was born in Honesdale, Pa., in i860. In 1882 he came 
to Richburg and was employed in the office of the Allegany Central railroad about i year, then 
was clerk to the general passenger agent at Friendship a year, afterward 3 years station agent 
at Richburg, for about i year was billing clerk for the Erie railway at Addison. Since then he 
has been station agent of the Central New York and Western railroad at Bolivar, and agent of 
the American Express Co. He Ras served as trustee of the village of Bolivar, and was its 
treasurer in 1893. 

Joshua Dunning, son of Lewis, was born in West Almond March 3, 1843. He received a 
common school education, worked on the farm until he was 19, then went to Wisconsin and 
engaged in lumbering. In 1864 he came home and enlisted in Co. I, i88th N. Y. S. V. and 
served until the close of the war. He was discharged July 25, 1865. He is a member of H. C. 
Gardner Post No. 247, and has been commander a year. For 3 years subsequent to the war 
Mr. Dunning was rafting on the Allegany river, then for several years he was a farmer. From 
1880 to 1891 he was teaming for the Oil Company in Bradford, since then he has dealt in hay 
and produce. His residence has been in Bolivar since 1882. In 1871 he married Ella A.Brown 
of Millport, Pa., and has 5 children. 

Ernest M. Emery was born in Crawford Co., Pa., in 1854. His father, Samuel Emery, 
died when Ernest was 7 years old. His mother then settled in Jamestown, Pa. When 17 
years old he learned the jeweler's trade, and, after 5 years in that business, in 1877 he entered 
the Pennsylvania oil field and was dressing tools until 1880, when he went to Bradford and was 
employed in drilling. In 1882 he came to Bolivar and drilled a few wells, and in 1886 located 
permanently in the northeast part of the town where he has a lease of several wells. Mr. Emery 
married Elizabeth Barnes. 

Chelson William Furnald, son of John Hill Furnald, was born in Vermont in 1820. In 
1823 his father came to Wirt, purchased a small farm in the south part of the town, where he 
settled and cleared and cultivated his land. Chelson W. married Electa, daughter of Willard 
Phillips. They had 4 children, Marcus A., Willis P. (dec), Adolphus W. (dec), Nellie E. (Mrs. 
A.J. Remington of Whitesville). He removed to Allentown in the town of Alma where he 



Bolivar. 927 

died. Marcus A. Furnald, son of Chelson W. and Electa (Phillips) Furnald, was born July ir, 
1845, in Wirt. He attended common schools and Alfred University. In 1863 he enlisted in 
Co. B, 189th Regt. N. Y. S. V., and served through the war. He is chaplain and was a charter 
member and commander of H. C. Gardner Post No. 247. In 1868 Mr. Furnald married 
Leonora, daughter of Roy Coats, and has 4 children. He has been engaged in teaching most 
of the time since the war. He learned photography at Cuba in 1870 and is now engaged in 
that business at Bolivar, where he has resided smce 1888. 

John C. Gadsby, son of George, was born in Butternuts, Otsego Co., Jan. 2, 1838. In 1857 
he came to Allegany county and for several years was engaged in farming, and was also 
employed in a sawmill. In 1861 he married Abigail, daughter of Stephen Chapel. They have 
2 sons, William and John H. In 1863 Mr. Gadsby purchased the farm where he now resides, 
built a fine residence, and is one of the substantial farmers of the town. His farm comprises 
199 acres. Mr. Gadsby is also an oil producer. He has held the office of assessor 15 years 
and is a member of Macedonia Lodge, No. 258, F. & A. M. of Bolivar. 

Benjamin Garthwait, son of Daniel, was born at Marcellus, N. Y., in 181 2. When a young' 
man he came to Alfred and married Phebe Crandall. In 1841 they located in Allentown, two 
years later he returned to Alfred, and in 1851 permanently made his home in Bolivar. He had 
8 children, Christopher C. Garthwait, one of these children was born Dec. 27, 1835, married 
Elizabeth Root, and was a farmer until 1838, since then a merchant. Children : Emma (Mrs. 
F. A. Hulbert), and Elmer C. Elmer C. Garthwait, son of Christopher C, born in Bolivar, 
April 8, 1861, attended Friendship Academy, married Millie R. Hill of Angola, N. Y., June 18, 
1884, is a dealer in carriages and wagons, agricultural implements, etc., is an oil producer; was 
in trad^ with his father for 9 years as a grocer, is member of these Masonic organizations : Mac- 
edonia Lodge No. 258 and Bolivar Chapter No. 280 at Bolivar, and St. Johns Commandery No. 
24 at Oiean. He has one son. Glen E., born Feb, 22, 1890. John S. Garthwait (son of Daniel 
who settled in Marcellus, N. Y., in 1810) was born Nov. 25, 1807, married Dorcas Streeter in 
1829 and came to Bolivar in 1847. Children : Harriet, Henry, John and Perry P. 

John Wesley Hamsher, son of Henry, was born at Sparta, March 12, 1844. In 1864 he 
went to Oil Creek, Pa., and was engaged in repairing wells. In March, 1865, he entered the 
employ of the Old Columbia Oil Co., and has since been continuously with the company, work- 
ing the first two years at carpentering, then as foreman for 7 years. In August, 1873, he went 
to Butler county and was thereuntil 1880, developing in that oil field. In August, 1880, he went 
to Duke Centre, remained 2 years, and then located at Bolivar where he now resides. In August, 
1893, he was appointed general superintendent of this company's oil operations. Mr. Hamsher 
is a member of the lodge of F. & A. M. of Oil City. April 19, 1870, he married Jennie, daughter 
of Peter MilhoUand of Mt. Morris. Their 2 children died in infancy. 

John P. Herrick, son of Joseph M. and Melissa (Collins) Herrick, was born at Muskegon, 
Mich., Jan. 27, 1868. His early education was received in the public schools of Cameron Co., 
Pa. He left school when 1 5 and passed 2 years in the lumber woods of Potter county, as jobber, 
clerk, and later, as a teacher. In May, 1886, he established the Sharon Leader at Shingle House,, 
and in July, 1886, he founded the Ceres Coiirant at Ceres, Pa. In 1888 the Leader and Courant 
were consolidated and the new paper became the Osruayo Valley Mail. In August, 1891, he 
established the Bolivar Breeze. The day after the first number of the Breeze was issued the 
Mail building, a handsome two-story structure, was totally destroyed with all its contents, en- 
tailing a heavy loss. All of the newspaper files and the office library were burned. Three- 
months later the Ceres iT/^z// appeared, printed from new type, handsomer than ever. In 1894, 
a fine new building was erected for the Mail at Ceres. Mr. Herrick has been very successful 
in his newspaper enterprises. He takes an active interest in the affairs of the community. He 
is an ardent Mason, a member of Macedonia Lodge and Bolivar Chapter, and of St. John's 
Commandery, No. 14, of Olean, and of Ismailia Temple, A. A. O. N. Mystic Shrine of Buffalo. 
He is president of the Allegany County Publishers Association, and a member of the New York 
Press Association. He is president and a director of the Home Natural Gas Company of Ceres 
and is interested in other local enterprises. 

John C. Holcomb, son of John H., was born April 26, 1838, in Greene, Chenango county. 
When he was 2 years old his father moved to Friendship, and after a residence there of 2 years 
removed to McKean Co., Pa., where he died in 1884. John C. Holcomb enlisted in Co. E, ist 
McKean Rifle Co., later known as the " Bucktails," in April, 1861. After serving 3 months he 
re-enlisted in the 85th N. Y. S. V. He was wounded in the leg at the battle of Fair Oaks, re- 
ceived a scalp wound at Kingston, N. C, was taken prisoner at Plymouth, N. C, April 20, 1864, 
was a prisoner until he escaped from the cars while in transit Feb. 22, 1865, and when he reached 
the American forces, March 5th at Newbern, N. C, his weight was 89 lbs. He was honorably 
discharged. He is a member of Richburg Post. In 1865 he married Erzelia Fay. She died 



928 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Aug. 8, 1886, his second wife is Florence Taylor. They have one child, Bertha E. Mr. Hol- 
comb has served as highway commissioticr 7 terms, and excise commissioner 3 years. 

Lucius Hover, son of Solomon, was born at Candor in 1829. He was in the employ of 
Brown & Co. for 10 years. In 1852 he settled in Bolivar, where he purchased a farm of 146 
acres. This farm is mostly leased for oil and gas. Mr. Hover married Irene Smith and has 2 
children, Frank S. and Lula I. He has served as justice of the peace. 

Nelson Hoyt, born at Old Well, near Norwalk, Conn.. Jan. 6, 1799, learned the potter's 
trade, married, Jan. 6, 1820, Betsey McDougall, at Sandy Hill, Saratoga Co., where they lived 
until 1826, when they came to Clarksville, bought a small farm, made the first clearing and 
built a log house. In 1829 Mr. Hoyt established a pottery in Cuba. Three years later he 
became clerk for Wm. Colwell in Friendship. In 1834 he removed to Richburg where he 
opened a general store. In 1836 he started a store at Bolivar which he kept until his death, 
Feb. 7, 1858. He was postmaster for years. He gave the site for and largely aided to build 
the Bolivar M. E. church, and he and his wife were leading members. The first Methodist 
meeting in Clarksville was held at their house. Mrs. Hoyt died in December, 1882. Children : 
Amanda, Mary A., John W., George H., James Sumner. James S. Hoyt. son of Nelson, was 
born Nov. 8, 1841, and when 16 years old entered his father's store as clerk. After his father's 
death, four years later, he formed a partnership with R. L. Andrus in general merchandising. 
In 1863 he bought out Mr. Andrus and has always since been in trade alone. He has been 
town clerk 6 years, supervisor 3 terms, and postmaster 18 years. He married, in 1863, Ade- 
laide R., daughter of Thomas Bee of Ceres. Their only child, Grace B. (Mrs. Charles Baker), 
resides in Oil City, Pa. 

William J. Hunt, son of Samuel, was born in Beaver Co., Pa., in 1856. When a boy he 
learned the trade of a harness maker and was in the business one year. In the spring of 1877 
he commenced dressing oil tools. In the spring of 1890 he went to Knapp's Creek and worked 
by the day drilling wells for a year. In 1880 he commenced drilling on contract, and in 1882 
he located in Genesee and was employed by Merrill & Perrin for 4 years as foreman. Subse- 
quently he was in Little Washington, Pa,, for a year, then came to Richburg where he pur- 
chased several wells, and in 1889 he located in Bolivar where he has been engaged in produc- 
ing oil. He has been foreman for Star Oil Co. since 1890. In 1885 Mr. Hunt married Cora 
V. Hale of Cooperstown, Pa. 

F. S. Huver was born near Buffalo in 1842. In 1865 he went to Tarr Farm on Oil Creek 
and began drilling wells. Going later to Pitthole, he became an oil producer and has since been 
in all parts of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio and Indiana, where oil and gas are found. In 
1882 he located at Bolivar, and, in company with T. P. Thompson of Bradford, drilled 22 oil 
wells. He is interested in the Portville, Ceres and Indiana gas plants. In 1872 Mr. Huver 
married Lucy A., daughter of Lieut. Gov. Lucius L. Beston of Chariton, Iowa. Their son, 
Harry B., received his medical education at Buffalo Medical College. 

Fred A. Hulbert, son of William, was born in Bolivar, Aug. 15, 1857, married Emma, 
daughter of C. C. Garthwait, Sept. 23, 1880. Their children are Gerald F., Wayne C. and 
Elba W. Mr. Hulbert was clerk in the State Bank of Bolivar for 4 years, and clerk 2 years m 
First National Bank of Brockport, N. Y. For several years he has been engaged in the gro- 
cery business in Bolivar, In 1890 he was elected justice of the peace, he was president of the 
village in 1891, and in 1893 was elected justice of sessions and supervisor, and elected justice 
of the peace the second time in 1895. Mr. Hulbert is a member of Macedonia Lodge, F. & A. 
M., and of Bolivar Chapter, and St. John's Commandery of Olean. 

Wallace H. Johnson, son of Hugh, was born in Hamburg, Aug. 27, 1832. He attended 
the common schools and Hamburg Academy. When 18 years of age he went to learn wagon 
making. In 1858 he married Jeanie Van Derwater and settled in West Randolph. In 1862 
he enlisted in Co. A, 136th Regt., N. Y. S. V., and served through the war. He was mus- 
tered out in June, 1865. He is a member of H. E. Gardner Post, No. 247. Mr. Johnson re- 
sided in Franklinville after the war until 1866, when he located in Bolivar, and was engaged in 
making and repairing wagons until 1887, when he became a dealer in wagons and carriages. 
He has served the town as clerk for two terms and has been census enumerator of Bolivar. 
His children are Jasper, who resides at Lincoln, Neb., and Kate (Mrs. H. A. Cudding) of 
Bolivar. 

Thomas C. McGrath was born in the town of Lodi, Athens Co., Ohio, on the 26th day of 
August, 1840. He received his education at the common schools. He enlisted about June 3, 
1 861, and did guard duty on the Marietta and Cincinnati railroad near Marietta until July 10, 
1 861, when he joined his regiment at Camp Dennison. He served with Co. K, 39th Ohio Vols., 
until July 10, 1865, when he was honorably discharged. He was in 37 regular engagements 
and escaped without a bullet wound, only receiving as physical injury a broken ankle. He was 
married while at home on a veteran furlough on Jan. 19, 1864, to Hannah Gray. After the war 



BOLTVAK. 929 



he went to Shell Rock township, Freeborn Co., Minn., bought a farm and was engaged in 
farming for 7 years. Then he removed to Potter county, Pa., near Ulysses, and bought a saw- 
mill which he operated in connection with the lumber business for about eight years. In 1880 
he went to Olean and took a contract to roof iron tanks for the Standard Oil Company. In 
1891 he came to Bolivar, kept a meat-market, and actively engaged in building, erecting for 
himself a large hotel and skating-rink, conducting a large business during the excitement 
caused by the discovery of oil in the Allegany oil field. He is now a dealer in second-hand 
goods, and interested as patentee of a gas regulator which promises to be a success. He has 
held the office of constable efficiently for several years. He is a charter member of H. C. 
Gardner Post, No. 247, G. A. R., of Bolivar. 

John Mead, Sr., was born in Otsego county, N. Y., March 29, 1792. Eva (Schism) Mead, 
his wife was born in Otsego county March i, 1795. Soon after marriage he enlisted in the War 
of 1 81 2 and was stationed at and participated in the battles of Sacketts Harbor. In the fall of 
1836 he with his wife and family of 12 children came to Allegany county and settled south of 
the village of Bolivar. They had a family of 7 sons and 7 daughters. He engaged in the busi- 
ness of farming and lumbering and died Nov. 7, 1862. His wife died Dec. 10, 1872. Ten of 
this family of children are at this time living. 

John Mead, Jr., born at Cherry Valley, Otsego county, Oct. 30, 1817, came to Bolivar 
with his parents (John Mead, Sr.) in 1836, he was married Sept. 15, 1839, to Clarrissa Cowles, 
daughter of Timothy Cowles, the first settler of Bolivar. Mrs. Mead was the second child born 
in the town, the date of her birth being Dec. 27, 1820, and she is now the oldest resident native 
of the town of Bolivar. Mr. Mead has tilled the soil for over half a century and has also been 
engaged in lumbering during the winters. He has held the office of commissioner of highways. 

James A. Mead, son of John Mead, Sr., and Eva Mead, was born in Bolivar April 29, 1838, 
and was educated in the common schools. August 26, 1862, he enlisted in Co. A, 136th Regt., 
N. Y. S. v., and served until June, 1865, when he was honorably discharged. He was in the 
Army of the Potomac about one year, was wounded at Gettysburg, and also wounded at the 
battle of Peach Tree Creek. In 1863 the regiment went west and was made part of the 20th 
Corps under Gen. Hooker and participated in the battles of Missionary Ridge, Lookout Moun- 
tain, and all other battles of his regiment. He was with Sherman's army from Chattanooga to 
Atlanta and from Atlanta to the Sea. He is a member of H. C. Gardner Post, G. A. R., No. 
247, of Bolivar. In 1866 he married Lucretia Spencer, daughter of Job Spencer. He was a 
farmer until 1883 when he opened a wagon shop in Bolivar village. 

Ethan Mix when a young man came to Belmont from Groton. He married Eliza, daugh- 
ter of Joseph Flint. They had 8 children. He worked at his trade of shoemaking for several 
years, was then engaged in lumber business, and subsequently bought a farm M^here he died 
about 1869. His wife died in 1874. Charles M. Mix, the only surviving son, was born Jan, i, 
1848. He attended the public schools of Belmont and Alfred University. June 3, 1873, he 
married Rose L., daughter of Joel Kenyon. They have 2 sons and 2 daughters. Mr. Mix is a 
farmer, an oil producer, a coal producer in Tennessee, is an extensive breeder of horses, and 
owner of the celebrated stallion Oil Prince. 

Alexander W. Nicholson was born in 1856. About 1880 he came to Richburg and entered 
the Allegany oil field and has been an oil producer since. He has an interest in 60 wells. In 
1883 he was united in marriage with Minnie McCrey. They have one child, Margaret. The 
family are members of the M. E. church of Bolivar. Mr. Nicholson made his residence in 
Bolivar in the eighties. 

George H. Parker, son of Daniel and Priscilla Parker, was born in Orange county, March 
4, 1845. When he was about 6 years old, his father moved to Friendship and here George 
attended the public schools. In 1863 he enlisted in Co. D, 5th N. Y. H. A., and served until 
the close of the war. He is a member of H. C. Gardner Post, No. 247. After the war he en- 
gaged in shingle manufacturing in Potter Co., Pa., and for about 10 years was in the employ of 
the Gordon Lumber Co. at Portville. Since 1882 he has been in the mercantile business in 
Bolivar. Mr. Parker was appointed postmaster in 1894. He is a member of Macedonia Lodge 
F. & A. M., No. 258. In 1869 he married Mary A., daughter of Dr. J. L. Cutler, and has two 
sons, Francis J. and Charles E. Mrs. Priscilla Parker died March 19, 1896. " She had been a 
consistent member of the Baptist church for over half a century." 

Horace H. Pratt, son of Smith Pratt, was born in Edwards, N. Y., in 1844. In 1866 he 
came with his father to Bolivar, and they settled on the farm where he now resides. His father 
died in 1868. In 1877 Mr. Pratt married Carlie M. Prince. Their 3 children are Dora, Earl and 
Henry. The family are members of the M. E. church of Bolivar. Mr. Pratt keeps several 
cows and carries on his farm of 100 acres. He was justice of the peace for 8 years, highway 
commissoner for one year, and has been a member of the excise board 3 years. 



930 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

Ezekiel S. Richardson, yougest child of Alvan Richardson, Sr., and his wife Alethea Uran, 
was born in Unadilla, Otsego county, and was but 14 months old in 1820 when his father took 
his family to the log cabm he had built for them in what is now Richburg, then surrounded by 
the primitive forests. Here Alvan Richardson, the pioneer of Richburg lived a useful life and 
died in 1857. [See Wirt]. Here Ezekiel S. Richardson passed his childhood days, became a 
farmer, married in 1842 Caroline, daughter of Azel and Mary (Rowley) Buckley, who survives 
him. Their children were Alice (Mrs. Spencer Ford), and Bella (Mrs. Brokau). Mr. Richard- 
son died December 30, 1888. 

Ira Sawyer, a son of Rev. John Sawyer, a Baptist minister, who was known as the blind 
preacher and settled in the northeast part of Wirt some 60 years ago, was a native of Tomp- 
kins Co. Ira married Sallie Wightman; they had 6 children. Mrs. Sallie W. Sawyer died in 
the forties and Mr. Sawyer married, second. Miss Demaris Burrows, and resides at West Can- 
dor, N. Y. William Sawyer, son of Ira and Sallie (Wightman) Sawyer, born in Wirt in 1846, 
married Helen Withey, of Wirt, and has 3 children, Lena, Stanley and Paul. Mr. Sawyer 
passed several years in Bradford, Pa., manufacturing lumber and shingles, and was engaged in 
the McKean oil field many years. He then located in Friendship where he was in trade 2 
years. Since 18S2 he has been an oil producer, oil dealer and oil refiner, and in 1892 estab- 
lished a refinery near Bolivar. 

Louis Seibert was born in Meadville, Pa., in i860. He was clerk in a drugstore there for 
many years. In 1881 he came to Bolivar, and was employed for 3 years in a drugstore, and in 
1884 he formed a partnership with William Cutler of Moravia under firm name of Seibert & 
Cutler. In 1886 Dr. J. L. Cutler purchased the interest of William Cutler, and since the busi- 
ness has been continued under the old firm name. Mr. Seibert married Libbie Kearns, and 
has 2 children, William L. and Lauretta. He is one of the largest real estate owners in Bolivar, 
and an active business man. 

Jonathan Smith, son of William, was born in Luzerne Co., Pa., May 10, 181 5, About 1830 
the family came to Cuba, after remaining 2 years they settled in the south part of Bolivar. 
William Smith was a carpenter by trade and had a farm. Jonathan married Sylvia Ann Curtis 
and settled in Bolivar. (Mrs. Smith died Feb. 25, 1893). He was engaged in farming and 
lumbering and served as justice of the peace for 20 years. His children were Wallace, Edwin, 
Curtis and Ruby (Mrs. Austin Robinson of Bolivar). Wallace enlisted in 1861 in ist Long 
Island Regt., served 3 years and was honorably discharged. He died in 1881. Edwin enlisted 
in 85th Regt., N. Y. S. V., in 1862, and died near Yorktown of typhoid fever in 1863, Curtis 
Smith, youngest son of Jonathan and Sylvia A. (Curtis) Smith was born June 29, 1845. In 
1870 he went to Cuba, learned cheesemaking and was engaged in that business principally for 
several years. In 1887 he moved to Bolivar and built a cheesefactory. In 1888, in company 
with Edwin Smith, he built a cheesefactory in the south part of the town. In 1889 they bought 
the Bolivar Mills which they operated. November 27, 1871, Mr. Smith married Nellie Amsden 
of Cuba. Their children are Belle, Ruthie A. and Wallace. 

Wallace T. Smith, son of Jonathan, was born July 25, 1841. He was one of the many 
patriots who served in our Civil War. He enlisted in April, 1861, in Co. I, 85th Regt., N. Y. S. 
V. He was wounded and was discharged in 1864 after 3 years' service. In 1865 he married 
Augusta, daughter of Menzo Jordan. They had 2 children, Marcus, who lives in Bowling 
Green, Ohio, and Burr, who resides in Bolivar. Mr. Smith died May 20, 1881. He served the 
town as justice of the peace, constable and collector. The family belongs to the M. E. church. 

Asahel C. Smyth, son of John B. and Rebecca (Armstrong) Smyth, was born in Beloir, 
Wis., May 18, 1845. He was educated at common schools and Eastman Commercial College. 
In September, 1865, he went to Oil City, Pa., and drilled oil wells. In 1871 he went to St. 
Petersburg, Pa., where he commenced operating in oil in partnership with Mr. Shackelton, as 
Smyth & Shackelton, and had about 30 wells. In 1880 they came to Duke Center, drilled 5 
wells, and in 1881 came to Richburg and commenced operating in oil. In 1886 Mr. Smyth 
purchased Mr. Shackelton's interest, and has since continued the business alone. He has 26 
wells in Allegany county and 5 in McKean county. 

Stephen W. Thomas, son of Vial Thomas (see Angelica), was born Oct. 21, 1814, in An- 
gelica. He received a good common school education and came to Bolivar (locating at Rich- 
burg) in June, 1834. Entering the store of Nelson Hovt as a clerk he was in that capacity in 
Richburg two years. In 1836 Mr. Hoyt built a store in Bolivar village where Mr. Thomas was 
clerk until 1840 when he became a partner of Mr. Hoyt in the mercantile house of Hoyt & 
Thomas. After 3 years Mr. Thomas left the firm, bought and kept a hotel for some months, 
when, selhng out, he engaged alone in merchandising. Three years later he formed another 
partnership with Mr. Hoyt as S. W. Thomas & Co. Two years later he sold to Mr. Hoyt and for 
2 years kept store at Richburg. Mr. Hoyt then dying, Mr. Thomas sold his Richburg store and 
purchased the Hoyt business and was in successful trade until he retired in 1881. February, 



Clarksville. 931 



1839, he married Amanda Hoyt, daughter of Nelson. They had 3 children: Harriet A. (Mrs. 
R. L. Andrus), dec, Mary R. (Mrs. D. L. Parish) of Portville, Jennie A. (Mrs. A. R. Van Tassel) 
of DuBois, Pa. The latter died in 1884, leaving a son, Stephen T., who resides with Mr, 
Thomas. Mrs. Thomas died April 17, 1889. Mr. Thomas is an active and prominent Mason, 
was a charter member, the first junior warden and the second master of Macedonia Lodge. 
He was town superintendent of schools 3 years, assessor 6 years, town clerk 3 years, has been 
supervisor of Bolivar and county superintendent of the poor. For many years Mr. Thomas has 
been a leading citizen of Bolivar, enjoying the esteem and friendship of the entire community, 
and his range of acquaintance embraces the best element of an extended region. 

Henry Young married Mrs. Betsey (Oviatt) Burdick and located in Scio, and afterwards 
settled in Amity. John A. Young, son of Henry, was born March i, 1846, and married Myra, 
daughter of Hamilton Russell. Their children are Henry H. and Earl D. John A. Young 
located in Bolivar in 1881 where he is now engaged in the livery business. 



CLA-RKSVI LLE 



BY VICTOR HAMMOND. 



CHAPTER LXX. 



CLARKSVILLE is in the western tier of towns and next to Genesee, which 
is located in the southwestern corner of the county. The surface is 
very irregular, the hills being abrupt and forming a portion of the foothills 
of the Appalachian system. This district, in the summer time when the 
tree-covered hills are green with foliage and in the autumn when this foliage 
is turned by the frosts to varying shades of red and yellow, presents a 
beautiful and picturesque aspect. Everywhere along the sides of the hills 
are springs of the purest water. 

The valley of Dodge's creek, the principal watercourse of the town, was 
once a paradise for hunters. The numerous sheltered valleys furnished 
protection for deer, bears, wolves and other wild animals. Wolves were 
once such a pest that a bounty was put on wolf scalps. An occasional deer 
was seen in the creek basins as late as 1880. And there are still many of 
the smaller species of game such as rabbits, pheasants, etc. This valley 
used to be a favorite locality of the Indians. It is no uncommon thing to 
find arrowheads and other relics. On the farm of J. R. Peckham south of 
the village was an Indian camping-ground called the "Half-way House." 
But the forests of the primitive race are being fast cleared away save a few 
maple groves, and his hunting grounds have been transformed to farms 
dotted with pleasant cottages and herds of feeding cattle. 

Most of the land which is cleared is either pasture or meadow land, and 
with the herds of cattle on the green hillsides, the crystal clear brooks and 
the leafy forests one is reminded of a Switzerland in miniature. But in the 
winter when these hills, stripped of their verdure and' the trees of their 
leaves, form the parade ground of the remnants of a western blizzard which 



932 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

tumbles down the steep slopes, roars in the valleys and skips up the oppo- 
site sides, whirling snow and sleet, then the situation is not so pleasing. 
But the people who live for a time in this place find in its solitude and seclu- 
sion a charm Avhich firmly binds them to the location. For the town is in a 
measure cut off from the rushing business atmosphere of the nineteenth 
century. The larger villages are several miles away, there are no railways 
leading to them, and as a result the town has an individuality of its own. 
Many a person after living his boyhood and his early manhood here has de- 
cided to try the outside world. After an experience with other locations 
lasting sometimes a few years, sometimes a few days, he drifts back with 
the usual remark, " Clarksville against the world." This peculiarity has 
been remarked upon by several. Of course the love of home which all 
creatures have has much to do with explaining it, but there is no mistaking 
the fact that the atmosphere and make up of the place have a magnetism 
which affects those who come within its influence. The inhabitants as a rule 
live a quiet and peaceful life, the result of fresh air, pure water and health- 
ful exercise. A " raising," a wedding, a funeral, or even a " horse-trade " 
furnishes sufficient nervous stimulus for the good of the community. 

Some of the Pioneers. — The first man to settle in Clarksville was 
Horatio G. Slayton, who came in the early spring of 1822 from Cuba, of 
which this town was then a part. He settled about a mile south of the vil- 
lage on Dodge's creek, built his log cabin and began clearing his farm. Two 
months after locating here a son was born to him. This son Joseph P. Slay- 
ton was the first white child born in the town. He lived through all the 
vicissitudes of pioneer life and died at the ripe age of 70 in the autumn of 1892. 
In 1824 came John Murray. In 1827 James McDougal and Jabez Lurvey, and 
soon after many others, until quite a settlement was formed where the vil- 
lage now stands. Most of the settlers bought their land of the Holland Land 
Co., either directly or through the agency of Colonel King, who bought it for 
25 cents per acre and sold it for $1.50. Among the early settlers was Anson 
Congdon, who, at the age of 16, came with the Main family from Otsego Co. 
After remaining a year he became so homesick that in midwinter he tramped 
back to his old home, a distance of 250 miles, through a very deep snow. He 
returned shortly after to this place, accompanied by his father and several 
members of the family. Mr. Congdon was one of the chief builders of the 
town. He engaged at various times in farming, the lumber business, and lastly 
in the petroleum industry. He was a prominent factor in the politics of the 
county, and exclusively controlled the political bearings of his town for half 
a century. He held various town and county offices, and represented his 
county in the state legislature of 1851. His death occurred at the age of 73, 
Feb. 23, 1890. Benjamin Smith of Rhode Island, came from Otsego Co., in 
1835 with wife and nine children and located on the place where Mary J. 
Smith resides and lived there until his death in 1858. (See Genesee). Another 
of the pioneers of this place is Prentice Peckham. His father moved into 
town from Stonington, Conn., during 1836. " Uncle Prent," as he is famili- 



Clarksville. 933 



arly called, is a typical representative of the " down-east " Yankee. He has 
quite a reputation as a weather prophet and his quaint stories about his 
boyhood " down in Connecticut " are always interesting. 

The first sawmill in the town was built during 1828, by Joseph Palmer. 
Another was also erected in early times by Anson Congdon, near the village. 
A portion of the milldam and some remnants of timbers are yet visible. 
The first store was built by Geo. Hartson. Of late years the building has 
served as a hotel. The pioneer blacksmith is Levi Dunn, who built his first 
shoj) about a mile north of where the village stands. Mr. Dunn now has a 
shop in the village and his work shows the skill of half a century's experi- 
ence. The first physician residing in the town was James McDougal. 

Churches. — Clarksville has two churches. The first organized was 
the Baptist church. The society was formed as a branch of the Friendship 
Baptist church by Elder T. Fuller, Nov. 21, 1838. The names of the first 
members are Cyrus Peckham, Henry Main, Olive Gillett, Mary Peckham, 
Wm. P. Briggs, Eunice Nichols, Joel Gillett, Abigail Gillett, Anson Gillett, 
Prentice Lewis, C. W. Peckham and Elvira Lurvey. March 1, 1843, a sepa- 
ration was effected from the Friendship church, and Holden E. Prosser was 
chosen pastor. He remained four years. The present pastor is Elder W. 
R. Prentice who has occupied this pulpit since 1893. The building is pleas- 
antly located on the east side of the village main street. It is a wooden 
structure, built during 1853 after the usual mode of architecture used in 
country churches at that period. It will seat about 300 persons, is heated 
with gas and valued at about $3,000. Opposite the church is the parsonage, 
a neat country-house, which was purchased in 1876 for $1,350. The mem- 
bership of this church is 45. The Sabbath school was organized during 
1860. It has at present 45 members and 5 teachers. The superintendent 
is Miss Cora Whiteman, assistant superintendent, Mrs. Newcomb; treas- 
urer and secretary. Miss Flora Windsor. 

At Obi. a smaller village in the southern part of the town, is located the 
" United Brethren in Christ " church. This society was organized by Rev. 
S. H. Smith in 1861. There were at first but seven members. The church 
was built during 1868 at a cost of $1,700. The building is similar in style of 
architecture to the one at Clarksville village. The first pastor was N. R. 
Luce. The present one is Rev. Kincaid. There are now about 40 members 
of the society. The valuation of the church property is about $3,000. 

Schools. — There are now nine school districts in the town, although 
three of them are joint-districts. The public school money for the town in 
1896 amounts to $809.92, distributed thus: district 1, $132.52; district 2, $113.- 

54; district 3, $110.54; district 4, ; district 5, $112.80; district 6, $111.37; 

district 7, $118.05; district 8, $110.06; district 9, $1.04. The largest attend- 
ance is in 'district No. 1. This is the district in which the first school was 
organized during 1827. The teacher was Maria McDougal who taught in a 
small building where the residence of Hon. M. M. Congdon now stands. She 
began with a daily attendance of eight; the children coming through the for- 



934 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



ests along the footpaths, and keeping a vigilant watch on all sides in fear of 
meeting a stray wolf or bear. The school building of this district is located 
in the village of Clarksville. It was moved to its present site in 1890, from 
a location about half-a-mile north of its present situation. The average daily 
attendance of this school is 38. The building is heated with gas and in the 
belfry is a fine $100 bell, the gift of the district. All the schools of the town 
are well attended and instructed, showing an earnest desire on the part of 
the taxpayers to fit the coming generation for their responsibilities as worthy 
citizens of the United States. 

Societies. — Among the societies, religious and otherwise, are the 
Ladies' Aid Society, with a membership of 40. Mrs Prentice, president; 
Mrs. M. A. Congdon, treasurer; Mrs. Caroline Jordan, secretary, also the 
The Missionary Circle, with a membership of 35. Cora Whiteman, president. 
The Good Templars are represented as well. Diamond Lodge, No. -716, of the 
I. O. G. T. has a suite of rooms on the second floor of the establishment of 
H. P. Jones. This lodge was organized during February, 1894, by Prof. 
Ford of Hornellsville. There were 12 charter members. The membership 
has now increased to 40. 

G. A. R. — Although there is no G. A. R. Post in town there are many 
soldiers of the late war. Most of them belong to the Stephen Bartle Post at 
Cuba. Among those who braved the hardships of that great struggle and 
returned are R. J. Jordan, Jerome Isenhour, Wm. Perry, Frank Howard, 
Wm. Holliday, Samuel Marshall, Nahum Robinson, J. Whiteman and several 
others. Mr. Jordan enlisted in the 85th N. Y., in 1861, was with McClellan 
in his Peninsular campaign, and his regiment was one which formed the 
rear guard during the famous retreat. At the battle of Fair Oaks and dur- 
ing the seven days* fighting which followed, Mr. Jordan was in several hot, 
and rather uncomfortable situations. At one time he stood in a riflepit four 
hours in cold water waist deep, w^here if one had the audacity to display any 
portion of his person above the surface he became a target for the sharp- 
shooters. Mr. Jordan returned home in 1864 broken in health by these severe 
ordeals. But with the care of those at home and by the aid of a strong con- 
stitution he is living a robust old age. 

Mr. Isenhour enlisted in Co. K, 136th N. Y. He was at first with the 
Army of the Potomac, and was at Chancellorsville, Fredericksburg and 
Gettysburg. After these great fights, enough in themselves to satisfy 
almost anybody's taste for adventure, the regiment was ordered to join Sher- 
man. Then followed that thrilling, world-renowned " March to the Sea. " Few 
soldiers have had the honor of being in the great battles against Lee's army 
and those of Sherman's campaign and returned to relate their experiences. 

Wm. Perry was a comrade of Mr. Jordan's. After Mr. J. came home his 
regiment was captured, so that in addition to the previous adventures of 
the regiment, Mr. Perry can tell us all about prison life in the South during 
the war. Mr. Holliday was one of the 21st N. Y. He was severely wounded 
in 1863 and returned home. 



Clarksvtlle. 935 



Among those who went never to return was Stephen Peckham, a 
brother-in-law of Hon. Anson Congdon. He was in all the hard-fought bat- 
tles around Richmond, was wounded at " The Wilderness " and killed at the 
assault on theConfederate works at Petersburg by a shell. Andros South- 
worth and David Bartoo suffered the horrors of Andersonville prison until 
they died. Nelson Thurston and Reuben Wixson were two more of the 
" boys in blue " who laid down their lives on the battlefields of the South. 
Clarksville has as many genuine hard-fighting army boys in her history as 
any town of her population in the state, and they all made records of which 
their friends are not ashamed. 

Business Interests. — To a casual observer the business interests of 
this town would appear trivial as compared with her sister towns in the 
county. But Clarksville sends her quota of the products of two great in- 
dustries, which have a world-wide record. These industries are the manu- 
facturing of cheese and butter and the production of petroleum and gas. 
Thus does this town in her humble way help to feed and illumine the world. 
Perhaps the more important is the latter. 

Clarksville has no railway, yet it is one of five or six towns in the county 
to boast of a novel thoroughfare, the importance of which few understand. 
A person traveling from north to south across the town after leaving the 
village of Clarksville will notice what appears to be a very poorly-kept road, 
amounting only to a path, but decorated with a telegraph line passing straight 
over hill and down dale from east to west across the town. There is no 
clatter of machinery, no flying trains, yet this is one of the great commer- 
cial highways of the Vv^orld. Indeed if one stops and listens intently he may 
hear a faint " click-click " beneath the sod, but that is all. This insignifi- 
cant appearing highway is the Standard Oil Go's, main pipeline between the 
great oil fields of Northern Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Western New 
York and the ocean. Buried in the earth are pipes eight inches in diameter 
stretching from Central Indiana to New York City. Through these pipes 
pass most of the petroleum exported from this country. At intervals of 30 
miles are enormous pumps to force the fiuid on its way. On reaching the 
seaboard the crude oil is refined and sent abroad or to all parts of the United 
States. This pipeline was laid in 1880. 

The pioneer oil producer of this town is P. E. Hammond, who now 
resides at Cuba, N. Y. He is a veteran in the oil industry, and saw Pithole 
and other ephemeral oil-towns rise and fall. He has a genuine love for drill- 
ing test wells or in oil country parlance " wildcatting. " It was this phase 
of his character which led him, during the discovery of oil in Wirt and Boli- 
var, to "lease up" several farms and drill a "wildcat" well. This well is 
located on the Smith Bartoo estate lot 12. At a depth of about 1,000 feet an 
immense volume of gas was struck. The bits of rock broken by the drill 
were blown out by the force of the escaping gas and it was only the heavier 
tools which could be let down into the well. The howling of the escaping 
gas might have been heard over a quarter of a mile. The pressure when 



936 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 

confined was nearly 600 pounds to the square inch, but no oil was found- 
This well was soon sold to the Standard Company at cost, as gas was not 
then a popular fuel. Mr. Hammond then drilled another "duster" or 
worthless well on the farm of Joel Wixson, and then another in Courtney 
Hollow. 

Meanwhile several men in the village of Clarksville, among them Hon. 
M. M. Congdon and Jerome Isenhour, organized a company and drilled a well 
on the farm of M. N. Butts. This well found the oleaginous fluid and pro- 
duced about 4 bbls. daily. About this time a company was formed at Cuba 
to supply that village with gas for fuel. In drilling wells for this purpose 
they accidently found the oil-bearing rock. A company, consisting of E. L- 
Barton of Cuba, J. E. Ackerly and John Sam mel of Olean, and F. E. Ham- 
mond leased a tract of land about four miles in length and three-fourths of a 
mile in width, extending northeast and southwest and began operations. 
This proved to be the principal oilbelt of the town, and some of the best 
wells are not more than half-a-mile from where Mr. Hammond drilled the 
first well. 

In 1887 there were over 350 wells located here producing oil and gas. 
Their estimated value at that time was $500,000, including machinery and 
all the paraphernalia of the oil industry. Their daily production then was 
not far from 1,000 bbls. At the present time many of the old wells have 
been abandoned but new wells are being drilled occasionally, so that the 
number of producing wells is nearly the same. But the production is much 
decreased being not more than 200 bbls. daily. Among the chief producers 
who now have wells in the town are Wm. and T. B. Love. They have 35 
wells and a daily production of 40 bbls. The Bradley Bros, of Wellsville 
and Bolivar have 60 producing wells. Wallace Dye and Cassius Congdon of 
Clarksville and A. J. Applebee of Wellsville are also interested. The Dodge's 
Creek Oil and Gas Company was organized May 4, 1895, with A. J. Johnson 
president. Will Reed secretary and treasurer, H. D. Worthman, G. D. Met- 
calf and Mr. Hewitt directors. 

Many wells producing gas, owned by the Empire Gas and Fuel Co., and 
supplying Cuba, Bolivar and Wellsville, are located in the town. This vil- 
lage is lighted and heated by gas from a plant owned by Cassius Congdon. 
The village of Obi is supplied in a similiar manner with gas from the Stand- 
ard Oil Co. 's lines. This company pipes large quantities of gas from this 
town to furnish fuel for their pump stations and refining plants at Olean. 
To drive the gas through the intervening 15 miles of pipe the natural pres- 
sure is not relied on, but an enormous gaspump, on the Smith Bartoo estate 
performs the giant task of sucking the gas from several wells and forcing it 
away through the pipe line to Olean. This huge pump is driven by two 80 
H. P. boilers and the plant is lighted by electricity, this being the only light 
which may be safely used near the great pump. 

Clarksville had her first experience with railroads during the oil boom. 
In 1882 a narrow-gauge road was built from Cuba via Clarksville to Bolivar 



Clakksville. 937 



The road never paid running expenses and was a complete loss to its owners. 
After several spasmodic attempts at healthy action it was abandoned. 

The state of the surface of the town makes dairying a thriving industry. 
The hillsides are so steep and the soil so thin that raising grain is out of the 
question, but these same hillsides make the linest of pastures. The cheese 
is made in two factories owned by Hon. M. M. Congdon. One factory is in 
the village of Clarksville (built about 1867, can use the milk of 500 cows, and 
made 193,000 lbs. in 1894), and the other at Obi. (This was built in 1877 by 
R. T. Robinson. It uses the milk of 400 cows and made 116,000 lbs. of cheese 
in 1894.) Mr. Congdon is the oldest son of Hon. Anson Congdon. He is 
engaged in various industries and is the recognized political leader of the 
town. He was a member of assembly from this county during 1892 and 
1893. As a cheesemaker and salesman Mr. Congdon is an expert. The two 
factories manufacture about 300,000 pounds of cheese annually. He is ably 
assisted in the factories by his sons Cassius and Dean. 

Among the principal dairymen are Jerome Isenhour, E. Bartoo, A. 
Councilman, R. J. Jordan and M. Wixson. Each of these gentlemen have 
one or more large herds of cattle which present them with a handsome 
annual income. M. N. Butts has a large dairy of Jersey cattle with which 
to supply an "up to date" creamery. Mr. Butts has all the modern 
machinery necessary to the production of first-class butter. The power he 
uses is furnished by a spring far upon the hillside which furnishes an ample 
waterpower. Mr. Butts' dairy has a high reputation in New York City. 

The merchants of this locality are G. B. Keller, M. Wilkinson and H. P. 
Jones of Clarksville village and Wm. Reid of Obi. They each keep a stock 
of groceries and drygoods. 

The only hotel is kept by Mrs. L. A. Wilkinson. A stage carrying mail, 
passengers and freight runs daily from Obi, through Clarksville to and from 
Cuba. 

Clarksville derives its name from Hon. Staley Nichols Clarke, agent for 
the sale of the Holland Purchase lands at Batavia and later at Ellicottville. It 
has 22,805 acres of land with an equalized value of real estate inl895 of $309,136 
and an equalized value per acre of $13.55. The personal property, " equali- 
zed valuation, '" of the town amounts to $15,050. The population has been given 
by census reports thus: 1835, 252; 1840, 326; 1845, 443; 1850, 668; 1855, 781; 
1860, 865; 1865, 879; 1870, 784; 1875, 797; 1880, 852; 1890, 891; 1892, 847. 

The first town meeting was held June 23, 1835. The officers elected 
were, supervisor, P. Lurvey ; clerk, Clark Saunders ; justices, Clark Saun- 
ders, Samuel Parrot, Alden Stone, Henry Swarthout; assessors, Jabez Lur- 
vey, Asa Southworth, John Van Ness ; road commissioners, Clark Nichols, 
Moses Parsels, J. G. Stone; commissioners of schools, H. Southworth, E. 
Main, Wm. Southworth; overseers of the poor, Samuel Compton, James 
McDougal; constables, Alfred Main, A. Hedden, H. Southworth, J. Mc- 
Kinstry; collector, H. Main. 



938 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



The town officers of 1895 were, supervisor, Cassius Congdon; clerk, 
Samuel Wilkinson ; justices, P. Mortimer, H. H. Barber, C. N. Briggs and 
R. Hubbard; road commissioner, C. N. Briggs; overseer of the poor, Wm. 
Love; collector, Wm. Reid; assessors, Ithamer Ferrington, E. (J. Bartoo. 
Frank Windsor; constables, Levi Robinson. Wm. Reid, Wm. Deyoe, L. L. 
Keller and Arthur Williams. 

Supervisors.— 1835, '36, P. Lurvey; 1837, '38, '39, '42, Clark Saunders ; 

1840, '41, '43, '49, '64, '65, '69, '76, '77, '78, Anson Congdon; 1850, '54, '60, '63, 

'67, Wm. C. Southworth; 1855, '56, '57, '66, '70, '71, '74, Martin Butts; 1858, 

'59, Joseph Haynes ; 1868, Wm. O. Butts; 1872, '73, Wm. O. Congdon; 1875, 

'78, '79, '89, '91, M. M. Congdon; 1880, '81, J. H. Pendleton; 1882, '84, '86, '87, 

C. M. McDougall; 1883, Jos. P. Slayton ; 1885, J. K. Robinson; 1888, '90, 

'92, M. H. Bailey; 1893, Victor Hammond; 1894, '95, Cassius Congdon. 

Soldiers in the Civil War. — A. G. Arms, A. J. Armstrong, L. Burdick, Charles Beck- 
with, David Bartoo, C. H. Beckwith, Edwin Bliss, Albert Barr, Jesse Burdice, Peleg Burdice, 
George Burdice, David Brown, Charles Courter, Wm. Carrier, Jno. Kline, Webster Cole, Jos. 
Cole, Jno. C. Childs, Edwin Cleveland, Ira Champlin, Milton Coon, Levi Compton, Walter 
Cleveland, Cyrus Capen, Hugh Chesney, Wm. Compton, E. L. Doty, A. Eastman, Daniel East- 
man, Alvah Foster, Josiah Ferrington, Horace Foster, Chas. Foster, David German, Jas. Ger- 
man, P. Green, R. L. Hubbard, Phil. Haines, Fred. Hall, Jno. Hoag, Geo. W. Harwood, W. J. 
Holmes, A. J. Haines, J. B. Isenhour, S. P. Jenison, Wm. Jarvis, O. Kingsley, Henry Keller, 
E. R. Kent, Daniel Lucas, Edwin Lucas, Sherman Lacy, G. W. LeFevre, S. Luddington, A. J. 
Lawrence, Allen Lawrence, Edwin Munger, Henry Munger, C. H. Miner, S. P. Maston, L. Mc- 
Donald, F. J. Muller, H. W. Nichols, Jno. Peckham, Alva Peckham, Herbert Peckham, Charles 
Powers, Stephen Peckham, A. B. Patyson, Wm. Pendleton, George C. Peckham, Floyd Parker, 
Henry Robinson, Nahum Robinson, Almond Robinson, W. H. Sefton, L. P. Slayton, Harry 
Streeter, Fred Streeter, Nathan Southworth, Levi Smith, A. Scott, Arthur Sheldon, Daniel 
Streeter, Lewis Swarthout, Daniel Taylor, N.Thurston, Daniel Thurston, Reuben Wilson, J. H. 
Whiteman, W. S. Wilkinson, Leroy Ward, J. Wellig, W. J. Wixson. 



Some of THE. RESiDENTS.-»^Jabez Bradford, a native of Turner, Androscoggin Co., Me., 
born in 1813, was a descendant of Gov. William Bradford of Yorkshire, England, who was one 
of the Mayflower band of 1620, and governor of Plymouth colony for 31 years. Jabez Brad- 
ford married Hannah Putnam of Turner, came to Western New York, settled first in Far- 
mersville, then came to Clarksville and made his home on the farm now owned by Mrs. Glad- 
wyn. Here he lived and died. His children were Lavern (dec), and Charles E. Bradford who 
married Sarah T., daughter of Nathaniel and Adaline (Child) Eastman. Their children were 
Riley H., who married Gertrude Murray, and Ellen A. Mr. Bradford resided on the ancestral 
acres for 18 years after his marriage when he settled at the village, and was a merchant, post- 
master and justice of the peace. He died Sept. 5, 1890. His widow married Capt. George 
Gladwyn in 1891. 

Smith Bartoo, son of Jesse and Eunice (Loomis) Bartoo, was born in Chenango Co., N. Y., 
in 1806. He married Eliza Davis in 1832 and moved to Jasper, Steuben Co., where he resided 
until 1850 when he came to Clarksville and settled on the farm he cleared and where he made 
his home until his death, Aug. 19, 1885. His children were Hiram D., David J., a soldier m 
Co. I, 85th Regt., N. Y. v., and died Sept. 11, 1864, in Andersonville prison, Charles S. (dec), 
Edward C, Susan M. (dec) and Louise (Mrs. Allen Z. Peckham), who has one child, Lillie A. 
(Mrs. H. E. Burlingame). 

Martin Butts, son of Nathaniel, was born in Pawlet, Vt., in 1798. In 181 9 he walked to 
Western New York. He was a surveyor and lived in different parts of this county. In 1843 
he came to Clarksville and settled upon the farm now owned by his son, Martin N. He was a 
teacher for some time. He was state senator from this district in 1855 and 1856, supervisor 



Clarksville. 



939 



several years, justice of the peace and assessor, county clerk in 1847, 1848 and 1840 He mar 
ned first Lydia, daughter of Othello Church of Friendship. Children were L A and D C 
His second wife was Mandana. sister of Lydia. Their children were W O J T Martin N * 
Frances A. (Mrs. Dr. R. A. Waterbury of Geneseo State Normal School) and Albert Martin 
N Butts, son of Martin, was born May 28. 1839, in Richburg. He married Sarah L. " daughter 
of Joel and Lucinda (Morey) Waterbury and settled on the old homestead. They have q chil- 
dren, Eva. Corinne H. (Mrs. C. Congdon), Florence E., Edna M.. Edgar M. and Theodore T 
. Mr. Butts was supervisor in 1866. ' ■'" 




he 

he was discharged for disability and returned home. He has since been a "farmer and^isa 
member of S. T. Bartle Post, G. A. R. His children are Mary (Mrs. M. A. Green of Alfred) 
and Grover M. Capen who married Eliza Davis. 

William R. Carrier, son of Philo and Lovinia (Andrews) Carrier, was born Tune ->! 18^6 
in the town of Dix, Chemung Co. His father came to Cuba in 1849 and to Clarksville"in i8;2' 
where he was assessor for several years. He had 10 children. In 1862 William R Carrier 
enlisted in Co. A, 136th N. Y., and served until mustered out in 1865. He returned home and 
in 1866, married Ada, daughter of E. R. Dunn, and settled on the farm he now owns Thev 
have 6 children : Frank P., Julia E., Marion O. (Mrs. C. Cook), Fred W., Kate E. and Hattie 
L. Mr. Carrier has been assessor for six years. 

The Congdon family descends from Joseph Congdon, born in Connecticut of English par- 
entage, whose son Joseph, born in Petersburg, N. Y., had one son. Anson, and five daughters 
by his wife Lydia Collins. Anson Congdon, born in Otsego county in 18 17, came to Clarks- 
ville in 1833, bought land south of the village for 25 cents an acre, and was a most prominent 
factor in the growth of this .section. He was an influential man in public affairs and repre- 
sented his district in the assembly of 1851. He married, first, Rachel Lurvey of Prattsburgh 
N. Y.. who died in 1852. They had two sons, Marcus M. and William O. His second wife 
was Mary A. Peckham. Mr. Congdon was extensively engaged in lumbering, farming, etc 
and held numerous offices of trust for long terms of service. He was many years a justice' 
was frequently chosen as supervisor, and was U. S. Collector of Internal Revenue for several 
years in the 29th district. He died Feb. 23, 1890. Hon. Marcus M. Congdon was born in 
Clarksville May 20. 1844. He was educated at Friendship Academy and has been a life-long 
resident of Clarksville. In connection with farming he has successfully conducted other enter- 
prises, among them being cheese manufacturing and oil producing. He was one to help in 
building the first cheese factory in Clarksville in 1867, and has done much in cheese making. 
He has held important public offices, and was elected to the assembly in 1891 on the Republi- 
can ticket by 2,508 plurality over Hugh J. Coyle, Democrat, and George A. Scott, Prohibitionist 
and Farmers' Alliance. In 1892 he was renominated by acclamation and re-elected by an in- 
creased majority. In the assembly he served on important committees. He married Elma E. 
Keller in 1865. Their children are Mary R. (Mrs. Victor H. Hammond). Cassius. Archie D.," 
Gail and Anson. Archie D. Congdon, son of Hon. M. M. Congdon, was born Sept. i, 1871] 
married Hattie M. Marshall, and settled at Obi. He is a cheese manufacturer. William o! 
Congdon has one son. Roscoe. Cassius Congdon. son of M. M., is the present supervisor of 
the town, and is prominently connected with the gas. oil and other interests in Clarksville and 
the adjacent county. 

Thomas DeKay came from Vernon. Sussex Co.. N. J., to New Hudson, Allegany Co.. Nov. 
9, 1827. He was a farmer and blacksmith. He married Christina E. Roe. They had 9 
children. He and his wife both died in Lyndon, Catt. Co. Their son Nathaniel was born Nov. 
9, 1 8 16, in Warwick, Orange Co., N. Y.. married Sylvia, daughter of Charles and Elizabeth 
Drew of Belfast, in 1841, came to Clarksville in 1843 ^"d settled on the farm now owned by bis 
son Burdett. He was a farmer and horse farrier. His first wife died May 19, 1 851, leaving 
3 children. He married second, Sally A. Shuart of Allen, and now resides at Olean. Burdett 
DeKay, son of Nathaniel and Sylvia (Drew) DeKay, was born May 2, 1847, married Kate, 
daughter of Hiram Davenport, and settled on the old farm. They have 2 children, Gertrude s! 
and Fred B. Mr. DeKay is a farmer, a veterinary surgeon, and has been assessor two terms. 

Wallace Dye, son of George and Harriet (Wilcox) Dye, was born Dec. 12, 1854 in Concord, 
Erie Co., N. Y. In 1875 he went to Bradford, Pa., and commenced work in the oil field. Iii 
1885 he came to Bolivar and engaged as a pumper for Hogan & Murphy, and also worked for 
other parties until 1895, when he purchased 28 wells in Clarksville of J. S. Patterson and now 
produces about 400 barrels monthly. In 1894 he married Gertrude, daughter of William and 
Bloomer (Keller) Persing. 



940 History of Allegany County, N. Y. 



Jabez Ferrington came to Clarksville about 1833 with his lamlly. His wife's maiden name 
was Gray. His son Jabez, Jr., was born in 18 14. He married Amanda M. Hill and settled on 
lot 34 which G. N. Wright now owns. Here he made his home. Of his 10 children, 5 survive, 
Ithamar, Caroline (Mrs. Marshall Peckham), Amanda A. (Mrs. G. N. Wright), Milton and 
George R. Ithamar Ferrington was born July 8, 1849, married Eunice L , daughter of William 
R. Nichols. Children, William H., George M., Carl C, Miles L. (dec). Mr. Ferrington has been 
road commissioner and assessor. 

John A. Fowler, son of William and Sarah (Rogers) Fowler, was born Oct. 12, 1841, in 
Washington, Butler Co., Pa. He commenced work as a pumper for Guilds, Walbridge & Haw- 
kins in Mecca, Ohio, in 1861. In 1862 he entered the Pennsylvania oil field, and'was in the em- 
ploy of Ryder Bros, in their refinery. In 1 870 he commenced work for the United Pipe Line Co. 
at Oil City, and has been since in their employ. He was in McKean Co. in 1878, came to Rich- 
burg in 1883 as a gaugerand has been in Clarksville since 1885 where he has charge of this dis- 
trict as ganger. , . ou 

Victor H. Hammond, son of F. E. and Emma L. (Scott) Hammond, was born m Sham- 
burg, Venango Co., Pa., Oct. 25, 1868. He attended schools at Corry and Pittsburg, Pa., Cuba 
and blean. He married Mary R. Congdon, Aug. 28, 1891. Their children are Maude lone and 
Emma Zey. Mr. Hammond is a teacher, bookkeeper and is also engaged in the oil industry. He 
located in West Clarksville in October, 1 891. He is an energetic, pushing individual, and a 
natural and breezy writer in prose and verse. His history of Clarksville and other contributions 
to this volume are remarkable for their lucidity and sharpness of detail and show that he should 
cultivate his literary powers. 

Capt. Joseph Palmer, a soldier of the War of 181 2, came from Warsaw to Clarksville about 
1823, took up 200 acres of wild land now owned by J. B. Isenhour and built one of the first 
sawrnills on Dodge's creek about 1823. He served as supervisor, justice of the peace, road 
commissioner and assessor. John Isenhour, son of Jacob, was born in Geneva, N. Y., in 1800. 
He married Harriet Palmer, came to Clarksville in 1830 and settled on the farm now owned by 
N. Grove. He died in Cuba in 1845, his wife in 1881. Their son, Jerome B., born April 25, 
1832, married Elizabeth, daughter of Richard Weatherby of Wirt in 1858 and settled on his 
grandfather Joseph Palmer's place which he now owns. In 1862 he enlisted in Co. K, 136th 
N. Y. and served until discharged Tune 25, 1865. Mr. Isenhour is a farmer and has been asses- 
sor. He has two children, Nellie R. and Clarence B. Mrs. Isenhour died in 1893. 

Lyman Hubbard, son of Jedediah, who was a soldier in the Revolution, came from Ham- 
ilton, Madison Co., to Farmersville in 1820. In 1831 he settled on lot 60 in Rushford. He 
engaged in agriculture to a large extent, was highway commissioner, justice of the peace and 
assessor. He married Sarah Booth. They had 5 children. His wife died in 1853, he died in 
1873. Russel L. Hubbard, a son of Lyman, was born in Rushford, Oct. 24, 1831, He mar- 
ried Mary E., daughter of Dr. Wm. A. "Stacy of Centerville, in 1858. He settled in Clarksville 
in i860 as a farmer. In 1864 he enlisted in Co. B, 189th N. Y., and served as sergeant and left 
guide of the regiment until discharged May 29, 1865. He was in every action in which the 
189th was engaged, in the first and second battles of Hatcher's Run, and at Lewis Farm, 
Boydton Plank Road, White Oak Ridge, Gravelly Run, Five Forks, Sailor's Creek and at Ap- 
pomattox. He was one of the guard detailed to witness the surrender of the Confederates and 
the stacking of their arms near the famous apple tree. Mrs. Hubbard died in 1870. His chil- 
dren are Walter S., Russel L. and Mary A. 

Isaiah Jordan, son of John, was born in Canajoharie, N. Y. (see Wirt). Michael J. Jordan 
son of Isaiah and Polly Dakin Jordan, was born in Wirt in 1834. married Lucy, daughter of 
Benjamin Smith, and settled in Clarksville. Their children are Leroy E., Lyman M., Erwin 
and Clyde. Mr. Jordan is a farmer and also is in the oil business as an operator and producer. 
He has twelve wells on his farm and has an interest in others. He is a deacon of the Baptist 
church at Richburg and is a strong advocate of temperance, 

William H. Keller, son of William, was born in Cherry Valley, N. Y. In 1822 his father 
settled in Rushford. He married Susan Armstrong, and located in Clarksville in 1848. John 
Keller a native of Cherry Valley settled in Hume in 1835 resided there until 1849 when he 
moved to the east part of Clarksville. 

The firm of W. & T. B. Love, oil producers at West Clarksville, are V.MUiam and Thomas 
B. Love, brothers, born in Mercer Co., Pa., and sons of Benjamin Love. They came to McKean 
Co., Pa., in 1878 and engaged in the lumber business with their usual vigor and energy. When 
oil was found in Allegany county, they moved their mill to Little Genesee and continued the 
manufacture of lumber mostly for the oil trade. They were also interested in the oil territory 
near AUentown and Clarksville, and opened up what is known as the Clarksville Center field, at 
which place they are still operating and are among the largest oil producers in the Allegany 



Clarksville. 941 



field. Thomas B. Love married Miss Winnefred Butts, daughter of W. O. Butts of Alfred. 
They have three children, Gladys T., Benjamin and William S. 

James McDougal came from Saratoga to Clarksville early and located on 200 acres of wild 
land which Jacob F. Zimmerman owns. His wife was Mary Madison. They had 7 children. 
James McDougal his son married Hannah, daughter of Barber Maxson, settled in town and 
was a farmer. Of his 5 children, 3 are living, C. M. of Cuba, Maria A. (Mrs. W. O. Congdon), 
Mary E. (Mrs. J. E. Zimmerman.) 

Hiram Moulton, son of William and Olive Moulton, born in Alexander, Genesee Co., Dec. 
4, 1831, in April, 1835, came with his parents to Clarksville, a few days prior to the holding of 
the first town meeting. He was educated at Alfred and Friendship academies and Genesee 
and Wyoming seminaries, taught school several terms. In 1854 was elected town superintend- 
ent of schools of Clarksville and held the office until it was abolished. He was justice several 
terms. In 1857 he became a member of the Baptist church of Cuba of which he was elected 
deacon in 1874, after his removal to Cuba. He married Azuba A. Setchel, and has 2 children, 
Charles F. and William D. 

Clark Nichols, son of Jonathan, was born in Rhode Island. He married Eunice Randall. 
He came from Brookfield, Madison county to Clarksville in 1832 and settled on the farm now 
owned by George Ferrington and William R. Hill. Mr. Nichols was assessor and road com- 
missioner. He died in 1858, his wife in 1869. Of their 10 children, 7 are living. Jabez B. 
Nichols, son of Clark, was born in Otsego county in 1821. He came to Clarksville with his 
father. In 1855 he married Lucilla S. Allis, daughter of Solomon. 

William E. Patterson, son of Samuel and Mary (Garrett) Patterson, was born in Baltimore, 
Md., Aug. 24, 1862. In 1888 and 1889 he was a foreman for the United Gas Company in 
Potter Co., Pa. He came to Clarksville in 1889, where he is engineer at the Pump Station for 
the United Gas Company. William E. and Blanche E. Patterson have two children, Emory C. 
and Benjamin H. 

Cyrus Peckham, son of Benjamin, a soldier in the Revolution, was born in Stonington, 
Conn., in 1794. married Mary, daughter of Prentice Lewis, in 1816. He was engaged in the 
battle of Stonington in the War of 181 2. He came to Clarksville in 1836 and was a farmer, 
dying in 1 881, his wife in 1887. Of their 8 children, 6 survive. Prentice Peckham, son of 
Cyrus, born May 12, 18 19, married Mary Murray, who died in 1889. Mr. Peckham has been a 
farmer and stonemason and has served the town as clerk for 31 years. James R. Peckham, son 
of Cyrus, was born May 18, 1825, in Plainfield, Conn. He married Matilda, daughter of James 
C. Wright. They had two children, Allen Z. of Olean, and Rosa (Mrs. F. A. Windsor). Mrs. 
Peckham died in 1876 and Mr. Peckham married, second, Mrs. Abigail (Nichols) Adams. She 
has two sons, Charles F. and John Q. Adams of Belmont. Mr. Peckham has held the office of 
town clerk. 

David Perry, son of William, came from Pompey, N. Y., to Wirt at an early day and from 
there to Bolivar. He died at Angelica. His wife was Philena (Howard) Perry. They had 14 
children. William D. Perry, their son, was born May 7, 1842. He enlisted Sept. 6, 186 1, in 
Co. I, 85th N. Y., was taken prisoner at Plymouth, N. C, in 1864, and confined at Anderson- 
ville, Charleston and Florence 11 months and 6 days, and was mustered out in 1865. He is a 
member of S. T. Bartle Post. G. A. R., No. 183. Mr. Perry married Hannah Childs and set- 
tled in Clarksville. He is a farmer and has been road commissioner. His children are Albion 
A., Otto W. and Zella D. 

William B. Ryder, son of William and Mary (Richardson) Ryder, was born in Guilford, 
Vt. In 1855 he came to Clarksville and settled on the farm which he now owns. He has been 
a farmer and lumberman, and assessor for six years. He married Mary O. Sweet, and has 5 
children: Lizzie (Mrs. Otis Hanks of Friendship), May A., George D. of New York City, Wil- 
liam D. of Delevan, Fred S. and Archie. 

Eber G. Wilkinson came to Clarksville at an early day. He married Sarah A., daughter 
of Samuel Compton, and settled on the farm now owned by Thomas Compton. He was a 
farmer. His children are Orlando A., Marcellus L., Phebe E., Estella, Warren E., Nettie, 
Miles A., Ida and Samuel. 

George E. Wilson, son of Edward and Sarah Wilson, was born in Forestville, Sept. 6, 
1854. He married Minnie D., daughter of H. B. and Lucy (Dawley) Francis. In 1874 he en- 
tered the oil field of Butler Co., Pa., as a pumper for H. L. Taylor & Co. In 1880 he went to 
FuUerton as foreman for the Angell Oil Co. In 1888 he came to the Allegany field, has his 
residence in Clarksville, and has the position of foreman. He has one son, H. Ray Wilson. 



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